Notice: 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 business will expertise one thing much like this in some unspecified time in the future: you’ve simply handed your licensing examination, and acquired discover that your new license software was accredited. Your pre-licensing training set a superb tone, gave you an ethics framework, and created a basis for what you knew can be a rewarding and difficult profession. You’re enthusiastic about your new profession (perhaps even a bit 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 an alternative 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 might have completely no concept what the subsequent step ought to be.
That’s precisely the place I discovered myself after I first began on this business, as a public insurance coverage adjuster. Little did I do know that this battle would finally 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 realizing 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 data I’d gained. There wasn’t a lot on the market on the time, particularly for public insurance coverage adjusters, as some insurance coverage business 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 knowledgeable. I nonetheless wanted to learn to do my job effectively. I knew in concept the way it ought to be completed, 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 sudden flip. Image this: you’re model new to the business, 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 perpetually grateful for that coaching, as a result of it fully modified my life by setting my adjusting profession in the correct course. 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 otherwise than the remainder of the nation).
Strolling into that room as somebody contemporary to the business, I had no concept I used to be about to satisfy among the individuals who would grow to be mentors, like Merlin Regulation Group attorneys Christina Phillips, Ed Eshoo, Mike Duffy, appraiser and umpire Bob Norton, and later Chip Merlin. From there, by way of my new community, I discovered extra occasions, mentors and colleagues, training, and finally NAPIA (the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters), for which I’d later function a Member of the Board of Administrators.
Nonetheless, I used to be extremely fortunate to seek out the academic assets, the individuals, and instruments—and early in my profession, at that. Not everybody has had the luxuries of luck and discovering superb colleagues and mentors like I’ve had. Not everybody will get that serendipitous telephone 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 wish that high quality steering (as an alternative of dangerous web recommendation from random strangers), and I understand how transformative and significant it may be whenever you discover it.
That’s the place the concept 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 higher capability and sharing the assets I want I’d recognized earlier. Through the years, I’ve shared assets on-line and thru texts, emails, and telephone 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 option to join all the assets 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 service attorneys, adjusters (of every type; I constructed this to be of service to my workers and unbiased adjuster colleagues as effectively), consultants, appraisers, umpires, and extra. Consider it because the centralized hub our business has been lacking. The listing organizes assets for professionals into clear classes, making it straightforward to seek out precisely what you want to develop your profession or enterprise and do your job higher.
I curate and checklist instruments, assets, and academic occasions from throughout the nation, with the assistance of my crew at my design company Kuva Media, so that you by no means miss necessary coaching alternatives or business data. Our useful resource classes cowl all the things you want: Books & Publications, Blogs & Podcasts, Operations & Advertising and marketing instruments, Communities & Associations, Advocacy & Wellness assets, 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 assets from the listing, the place they arrive from, and use them, providing you with entry to knowledge you may by no means in any other case get (like our podcast episode that reveals a shocking supply of NOAA climate information all of us use in claims).
Better of all? Fundamental listings are fully free, and solely vetted assets make it into the listing. Each useful resource must carry actual worth and high quality. That is my method of giving again to an business that has given me a lot. I invite individuals to submit their occasions or assets for the property insurance coverage business, in order that we are able to construct this collectively as a group.
There’s one thing larger at work right here than only a listing. Every little thing we take pleasure in professionally right now, reminiscent of our legal guidelines, ethics, customs, sayings and inside business jokes, protocols, and case legislation 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 muse 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 be sure that the subsequent individual holding their brand-new license, questioning “now what?” doesn’t need to surprise alone. And I’m right here to be sure that skilled professionals have a spot to proceed rising, studying, and connecting with others who share their ardour for this business.
I hope you’ll be a part of me on this mission by visiting, sharing, subscribing, and contributing to TheClaim.Listing.