My first encounter with Harvey Goodman was on the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters assembly in Carmel, California, in 1985. I used to be 26 years previous and giving my first speech to a public adjuster group after leaving property insurance coverage protection. There’s all the time one individual within the crowd who likes to quiz the speaker—Harvey Goodman.
Since then, I’ve developed a deep respect for Harvey after engaged on a lot of instances, discussing numerous insurance coverage protection points and easily observing how he conducts himself and his enterprise. When individuals ask me who the perfect public adjusters within the enterprise are, he has been on my high 5 listing for many years. It’s arduous for me to consider a property insurance coverage situation the place his research, information, and precise expertise merely shouldn’t be on the highest depth of understanding.
Right here is Harvey Goodman’s interview:
Who based the corporate, and what function did it play within the founding of the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters?
The corporate was fashioned in 1941 by a merger of the Goodman-Wagner firm and Gable & Gould. The founding president and driving drive of Goodman Gable Gould (GGG) was Will Goodman. Will Goodman was additionally a founding father of the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters (NAPIA) and its President for NAPIA’s first six years.
Paul Cordish was Basic Counsel to NAPIA from its founding in 1941 till roughly 2000. Cordish was the legal professional who included GGG in 1941. Paul Cordish and Will Goodman have been greatest pals.
Is the Goodman who was the primary President of NAPIA your grandfather?
Will Goodman was my father’s uncle. My grandfather was by no means within the public adjusting enterprise. There hasn’t been a Gable within the enterprise since earlier than I used to be born, and there hasn’t been a Gould within the firm for 2 generations.
Many individuals mistakenly suppose that I’m a lineal descendant of NAPIA’s founder. Nonetheless, my grandfather handed away when my father was eight years previous. My father went to work within the agency after faculty, attended regulation college at evening and was the president of NAPIA in 1986.
GGG has had seven previous presidents of NAPIA. Amongst these embody Karl Denison, who has been working at GGG for 42 years. My cousin Randy can also be a previous president and has been within the public adjusting enterprise for over 50 years.
When did you first get entangled within the enterprise, and what did you do?
I began within the enterprise whereas in faculty doing private property inventories and have labored right here full time (and typically extra) for 47 years.
At one time, you deliberate to go to regulation college and that didn’t final—why not?
After faculty, I attended regulation college for less than three days and determined it was not for me. I’ve been deposed and testified many occasions as a witness. I discover it fascinating what number of attorneys have commented that I made the right resolution to cease after they discover out I continued with public adjusting moderately than a profession in regulation.
My dad and mom have been dissatisfied, however I discovered that in search of your individual path results in a extra productive and satisfying profession and life. The precept of discovering your individual path moderately than any individual selecting it for you has helped me be a greater dad or mum, and each dad or mum wants all the assistance they will get.
What has been your historical past with NAPIA conventions?
The primary annual conference assembly that I attended was in Atlantic Metropolis after I was 13 years previous. I do not forget that as a result of I acquired bar mitzvah’d a few weeks later. To today, I keep in mind a few public adjusters who have been near my dad giving me bar mitzvah presents at that conference.
I additionally went to a few different conventions in Florida after I was a youngster. There have been some very “colourful” personalities within the business on the time that made fairly an impression on me as a younger skilled.
After I began working full time in the summertime of 1977, I started recurrently attending conventions and was elected to the NAPIA Board of Administrators in 1981. I served constantly till I used to be placed on the ladder and was put in as president in 1998 at Landsdowne Resort in Leesburg, Virginia.
Inform me what it was prefer to work with Paul Cordish?
I used to be one of many final presidents to work full time with Paul Cordish. I knew Paul nicely as he was additionally GGG’s basic counsel. He was one in all if not the neatest individuals I ever knew. He forgot extra about public adjusting than most individuals ever knew. He was encyclopedic in his information of insurance coverage, and he had beforehand been a member of the Maryland State Legislature.
Randy Goodman, who adopted me as president of NAPIA, and I have been additionally instrumental in having Paul Cordish comply with convey on Brian Goodman to be taught from him and finally take Paul’s place as NAPIA’s basic counsel. On the time, Paul was about 90 years previous and it appeared like a transition was wanted. Paul Cordish and Brian Goodman have been the one two basic counsels that NAPIA has ever had.
What are essentially the most important technological and business modifications in public adjusting because you first began?
The technological modifications within the business have been a pure prevalence as know-how is altering every little thing in our lives. Generally that’s good, and typically it’s not. It could actually truly be each on the identical time.
I keep in mind after I began, we hand wrote our inventories utilizing carbon paper to make a number of copies for the insured, the insurance coverage firm and for us. We then would return to the workplace, value the stock and use an including machine to whole the numbers. We’d print the including machine tape and test it in opposition to the stock.
These repetitive processes are accomplished extra simply with know-how and software program that does many of those duties for you. Nonetheless, what’s misplaced is I’d intimately know the stock and will focus on it and advocate for our shopper, the insured.
As we speak, the individuals on the insurance coverage firm are photographs and studying analytical reviews, however usually have by no means been to the loss location. For them, it’s only a numbers recreation. The old-time subject adjusters are retiring, and the coaching the brand new adjusters get shouldn’t be all the time within the subject. Individuals must be mentored to know the method and make it work, irrespective of which aspect of the desk you sit on.
How has your group modified within the final 20 years, and what’s your most vital administration problem?
The most important administration problem in any group is individuals. We’ve had an awesome observe document for maintaining individuals, nevertheless it’s all the time a problem. As you already know, we’ve many individuals in our group who we employed out of faculty. Many of those have made our agency their one profession selection and have been on our group for many years.
We’ve got turned administration of the agency over to 6 principals who vary from mid-thirties to early fifties. Our senior individuals are nonetheless concerned within the adjustment course of; nonetheless, we would have liked extra youth and contemporary concepts. I’m very happy with these youthful professionals who’ve been with our agency for years and are greater than able to step into administration roles.
What’s it prefer to have your loved ones working with you?
I’ve the nice good thing about working with my daughter, who joined GGG after a profitable profession in New York actual property, and my son-in-law (married to a special daughter), who joined GGG out of faculty. I couldn’t be extra excited to come back to work every single day and work together with them, albeit in some ways, they’ve already surpassed no matter I could have completed in my profession.
How has your agency modified through the years?
Will Goodman wrote an article for Greatest’s Information in 1951 that appears as if it might have been written at present. My perception and understanding was that NAPIA was fashioned to lift the professionalism of the business. After I began within the enterprise, many states like Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida had residency necessities for licensure in a state. Our agency and NAPIA have been instrumental in repealing the residency necessities, which have been extra restrictive than useful to the patron in addition to the general public adjusting business.
That is one purpose for our agency’s evolution relating to the forms of claims we deal with at present versus the claims being dealt with after I began. We have been an area agency in 1977, with two places of work in Maryland. We often went out of city for our purchasers who known as us. We had robust pockets of enterprise in Southern Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Within the 1980’s, we expanded additional into these areas and the Carolinas. In the Nineteen Nineties, we expanded into Florida and north to New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
We at present have places of work in eleven cities, and we’ve lively claims working in dozens of states, together with Hawaii and Alaska. A major a part of our enterprise comes from referrals from prior purchasers and contacts within the enterprise neighborhood.
What has NAPIA meant to you personally and professionally?
NAPIA has been nice for me personally. I’ve made a few of my closest pals there.
I’ve additionally discovered from many deeply skilled public adjusters. I cherished sitting on the bar listening to and studying from Sidney Greenspan, Bruce Swerling, and Bob Lucurell, amongst others. After my father, they have been a few of the brightest minds within the enterprise.
It has additionally been nice interacting with the celebrities of the enterprise from my era, similar to Ron Papa, Invoice Greenspan, Jim Beneke, Bobby Levin and others who grew up with me within the enterprise. We’ve got widespread points with claims and customary points operating a enterprise.
I even acquired to spend some high quality time operating with you at a number of conventions whereas we have been coaching for half marathons and marathons.
How would you describe your philosophy of property insurance coverage adjustment, why have you ever develop into so profitable at it, and what would you recommend to a youthful public adjuster?
At GGG we’ve all the time nurtured an awesome work tradition. Two essential issues I’ve discovered and tried to cross on to the following era are arduous work and nice communication. We put within the hours wanted to get the job achieved, and we’re very proactive with each our purchasers and the insurance coverage firm.
We practice our individuals that you simply don’t anticipate the shopper or insurer to name you. We name our purchasers to maintain them knowledgeable as to what’s going on and even allow them to know when nothing is happening. Within the claims course of, that isn’t all the time the simplest motion as a result of the method usually appears harder in the midst of the declare. Nonetheless, with arduous work and due diligence, these issues do get resolved.
In life, enterprise and claims, issues is not going to all the time go easily. It’s the way you reply and react when issues don’t go as hoped or deliberate that reveals who you’re. I’ve discovered that my companions and the group at GGG are the individuals I wish to be within the bunker subsequent to me when bullets begin flying.
As soon as, whereas engaged on a really massive loss, Harvey and I left his busy workplace for dinner. After we got here again after 8 pm, everybody was nonetheless there working. I used to be amazed and requested if it was all the time this fashion at his agency. He advised me, ‘Chip, individuals all the time ask how we get such massive claims just like the one we’re engaged on tonight. I don’t suppose others notice how arduous all of us work right here. I didn’t inform them to remain. For all I knew, they most likely assumed we’d be gone for the night. It’s our individuals and our work ethic that I feel makes the largest distinction.’
In case you are keen about and love what you do, as Harvey Goodman does with public adjusting, is it actually work or simply high-level play?
Thought For The Day
The grasp within the artwork of dwelling makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his thoughts and his physique, his info and his recreation, his love and his faith. He hardly is aware of which is which. He merely pursues his imaginative and prescient of excellence at no matter he does, leaving others to resolve whether or not he’s working or taking part in. To him he’s all the time doing each.
—James A. Michener