How a Public Adjuster May Save You $ on Your Next Deal with Andy Gurzak, Ep 97

Today's guest is Andy Gurzak, founder of AllCity Adjusting, a licensed public adjusting firm. Andy is passionate about protecting his clients and making sure they get every dollar they’re owed from insurance.

In this episode, Andy discusses the benefits of having a mentor, the significance of public adjusters in maximizing insurance claims, and how much insurance coverage is enough.

In addition to talking about the difficulties posed by growing insurance premiums, particularly in places like Florida and California, Andy provides advice on how real estate investors can strengthen the security of their assets and insurance. This episode offers practical advice on coverage, insurance policies, and the value of having experienced public adjusters in your network. Stay tuned!

Episode Topics

[01:11]  Meet our guest, Andy Gurzak
[01:49] The Value of Mentorship in Business Growth
[06:13] Understanding the Role of a Public Adjuster
[06:30] Navigating Insurance Claims and Policies
[15:27] The Rising Costs of Insurance and How to Mitigate Them
[17:54] Tips for Reducing Insurance Costs and Strengthening Claims
[27:19] What is one red flag every investor should look out for?
[28:39] What is a myth about the real estate business?
[29:46] Connecting to Andy

Notable Quotes

• "Having someone show you the mistakes helps you get into an industry." - Andy Gurzak
• "You can get just as much value by paying someone who's doing it." - Tim Little
• "Agents are there to sell policies, no knock on agents, but most agents sell policies." - Andy Gurzak
• "Our job is to maximize that claim, to look for every penny that the insurance owes." - Andy Gurzak
• "If your insurance costs get too high, then it becomes economically prohibitive to build or insure." -Tim Little

👉Connect with  Andy Gurzak

• LinkedIn:  Andy Gurzak
• Website: AllCity Adjusting
• Email: info@allcityadjusting.com 
• Telephone: 708-655-4186

👉 Connect with Tim

• Linkedin: Tim Little
• Instagram: @tim_at_zana
• Email: tim@zanainvestments.com
• Visit www.ZANAinvestments.com for more info on Tim and how you can passively invest in multifamily real estate
• Get your Passive Investor's Cheat Sheet FREE

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Andy Gurzak: You never want to take coverage away to lower a premium. and a lot of people are, and you don't want to go to crappy carriers either, but some people will, right now, save two, three grand a year, middle income has got hit so hard with inflation. they're dropping coverage just to get the premium that they can afford to even keep insurance. So most people are now being insured just for a fire. A lot of files there's so many exclusions, literally, the only thing you're literally covered for is a fire. 

[00:01:01] Tim Little: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the journey to multifamily millions. I'm your host, founder and CEO of ZANA Investments, Tim Little. And today on the show, we have Andy Guczek. Andy is founder of All City Adjusting, a licensed public adjusting firm. Andy is passionate about protecting his clients and making sure they get every dollar they're owed from insurance. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:23] Andy Gurzak: Tim, thank you so much for having me on. It's an honor.

[00:01:25] Tim Little: Yeah. And it is great to have you here. I know, this has been months in the making. we all have life, it gets in the way. And so we've had to reschedule this a couple of times. So I'm glad we were able to make it happen.

[00:01:36] Andy Gurzak: Yeah, and I'm sorry, yeah, it's been, and today as I was heading here after every appointment, I'm like, holy smokes, I better get on the road back to the office, and I literally made it like five minutes before five o'clock, so I'm happy. Didn't have to

[00:01:47] Tim Little: yeah, you aren't the only one. so you're fine. all So we'll certainly get into what an insurance adjuster is later, because I don't think that's obvious to everyone, but first tell me more about your story and how you got to where you are today.

[00:02:00] Andy Gurzak: Yeah, I started in,Went to school, started in construction, did a lot of work in the construction sectors, different fields, went to car sales. And then during my journey, I met a PA, a public adjuster that was in the industry for 40 years, after three years of chasing him down, finally, Hey, he said, Hey, I'll show you the ropes. So he mentored me for about three, four years. and then. Went on my own, started All City Adjusting. Again, a lot of things happen, ups and downs of business. And then that got us to where we are today and then with the growth and, All City now is in over 30 states. We handle large losses, specializing in landlord commercial policies. So yeah, that's been a long journey. Now that I look back at it, it's yeah, 2024. It's been years. Time went by quickly.

[00:02:45] Tim Little: Yeah, time does fly. And you talked about finding that person with a huge amount of experience, right? 30 years in the business or whatever it was. tell me how important it was to have that mentor, because I think that's applicable, not just in your industry, but virtually any industry. So talk to me a little bit more about that.

[00:03:03] Andy Gurzak: good that you bring that up. I was actually going into, I was, we had a construction company. I knew about this adjusting stuff. I met this adjuster years ago. I was chasing him down. But because I couldn't get to him, And he just didn't want to give me the time and date. I was actually looking into going to wholesaling properties. I was, went, did like this, flip the freedom. Sean Terry's like videos. I remember going through all those and I was ready to wholesale. I already sent out yellow letters. I made that call. To this PA and he finally said, Hey, Andy, you know what? Hey, I got some time. I'll show you the ropes. And I'm like, God damn it. All this time, every, all the money I'm ready to invest in this whole sailing, but I'm like, this is what I wanted to do. And luckily, there was obviously pain and growth, but having that mentor and then maybe it wasn't the right mentor in terms of. A mentor that actually, I actually invest a lot of money and time into this mentor. It was a big investment like a college education, but having that someone show you even learning the mistakes, Of what that person does. And maybe you wouldn't want to do business was great. So those three years I learned all the yeses and all the noes, all the do's and don'ts. so that kind of propelled me, I was able to, again, know the worst case scenarios, know the best case scenarios. it just helped me get into an industry that's very hard to pierce and know about because there's so many books about it. but in terms of you want to relate that back to real estate, if I had that mentor in real estate, whether it was wholesaling or if. I knew someone that I could have, maybe if I met someone that I really want, that I knew that was really successful in real estate, I probably would have chased that person down to mentor me. I was very, very, purpose driven to find someone to help me out. And I paid for it. I didn't, I didn't get it for free. Yeah, and I think that's something we, some of us learn later,than others in terms of the value of paying for people's time to shorten that learning curve. I was very much of the mindset because of the way my parents raised me. My dad was like a TV repairman growing up until that job disappeared.

[00:04:56] Tim Little: And all they wanted for me was to go to college, just whatever you do, go to college. And so I thought that was, the way you learn, get ahead, et cetera. And, as someone who's spent six digits. Plus, on, in college, is there value in it? Sure, but you can get just as much if not more value by paying someone who's doing it to have them show you how to do it, because then you're getting that learning by experience thing, and the shadowing aspect, which is so important, and I don't think I fully appreciated that until, later in life.

[00:05:30] Andy Gurzak: and that's my college education. I was my mentor for three years. I don't remember. That was my college education. That's the money I spent right there. And, I'm like you, grew up, middle income, parents said, study jobs, life was all good, there wasn't none. There was no talk about business or real estate. So you need someone to learn and, and can you learn yourself and grow a business a hundred percent. Yeah. to me, just again, that industry I wanted to go into was very not known about. There's not many books, so it was hard to, again, pierce. So I really needed to someone, in terms of real estate, there's more books, there's more stuff, again, I was going to wholesaling, Sean Terry's whole program, whether you want to call that mentoring or not, but actually that whole program was there, someone to guide you how to do it. That's a mentoring, a little bit different than one-on-one, but, but definitely was something, along those lines.

[00:06:13] Tim Little: Yeah, and as you alluded to, not a lot of people know what in a pub, a public adjuster is or what they do. So can you pull back the veil a little bit and help us understand what exactly they are, what they do and how it's relevant, especially to like real estate investors, for example.

[00:06:30] Andy Gurzak: So insurance companies have their own insurance adjusters. They're called, staff adjusters, ias, insurance adjusters, and then there's public adjusters, pri, private adjusters, you call 'em, but most states designated as a public adjuster. We are there to represent the insured. a public just represents the insured advocates for the insured to maximize their claim. Make sure their claim gets paid, walk them through the claim, represent them in the entire claim process. So if you're an investor, having a public adjuster on your team is just like having a great attorney, a great tax accountant, it's the same thing, right? Our investors will call us and say, Hey Andy, we had this claim. Should we file? Let's go look through it. Let's make sure that if we're going to file this claim, it's going to be worth it for you guys. And when it's a total loss, when it's a fire, that's a no brainer, we're going to file, we're going to get them paid, maximize the claim, get everything paid, all their endorsements. but majority of the time we're looking over their policies, making sure they're insured the right way they have the right coverages of something happening. agents are there to sell policies, no knock on agents, but most agents sell policies. They have no clue what they're selling, right? They've never been to that property. They've never handled a claim when you've handled claims and policies. I can look at a deck page and see all these endorsements and I'll tell you three endorsements or exclusions that right away catch my eye. And I say, Hey, I want to see that pool policy because these are three things you should be skeptical about. again, and that's just that relationship we have with our clients. And that's no charge. That's just, that's just us being a part of a team, a part of an investing team.

[00:07:53] Tim Little: Yeah. And so I think it'd be helpful to understand what that compensation model looks like. Cause I think that's a really good analogy that you're giving there with it being like a defense attorney, right? they'll look over the documents for you and they'll defend you,with the insurance company. How does that work in terms of, if I want to, hire someone like that, is it on a per,per action basis? Or is it on retainer? What does that look like?

[00:08:21] Andy Gurzak: Yeah, good question. No, it's, it's all retainer for us. It's a fee. It starts at 10%. If the claim gets more complicated, if we come in on the back end, or let's say you've already filed the claim, maybe it's denied. Maybe they've lowballed you. then we might look at a higher fee, but on anything extra we were to recover for the client, but the majority of the time it's 10 percent when we start the claim right from the beginning. a lot of people are like, when we've had clients ask, Hey, or new investors, they've called us, Hey, we had a claim, but we want to wait until we get an offer and then we'll bring you in. That's the, that's like the dumbest thing you can do. they'll knock anything. Cause the longer you wait, the worse it gets and then it just gets harder. For us to come in and then it's a higher fee, then it just takes the claim longer. It's a whole, when we get in there, we're leading the case, right? We're showing the insurance, what they owe, how much they owe, for what, the damage, everything. That's the quickest, best way. so it's all contingency. Our fee doesn't get paid till the claim gets paid. So once you get paid, that's when we collect our fee. there is no other, excuse me, there's no other hourly or any other fees hidden in the contract.

[00:09:23] Tim Little: Yeah, and that makes sense. Because it sounds like if you're there from the get go, you can help shape that, right? that whole process. But if, yeah. If everything's done, then you're doing more cleanup and forensics of seeing what happened. Is that accurate?

[00:09:39] Andy Gurzak: Yes, a hundred percent. And speaking of investors on a team, we had a long couple of years ago, it wasn't a client that called, Jeff, had a large fire and we ended up getting him over, it was like 300, 000 more than the initial offer. and then when we talked to him, he got his number from. an investor actually, he's got his own podcast too. and one of the things he taught in his classes to his students was, Hey, here's how you build your team and who he is, here's who you need on your team. And one of the people he's emphasized is a public adjuster. So as soon as he had that fire, he called us. He's Hey, Tyler said, Hey, I have to call you guys. I need to find one. And then he recommended you guys. yeah, ended up being a 300, 000 bigger payout for him.

[00:10:19] Tim Little: Yeah, and I've had a fire on one of my properties and it's never good, but you certainly learn a lot. One of the things that I was surprised by is that it's like there's all these different aspects to it, right? There's the building itself. That's relatively straightforward. I won't say it's fully straightforward, then there's the aspect of how much are you losing in rents and what is the value of that? Can you talk about how some of, what are those different things that, that might be impacted when it comes to what you're going to get in return for, if you have a claim with a fire?

[00:10:57] Andy Gurzak: Yeah. So here's how I'm out building. The structure itself, right now, and you have endorsements, you have debris removal, 5%, if you hit limits, there's a 5 percent on top of that, which people don't know about, People don't know there's building codes. So now there's a letter from the city and all the electrical has to be upgraded that there's an endorsement for that most of the time. there's just different endorsements that people don't know about. and so you have the building, then you have loss of income. business interruption.if let's say it's a rental, maybe Airbnb, you might have personal property. Now we have to inventory all that damaged contents, price it out, age it, put a list together to make sure we get every item accounted for. So in your, in that one fire, there's three, four different coverages they're going after, and then all the endorsements, and you're trying to avoid all the exclusions on your way to getting everything paid.

[00:11:48] Tim Little: Yeah, and so as you were saying some of those different considerations I was trying to think through how I would protect myself as the owner and you know Say like for example the Airbnb that has you know private stuff in it Like what are some of the things we can do as owners? To protect ourselves to strengthen our claims, should we have pictures of things? Of every unit, if that's even realistic. so that they know what was in there and what was part of it, especially for something like an Airbnb where you're supplying all the furniture, maybe that makes more sense there, but just curious to hear your thoughts.

[00:12:24] Andy Gurzak: yeah, for Airbnb, for any Airbnb listeners, yeah, you can go and take, but who's got time to take a picture of each item, right? That's it's the most time consuming, you're gonna waste, and you might never have a fire. So when we, when, like, when our clients have a fire, when we dig through it, we dig through it. We have, three, now four people that literally go to homes, and their job is just to dig through each item, take a picture, inventory it. Whether it's a pencil, hairpin, toothbrush, I don't know, cigar box, anything that's in their inventory, because again 10 here, 10 here, 10 times this much, it starts adding up. And our job is, since we're paid on contingency, our job is to maximize that claim, to look for every penny that the insurance owed. And insurance companies are not going to inventory your contents. There's teams, they have, they do have, vendors they'll send out. Those vendors get paid if they get the job, meaning if you give them a construction, so they have no interest in doing anything, right? So no, no one's there looking for the insurance for the insured, but there's really nothing that I wouldn't say as an Airbnb owner, I would take pictures. You just want to, you want to interview and have a PA before something happens, because again, more, more importantly is making sure you have the right policy before something happens. That's probably the most important thing that I would do, make sure you have the right coverages, that you don't have any exclusions, that your deductibles are in line, all that is probably the most important thing.

[00:13:44] Tim Little: And what are some key points when it comes to some of those things like the right deductible, the right coverage? What are the things that most people miss? And what are the things that you're always wanting people to think about when they're looking at their coverage?

[00:13:59] Andy Gurzak: know that, know the difference between actual cash value and replacement cost value. Most policies are replacement cost value, but now with people trying to save a dime on their premiums, with premiums doubling and tripling in some states, people are trying to save money, so they're doing actual cash value policies. actual cash value, if your home is 50 years old, if you have a fire and the damage is 300, 000, they'll depreciate 50, 75 percent and you're only getting that 25%. Actual cash value. What the home is worth. Now, a lot of people don't even know that, then there's co insurance. Are you insured, 80 percent coinsurance clause. Those are very common in commercial policies. if you have a fire, that's 300, 000, but your buildings are worth only a certain amount, you might be underinsured. And now you're hit with a co insurance penalty of 20 percent on your payout. There's all these little things to look at. So yeah, co insurance clauses. RCV versus ACV policies, and then exclusions for roofs. That's very common now. Exclusion, hey, if your roof is older than five years, we don't pay for it, or it's only paid on actual cash value. very common. vacancy clauses are very common too. Oh, if your home is vacant for more than 60 days. Okay. That's normal. I, we have vacancies all the time, right? But They'll have a thing and it's considered vacant. If this and this, it's not vacant of this and this. So that vacancy clause is very important as well. Again, a lot of little, a lot of little ins and outs in a policy that's to look for, but those will be the first ones that come to mind.

[00:15:27] Tim Little: Yeah. And you talked about how, rates in some cases have gone up by, two times, three times. And that's something that we've certainly seen here in Florida. I'm based out of Tampa. What are you hearing in terms of pain points when it comes to just this, the sheer cost of insurance as it goes up, what areas are being hit the worst by that?

[00:15:47] Andy Gurzak: It seems, it seems Florida, California. Are definitely, I know Oklahoma taxes with all the hailstorms, a lot of the deductibles for the roofing's that's going to go across the board. It looks like we're seeing deductibles on residential roofs of 510. So you might have a 1000 deductible for your home.  But if it's a. Storm damage claims pertaining to a roof that deductible might be 10 grand, right? For them trying to avoid those claims. but yeah, California, those states that get hit the most are being affected. a lot of carriers are pulling out of those states. so it's going to be interesting what happens, in the next couple of years. maybe new carriers get into those States and sometimes it's good when you're getting new insurance companies because they're more, more favorable. It's easier to work with them. so it might be better. It might be worse. We'll have to play it by ear and see how the next five years play out. But agents are definitely feeling it. Because the agents I speak with that are very good with it, handle commercial policies, they're saying this is probably the worst time they've ever seen in 30, 40 years in terms of insurance, because they're, they have a client insured for 10 years. All of a sudden the insurance company is dropping them for no reason. So they're having a hard time, to put them in with finding a carrier for some of these insurance.

[00:16:54] Tim Little: Yeah, and I think we're seeing that across the board here in Florida, both residential, commercial, because so many carriers are leaving, and just leaving it to the insurer of last resort, right? they're instituting laws now to try to get a handle on this because it's going to be a problem. but it's just going to get, Bad all over again. The next time we have a really bad hurricane, right? then everything's gonna get jacked up again. More insurers will leave so I don't know that there's a good solution to this but people are certainly looking for it because Otherwise, it just becomes unsustainable you know if your insurance costs get too high then it becomes, you know economically prohibitive to Build or insure and then you really have a problem

[00:17:38] Andy Gurzak: Yeah, you would, the worst thing would be, you go to, you go to places in Florida now that were hit by the hurricane that we go to, that we did claims where, you could see which houses didn't have insurance or which houses fought the insurance that, out of 10 homes in the neighborhood, five are rebuilt, the other five are still, In the same stage they were after the hurricane.

[00:17:54] Tim Little: Yeah. And so what are some of the Your top tips for reducing the cost of insurance. Are there things that you can do that reduce your rate? just like with, I don't know, like car insurance, right? you get safe driver discounts. what is available, especially on the commercial real estate side to bring some of those premiums down.

[00:18:16] Andy Gurzak: Yeah. you can request a higher deductible. you can request a higher deductible coverage on a building, knowing what your building would take to replace. If it was a fire or something, make sure you don't have over, over coverage. Is, you can always get evaluated, say, Hey, you have me at 10 million in coverage. I only need five. I don't know. Oh, that's just us. the computer model. That's what it took. So no, you can do that. Raising your deductible is another one. some of the endorsements, if you have a new building. law and ordinance coverage, that building code, you might not need that for the first five years because building codes aren't going to change that much drastically in the five years. So that's a coverage you can probably, Hey, I don't need that coverage for now. Hey, you have me a sewer back up, we're on a septic. We're so high up. We're never going to even, that's not something that's going to happen. So just some tips like that, some stuff, it's hard to take coverage away. Okay. You never want to take coverage away, to lower a premium. and a lot of people are, and you don't want to go to crappy carriers either, but some people will, right now, save two, three grand a year, middle income has got hit so hard with inflation. they're, they're dropping coverages just to get, the premium that they can afford to even keep insurance. So most people are now being insured just for a fire. A lot of files there's so many exclusions, literally, the only thing you're literally covered for is a fire. And even then This isn't paid. This isn't paid.

[00:19:39] Tim Little: Yeah. And a lot of multifamily people are value add investors, right? they're trying to improve the property in order to make it worth more. other things that we can do on the value add side that both add value for the tenants and also might reduce our costs from an insurance perspective. And what I'm thinking about here are things like, Safety things. increased lighting, cameras, gates, things that improve the safety for the tenants involved. And so maybe that reflects on the insurance as well.

[00:20:48] Andy Gurzak: Yeah, that and that would be probably the best question. That'd be for an with the carrier that you're trying to insure you with, but I know that some of the stuff they look at is, hey, do you have smoke alarms? Are there security cameras in the building? because they lower the risk. And, Is it worth it? Cause sometimes you can ask the agent, okay, you have me with this carrier, it's 3000 a year. and you're asking me if I have cameras and I, if I have, fire sprinklers, let's just say I do put cameras in, how much is my premium going to go down? Oh, you can save a hundred a year. for me to invest 10, 000 in a camera system for you to lower a hundred, my premium by a hundred a year is not worth it. It might, so then that's a good, that's a good time to ask the agent. How much am I saving? If I do these things, sometimes you might be getting, you might have your cars insured with one carrier and they're giving you a great rate and then you're taking your home to another carrier and they're saying, Hey, if you bring your cars over, we'll give you the multi, multi policy discount. How much is that discount? Oh, it's 50 a year. It's not worth it. Cause I'm saving 400 here. So you have to be smart and ask those questions when you're getting insurance.

[00:21:48] Tim Little: Yeah. And I think that's like an important aspect too, right? not every carrier has the same. Discounts,for the same things. So how does that work when it comes to shopping around? Should people have an insurance broker or is that something that you do as well? What's the best course of action

[00:22:05] Andy Gurzak: We don't sell any policies. We're not agents. We do recommend agents. There's a couple agents we've recommended that we know cover every state that actually has no commercial policies Having a broker. I think I think you everyone needs a broker in terms of a good broker for your policies what's being so what's scary now is Homeowners and people can go online and buy insurance without knowing what they need which is and you're answering questions and they're selling you policies. You don't even know what replacement costs means. You don't know what any of the endorsements mean, and yet people are buying and being their own agents online, which is scary.

[00:22:39] Tim Little: Yeah, exactly. you talked about how, we don't know a lot about this business in most cases. So you might wind up overpaying, underpaying, or just, being underinsured. and That's not a place you want to be because you always hope you never have to use it, in the instance where you do, you certainly want to have enough there to cover you. I again, speak from experience having had properties that, that had fires, you hope it never happens. And luckily in the most recent one, nobody was hurt, but we had an entire building that became unusable. And that's the other thing that I think a lot of people don't realize, right? You can have. Fire in one unit that maybe spreads to two units and you're like, Oh, okay, only two units are down. No, because of the nature of fire and the damage it can cause, it may take that whole building down, because of the damage that's done. And now it's a much worse situation than maybe you had anticipated when the fire was first put out.

[00:23:37] Andy Gurzak: Yeah, and with the public just a lot of, a lot of people, recommend the tip and recommendation is, again, have that stuff. If you have a public just around your team, have those policies reviewed and your properties reviewed. then you're, you're set if something does happen, but if you do have a loss. get one involved, especially one that the PAs that handle fires have large losses. There's only a few in the country. a lot of them most mostly do roofs and storm, storm adjusting, fire's. Its own, it's its own parallel. It's its own, it literally sector, for us.but the difference and the amount. That we can maximize an amount that a good PA can bring value is just, it's just unbeatable for, again, for us, when we look at claims, if we charge clients 33 and up percent on claims, they still wouldn't have worked out better than they would have on their own. Their return is, their return just, their return is, it just, it makes, it makes no sense for someone not to try, not to hire one.

[00:24:32] Tim Little: Yeah. And I guess a lot of people,Especially in business, just don't think about it. So how do you go about explaining, other than being on shows like this, reaching out to investors and owners, and selling the value of what you do because they may just not be familiar with public adjusters and the value they bring.

[00:24:52] Andy Gurzak: That's the hard thing, right? No one knows about public adjusters, right? Until something happens. you don't even, I don't know any attorneys. But if I got in a car accident, I'd have to start looking at, you know what I'm saying? Like you start looking them up because it's not, I don't need them. You don't need them. But, and same with public justice, people don't even know a lot of them, that they don't, especially in the Midwest that public justice exists, Florida, California, New York, they're maybe more known. but for us, it's been being on podcasts, it's being on social media, it's writing articles, it's trying to educate people. And so when they're searching like, hey, I had a fire, or what do I do after fire that we come up with articles so people can get, Oh shoot, there is someone there. Let me look it up. Otherwise, if you do a claim on your own, you're basically going, it's like going to court without an attorney. You're gonna, you're gonna represent yourself against the insurance company. And then you got to remember, the insurance company has their own adjuster, their own agent, their own contractors, their own vendors. Everyone's working for the insurance company. Yet that adjuster then comes and says, Hey, I'm your adjuster. It can't be it. You can't represent both parties. You're for the insurance company, your bonuses, your premiums, everything's paid by the insurance company. So obviously your interest is not mine.

[00:26:01] Tim Little: Yeah. And it makes so much sense that you would have to do it through something like, podcasts, social media, blogs. it reminds me, I like, one of the most red blogs that I wrote was, my tenant just got arrested. What do I do? Because it's one of those situations where you don't think about ahead of time until one of your tenants is in jail and no one's paying the rent. His stuff is still in there. And you're like, what do I do now? And you can't just throw the stuff out because that's his personal property. And so all these questions start coming to mind and you have to start doing all this research. And I was like, you know what, someone is going to run into this situation and they're not going to know what to do. At least if I write about it. all the things that I had to go through and what the answers were, I may save them, a couple of hours of research and I think it's the same way with you, they find that and they're like, Oh crap, I, I never even thought of that possibility. Let me get on it now before I'm in this situation where, where they're calling you in a panic because the bad thing has already happened. 

[00:27:06] Andy Gurzak: yeah, that's 100 percent accurate. Yeah, 100%.

[00:27:08] Tim Little: Awesome. We talked a lot about that and it was super interesting, but now we do need to roll into the turbo round. Are you ready for it?

[00:27:16] Andy Gurzak: Yes, sir. Let's go.

[00:27:17] Tim Little: All right, let's do it. First question. What is one red flag every investor should look out for? 

[00:27:23] Andy Gurzak: and I'll answer these pertaining to insurance. if the adjuster says, hey, you don't need the agent or adjuster say, hey, you don't need a public adjuster or don't hire anyone. We'll take care of you. That's your red flag. That's when you call someone.

[00:27:35] Tim Little: Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that makes sense. If someone is saying that, they got you covered and you don't need third party help, then they probably don't have your best interest in mind.

[00:27:44] Andy Gurzak: That investor that I mentioned in the beginning that, called us, that agent, that adjuster, when we initially sent our paperwork and our letter of representation to him, his first thing when he reached out to me actually was, hey, why did he hire you? We paid out the claim, to the limits, I said, you paid it to the limits, but he only has an ACV policy. So you're cutting him down at 300, 000. It's because they stopped basically writing. There was a lot more damage, yeah, it ended up over 300, 000 and just building. And then there was a lot more for lots of rents, but yeah, that initial conversation with the adjuster was why did he hire you? He doesn't need you,

[00:28:14] Tim Little: Yeah. Let's be serious here. their job is to pay as little as, legally required

[00:28:19] Andy Gurzak: That's their, that's their business model. That's, they collect premiums. And they want a lower payout. It's fine. It's their business model. Nothing against it. There's I, and if they get away with it and 10, nine out of 10 people, cause that's the study nine out of 10 people won't fight it, won't hire someone. They're winning. So again, that's their business model. That's their, that's the business. And, and that is what it is.

[00:28:37] Tim Little: All right. Second question. What is a myth about this business that you would like to set straight? 

[00:28:42] Andy Gurzak: The PAs are storm chasers, ambulance chasers or whatever. Yeah, that's an old myth. There are a lot of storm chasers, a lot of roofers, a lot of people that do get PA licenses. but our industry is filled with great public adjusters that really bring a lot of value to people, that do a good job, that, really represent clients the right way,

[00:28:59] Tim Little: Nice. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. All right. Finally, Andy, what does success look like to you? 

[00:29:05] Andy Gurzak: being able to wake up whenever you want. not needing to look at a clock, not needing to be anywhere, being able to enjoy the weekends, not having to be on your phone, just being able to leave without knowing that stuff is running itself. I think that's, I think that's, that to me, that's success. When you own your own time.

[00:29:22] Tim Little: There you go. Time freedom. Love it. All right. Andy, this has been awesome and eye opening for me, right? I think it's a subject that not enough people talk about, but certainly multifamily owners need to be thinking about and need to be thinking about in advance, not just when bad things happen. So I really appreciate you coming on the show. Please tell our guests how they can get a hold of you. And if there's anything else that you'd like to share.

[00:29:46] Andy Gurzak: Yeah, they can look at us. They can, they can definitely Google us all city adjusting. They can visit on our website, allcityadjusting.com for your listeners. I'll leave them with my direct line. While I'm still growing and I can still help as many people as I can, I'll leave them with my cell phone. That's 708 655 4186, 708 655 4186. And if they want to text me to call me, have any questions, I'm more than happy to help as many people as I can personally.

[00:30:11] Tim Little: Great. we'll definitely have all that information in the show notes. Andy, thanks again for coming on. I appreciate you and look forward to continuing to see you do big things on your journey.

[00:30:21] Andy Gurzak: Tim, thank you so much and good luck to you guys. Thank you again for having me.

[00:30:24] Tim Little: All right. Have a good one.

[00:30:25] Andy Gurzak: You too.

[00:30:25] Tim Little: Bye.