Observe: This visitor submit is by Sarah Parker, an educator and founding father of Parker Public Adjusting, TheClaim.Listing, and Kuva Media, and a CPAU Licensed Appraiser/Umpire.
Everybody within the property insurance coverage trade will expertise one thing just like this sooner or later: you’ve simply handed your licensing examination, and obtained discover that your new license software was accepted. Your pre-licensing training set a wonderful tone, gave you an ethics framework, and created a basis for what you knew could be a rewarding and difficult profession. You’re enthusiastic about your new profession (perhaps even a bit of nervous), however then the thought comes:
Now what?
Your pre-licensing programs didn’t educate you how to really do your new job, did they? You realized that as a substitute of arriving on the pinnacle of the career such as you thought your license would carry you to, you’re really standing on the very fringe of the trail of your new profession. You could have completely no concept what the following step must be.
That’s precisely the place I discovered myself after I first began on this trade, as a public insurance coverage adjuster. Little did I do know that this battle would ultimately lead me to create the very useful resource I used to be desperately trying to find a decade earlier, to share with others (others, like you), TheClaim.Listing.
Not figuring out what to do subsequent, I did what anybody would do in 2014: I began “Googling.” I searched on-line for claims training, coaching, networking alternatives, and something that might assist me develop previous that foundational information I’d gained. There wasn’t a lot on the market on the time, particularly for public insurance coverage adjusters, as some insurance coverage trade occasions really ban our area of interest career from attending.
In my on-line searches, I lastly stumbled upon the web site of the policyholder advocacy nonprofit United Policyholders. It was extremely useful. It felt like discovering water within the desert! However I nonetheless felt like I used to be solely getting items of what I wanted as an expert. I nonetheless wanted to learn to do my job nicely. I knew in principle the way it must be achieved, however I wanted to know the precise steps. And, I needed in-person coaching, which, once more, was fairly uncommon for public adjusters on the time.
Right here’s the place my story took an surprising flip. Image this: you’re model new to the trade, and a public adjuster you barely know calls you up out of the blue. They invite you to some appraiser and umpire coaching factor that you simply’ve by no means heard of. Do you go?
I went.
And I’m ceaselessly grateful for that coaching, as a result of it utterly modified my life by setting my adjusting profession in the fitting route. It was an IAUA (Insurance coverage Appraisal and Umpire Affiliation) coaching and certification course, with training particular to my state (we do appraisal a bit of in another way than the remainder of the nation).
Strolling into that room as somebody contemporary to the trade, I had no concept I used to be about to fulfill a few of the individuals who would change into mentors, like Merlin Regulation Group attorneys Christina Phillips, Ed Eshoo, Mike Duffy, appraiser and umpire Bob Norton, and later Chip Merlin. From there, via my new community, I discovered extra occasions, mentors and colleagues, training, and ultimately NAPIA (the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters), for which I’d later function a Member of the Board of Administrators.
Nevertheless, I used to be extremely fortunate to seek out the academic sources, the folks, and instruments—and early in my profession, at that. Not everybody has had the luxuries of luck and discovering wonderful colleagues and mentors like I’ve had. Not everybody will get that serendipitous cellphone name. Not everybody finds their tribe so simply. That realization turned a part of why I’m now all the time there for different professionals throughout the nation, as a result of I do know what it’s like to want that high quality steerage (as a substitute of unhealthy web recommendation from random strangers), and I understand how transformative and significant it may be if you discover it.
That’s the place the thought for TheClaim.Listing got here from in 2023 and launched in 2025. I can now be the mentor to others that I want I’d all the time had, to a better capability and sharing the sources I want I’d recognized earlier. Through the years, I’ve shared sources on-line and thru texts, emails, and cellphone calls with colleagues throughout the nation, spoken at occasions, and taught CE/CLE programs, however that serves a restricted viewers. TheClaim.Listing is a extra accessible method to join all the sources I like to share in a single place, for everybody.
So, what precisely is TheClaim.Listing? It’s a complete useful resource and academic platform designed particularly for property declare professionals, together with policyholder and provider attorneys, adjusters (of all kinds; I constructed this to be of service to my employees and impartial adjuster colleagues as nicely), consultants, appraisers, umpires, and extra. Consider it because the centralized hub our trade has been lacking. The listing organizes sources for professionals into clear classes, making it simple to seek out precisely what you must develop your profession or enterprise and do your job higher.
I curate and checklist instruments, sources, and academic occasions from throughout the nation, with the assistance of my workforce at my design company Kuva Media, so that you by no means miss essential coaching alternatives or trade information. Our useful resource classes cowl every little thing you want: Books & Publications, Blogs & Podcasts, Operations & Advertising and marketing instruments, Communities & Associations, Advocacy & Wellness sources, Insurance coverage & Finance guides, Claims Software program & Instruments, Coaching & Certifications, and Occasions, with some thrilling options deliberate for the long run.
And lastly, TheClaim.Listing produces its personal podcast that options insights and sources from the listing, the place they arrive from, and tips on how to use them, supplying you with entry to knowledge you may by no means in any other case get (like our podcast episode that reveals a stunning supply of NOAA climate information all of us use in claims).
Better of all? Fundamental listings are utterly free, and solely vetted sources make it into the listing. Each useful resource must carry actual worth and high quality. That is my approach of giving again to an trade that has given me a lot. I invite folks to submit their occasions or sources for the property insurance coverage trade, in order that we will construct this collectively as a neighborhood.
There’s one thing larger at work right here than only a listing. Every little thing we get pleasure from professionally in the present day, akin to our legal guidelines, ethics, customs, sayings and inside trade jokes, protocols, and case regulation didn’t simply seem in a single day. It’s the results of a whole lot of years of execs who got here earlier than us, every one including their piece to the inspiration we now construct upon.
You and I, we’re a part of that continuum. In due time, we are going to all be forgotten, however our contributions will stay, handed on to a different technology of execs who will face the identical “now what?” second we as soon as did.
I created TheClaim.Listing to ensure that the following individual holding their brand-new license, questioning “now what?” doesn’t should marvel alone. And I’m right here to ensure that skilled professionals have a spot to proceed rising, studying, and connecting with others who share their ardour for this trade.
I hope you’ll be a part of me on this mission by visiting, sharing, subscribing, and contributing to TheClaim.Listing.
