What Home Inspectors Need To Know When Considering To be Insured Or Not To Be Insured | Stephanie Jaynes From InspectorPro Insurance Breaks it down.

InspectorPro Errors & Omissions And General Liability Insurance Program. What Home Inspectors Need To Know When Considering To be Insured Or Not To Be Insured.

I am joined by Marketing director Stephanie Jaynes of Citadel Insurance services the parent company of the InspectorPro insurance program. Stephanie simplifies complex insurance and legal concepts to help home inspectors protect their livelihood and avoid unnecessary risk.

Stephanie explains the difference between E&O and General Liability insurance. Stephanie also shares the most common Errors & Omissions claims against home inspectors as well as General Liability claims against home inspectors.

What to expect when a client files a claim (demand for Money)? Are you sure you want to deal with this on your own? Waisting hours of your time and potentially turning down inspections to deal with a past inspection client.

John Laforme shares his tips about how to avoid claims and how to deal with an unhappy inspection client. Remember your customer service does not end after the inspection is over as your clients may have multiple questions weeks or months after the inspection. So pay attention to your clients concerns (do not ignore their concerns).

InspectorPro Insurance is the leading home inspection insurance provider in the nation. With a reputation built on superior claims handling and quality customer service, we give clients peace of mind. Our risk management tools work to change the litigious culture plaguing home inspection businesses by helping inspectors educate their clients and avoid claims. Our errors and omissions and general liability insurance policies are built to serve your unique business needs. Insuring with anyone else simply isn't worth the risk.

 For more information, visit https://www.inspectorproinsurance.com. You can also reach them by phone (866-916-9419) and by email (weprotect@inspectorproinsurance.com).

 Some articles we referenced during the podcast include:

• Top 5 Claims Against Home Inspectors
• Top 5 General

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home. Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of home inspection of Straight Talk podcast with me, John laforme. I'm a CREIA certified home inspector from Los Angeles, California. And the topics we discuss on this podcast are about buying homes, selling homes, inspecting homes. So if you're a home inspector, home buyer, real estate professional, this podcast is definitely for you. Welcome back to the podcast everyone. Today, my guest is marketing director Stephanie Jaynes of Citadel Insurance Services, which is the parent company of the inspector pro insurance program. And hi, how are you?

Stephanie Jaynes: 0:57

I'm doing great. How are you?

John Laforme: 0:59

I'm doing good. Thanks for taking the time to do this. I remember reaching out to you guys months ago. Hey, you know, if you guys are interested in doing something, that'd be great. And you reached out? And I'm like, yes. All right. That'd be great. I have a lot of questions for you. By the way. Yeah, by the way I am. I have, you know, full disclosure, I do carry inspector pro insurance. So anybody listening, you know, this is not a paid promotion, nothing like that. This is just my curiosity and wanting to educate other home inspectors always a little bit more every day. Because I think there's a lot of misconception. And, you know, just this needs to be talked about a little more. I know, inspectors today, I just had one on my show recently, who's who's actually going through a lawsuit because he didn't have insurance a couple years ago. And it's like a really

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:54

I know, it's tough it can happen. But hopefully, with the conversation, I'm able to get some tips and things that apply to people, regardless of whether or not they're insured, regardless of who they're insured with. Because a lot of this stuff carries over. And obviously we'd love it if every home inspector was a client of ours. But we're really true. And I think anybody any home inspector, even people who are interested in becoming home inspectors can benefit from a conversation about risk management, because it's just a reality that you guys face.

John Laforme: 2:25

And that's exactly what it is risk management. So

Stephanie Jaynes: 2:29

the first thing I wanted to ask you was what is the most common claim you're getting? There's got to be some kind of a commonality there. Yeah, it's a great question. And it's a question that I had when I started six years ago. So when I joined inspector Pro, I actually started. And so most of my job right now is managing the risk management content that we produce. So we write articles on our blog, send out a newsletter we write for the reporter. We do a bunch on social media, we do appearances like this. But when I started, I was really interested in the company was really interested in me making sure I actually knew insurance in New Home Inspectors first. So I did a lot of renewal work. I talked to the underwriters and the claims department a lot and I tried to talk to at least called 50 Home Inspectors a day. And didn't always 250 a day, but just trying to get a sense of what the day to day struggles are with risk management in the home inspection industry. And one of the questions that came up for me was okay, there has to be a pattern. And we had when I had been hired had been doing this for 10 years, I'm like, we've got the data, we just need to crack it open. So one of our big claims to fame, if you've ever been to our blog, or looked at our newsletter is our top claims series and it started with the top five claims so what I did is I got together with the owner of the claims department essentially that we use of claims adjusters and attorneys who look at the claims when they come in and we took the claims from the last 10 years and we divided them up by type so think about types of allegations and I can just go through like the top five that we kind of figured out so yeah, first one was water damage. So I think you know, they find damage water damage on the floor or they have some sort of leak that's happening water damage was number one roof was number two closely associated with water damage. This is roof leaks. Roof Leaks alone, accounted for a huge percentage of the claims that we're receiving then came foundation issues after that was mold molds was interesting, because a lot of the mold claims were meritless, which we can go into what that means a little later.

John Laforme: 5:13

I know, I know what that means. But yeah.

Stephanie Jaynes: 5:17

Well, it surprised me. Yeah, I was thinking, you know, again, I, when I came into the company, I was new to the home inspection industry, and I was new to the insurance industry. Um, so I kind of had the expectation of, okay, the only home inspectors who are getting mold claims are the ones who are looking for mold. No, it's actually the guys who exclude mold from their inspections are sampling for for it aren't reporting on it, that are getting these claims later, which is a whole nother issue. And then the fifth most common one was plumbing, which most of the time was Miss identifying the pipes, which, if you think about the fact that most of the pipes in the plumbing in a home are concealed and not visible, it's really easy to do that to see, okay, this is PVC. But behind the wall, there's, you know, some poly butylene like you can't see. Um, so not. And that's kind of what started it off for us.

John Laforme: 6:21

Right. So let me let me stop you right there for a second. Let's let's talk about the water damage, slash mold. Mold problems. You know, first of all, myself, when I'm reporting, if I see any kind of staining discoloration, or something that looks like a growth, whether it's black, green, brown doesn't matter. I'm going to point that out. So we would you say that in the claims that you get regarding moisture, moisture, moisture damage, that they're just not clarifying what it is? Or do you have any insight on that. So

Stephanie Jaynes: 7:01

that actually was what created a follow up piece to our top claim series. So notice how those top five claims are all you know, claims, most of the claims we get are for Arizona omissions, insurance, which means these are things that home inspectors are getting accused of leaving out of the report or missing, they're not seeing these defects. We did a series on general liability claims as well, which we could go over. But more recently, what we did is we went back to that list. And instead of breaking it down by type, we broke it down by like reason that the clients were pursuing in any way. Um, so those types of things are like it's outside the SOP, it was concealed during the inspection. And that's actually a really, really common one for foundation and mold. You just couldn't see it. That's why it's not getting brought up out of the inspector scope. Um, one of the things we run into a lot of the time with water damage is that something was inaccessible during the inspection, say the attic wasn't accessible, because there were too many belongings in there, or there wasn't enough clearance to actually get up there. So you're looking from the hatch. And out over the corner, that's where all of like the evidence of, you know, roof leak are,

John Laforme: 8:27

but you can't always, it's always the place you can't get to.

Stephanie Jaynes: 8:31

Exactly. So when it comes to creating the best defense for yourself against that type of scenario, it all comes down to making sure that you are as explicit in your reporting as possible. And what I mean by that is, if you don't have full access to something, say that if there's stuff in your way, take a picture of that stuff. So you have evidence later on. If it comes up like Hey, you didn't notice all these problems in the attic? Well, I couldn't get into the attic. And I said so. And I have a photo to prove it. There you go. And that's what allows us to give inspectors kind of the most ironclad defense is having that evidence both written in the report, and especially with photos.

John Laforme: 9:14

That's something I pushed quite often with other inspectors I talked to, on several of my podcast, it's come up, you know, what about accessibility? So what I always tell other inspectors is, you've it's just as important to report what you didn't inspect as it is what you did inspect. So that is how I do it every day. And I take so many photos I it's almost like I'm a photographer in the middle of my pictures. I'm doing a home inspection, because I take three to 400 photos of each house. I mean, I take a lot of pictures. And that's just because I've got it yeah, it is a lot but there's no film processing so it doesn't cost anything. It's all digital. So it's right. Just snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, like like a tour. You know, so that's me,

Stephanie Jaynes: 10:02

we've had home inspectors complain about like plus storage, that expense, you know, if you're doing a lot of inspections, you're taking 400 of every house, eventually, you're going to have to be paying for storage. But really, it's worth it. Because a lot of the claims that we are able to dismiss and get them to go away without the home inspector paying a dime, like a lot of times not even their deductible. Those are ones where we have photos that weren't even necessarily put in the report, but are sitting in the cloud somewhere or on an external hard drive. Yep, that show what the house was like on the day of the inspection, because clients have a bad understanding of the fact that home inspections are a snapshot in time. Yeah, but if you have the snapshots to prove what it looks like at the time, then then these cases in which, you know, there wasn't a problem during the inspection, or it was concealed or the inspection, you can overcome those allegations a lot easier. One of my favorite claims to talk about, and we wrote about it in one of our blog posts was a water damage claim. And the water damage was so bad. By the time we got the claim, right? And are getting the pictures, there is a bubble protruding from the wall. You can see this bubble, you can touch the water bubble. It is gnarly, like, so we're looking at this thing, the inspectors looking at this thing like okay, like it's only a few a couple months after the inspection, or like how could you miss this like it's, I mean, it's like a physical mass? Well, the home inspector goes back through his photos. Turns out, the seller had strategically placed a blanket rack and a blanket in front of this wall. And inspect Barry, just taking as many pictures as he can of the area took a picture of this hallway with the blanket and the blanket rack. And it's the exact spot where that bubble was. So it's very likely that that bubble maybe wasn't as big as it was, by the time we got the claim. But it was definitely there and was concealed by the seller, and had the inspector not had that photo proving, hey, this was concealed from me and I don't move stuff, it would have been really hard to make an argument as to why he didn't see it because the damage was extremely pervasive.

John Laforme: 12:31

And really, it was already there. And yeah, it was obviously already there. Mm hmm. So let me let me touch on that a little bit. So the the once again, the importance of photos and documenting the condition of the house, the day you showed up to inspect it. That's the important part that other inspectors need to grasp you have got, you can't just like take a few pictures and leave. You're just you just left a big door wide open for problems later that you can't defend against. So here's a good example of what I've come across multiple times, I get a phone call. Hey, John, did you notice the hole in the bathtub, I'm like, well, which bathtub, typically, these homes that they're calling me about, they're like five bathrooms. So I asked him pinpoint which bathroom you're talking about, they gave me the instructions of where that is. So I go through my little archive of photos. Not Not a scratch on the tub. Turns out someone came in after me change a light bulb or fix and and the contractor put a hole in it. And I'm like, here's the photo, never heard from again. Without that picture, I would have had a hard time making them believe that wasn't there. When I did it. Of course, I still would have said, hey, look, you need to find out who else was in the house after I left and between the time I left and between the time you closed escrow and got your keys. That could have been anybody in there. So home inspectors really take a picture of bathtubs, because that seems to be one of the bigger issues. Because contractors put their ladders in there with no padding and no drop cloths sometimes. And they literally put a hole right in that if it's like a fiberglass tub or you know, some kind of fragile material like that happens, happens quite a bit. So that's how I cope.

Stephanie Jaynes: 14:12

And that happens. And I think your story illustrates it really well. You could have just said I didn't do it. But then it turns into this. He said she said argument and when you have the evidence of a photo, that's what really allows you to kind of close that door and walk away from the situation and turn them to the other people. I mean, we've had a lot of just recently we actually were doing so we have a Facebook group that home inspectors can join that talks about risk management. And every Wednesday we share a claim from our archives. We call it Wednesday. What's that called?

John Laforme: 14:47

I'm not I'm not familiar with that. What is that called the OH group,

Stephanie Jaynes: 14:49

how instructor risk management group on Facebook. There's a link to it in our newsletter. There's a link on our website, but I can send you the link So you can put it in the notes for the podcast? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's a private group, we only let home instructors be a part of it and us, but there are no other vendors there. And we try to keep it really focused on just risk management topics. So you can ask us questions or other instructors questions, we have discussions about claims, discussions about things you can be doing in your agreements and reports and things like that. It's just supposed to be a place that where you can continue to receive relevant information as we receive it. But anyway, Wednesday, we're sorry, that we just were working on what's for claim that they wanted the whole roof replaced, there were issues with a bunch of different shingles, tons of stuff was broken. And come to find out, they had had a pest problem. And tented it, and tractors were tenting, the 40. Day, like, I mean, we couldn't even the whole instructor was like, I have no idea how they cause this much damage to the roof, putting the tents up, but they did. But again, it was an it's an instance in which he had the photos to prove, look, guys, this was not me. You need to talk to these contractors that were up on your roof.

John Laforme: 16:22

You know, first of all, what the funny thing about that is the first thing I'd be like, well, who's the last person on the roof? That's the first question, right? Oh, by the way, Oh, forgot to mention there was a circus tent there.

Stephanie Jaynes: 16:34

Inspectors under the bus. I wouldn't be surprised if they every day. The termite guy was like, well, didn't you just buy this house? What about the home inspector? You know,

John Laforme: 16:46

we get the

Stephanie Jaynes: 16:47

pictures. The termite guy isn't? So

John Laforme: 16:51

yeah, we get thrown under the bus by people we refer sometimes. So like these. If I say, hey, look, you know what your H vac system looks like Mickey Mouse installed it, you need to get an H back guy out here, like right away. And that guy shows up and then says, Well, why didn't he tell you about this, this and this. And I have to talk to the guy Hey, man, I'm the I'm the reason why you're here. Why you throw me under the bus. Right? I'm bringing everything to their attention. And they did the right thing by calling you but you don't have to make me look like a clown. It I'm not I'm not a specialist like you are. We know so much. And we only do so much regarding your apex at the Ag fax system. So there's no need of that. But that happens to everybody all the time.

Stephanie Jaynes: 17:31

Yeah, and it's an important distinction. I mean, it's one of the things that you can actually point out in your inspection agreements or reports, remind your clients that, hey, like, my inspections are, you know, kind of just basic looks at these different various systems and components in the home. And if you want the the crazy level of expertise, you know that an H back professional would have you got to call him. And sometimes it's appropriate to do that, to follow up,

John Laforme: 18:04

that that segue that can segue us right into my contract that you have in front of you, I want to talk, I have a copy of it a little a little highlighted. There's two words in here that are highlighted clients duty. So let's talk about that. And what that means. So I'm going to read it clients duty client agrees to read the entire written report when it is received and promptly call inspector with any questions or concerns regarding the inspection or the written report, the written report should be the final exclusive findings of the inspector. So a lot of times, that just doesn't happen. And then to add to that, it just would when we recommend further evaluation, that that's what it's that's what it means. Don't ignore it. And then six months later, call me and go, Hey, why didn't you tell me about that? Well, I did it's on page 38. It Why didn't you do anything about it, then? Well, I want you to pay for I'm not paying for it. Sorry. You know, that's how that happens. So the clients need to understand, too, that, you know, they have apartness, they hired us we've given them instructions if they choose to ignore reports, you're rolling the dice.

Stephanie Jaynes: 19:14

Right. And we we actually did an article, I think it was last year about ways to encourage clients to read reports, because one of the complaints that we received from just talking to home inspectors and from just handling claims. Again, one of the top 10 reasons home inspectors received claims from clients are for things that were in the report, but we put in parentheses the unread report because they wouldn't be filing the claim if they had actually read it and seen that it was dressed there. So it's a really difficult problem to overcome. And I think one of the best ways that we've found to encourage clients to read the report is to join remind them that your verbal comments are not the report, and are not section findings. I think it's great. When home inspectors have walkthroughs with their clients at the end of an inspection, it's a great opportunity to point out some of the big stuff and answer questions. Yeah, but you've got a preface that and that with, Hey, this is not the report, you got to read the report. And then for anybody who's using like, report writing software, a lot of the software's now are really great and have features in which you can send them the report, and then send them a follow up email with the report and be like, Hey, did you see this? Hey, do you have questions about this, so that it kind of stays top of mind. Because in the clients defense, buying a home, like there's a lot of stuff that goes into that there's, there's a lot of stress and pressures as you're trying to close and get moved in and do all those different things. So once they kind of check the inspection box, they might think, Okay, I'm done, I got the inspection. You know, they might be forgetting Oh, to kind of really check that box off, I need to make sure I read the report, and get any of that stuff addressed. It's not just your negotiation tool. It's also an information tool as you're moving into this home, knowing what you're actually going to be dealing with when you're living there.

John Laforme: 21:27

Yeah, that's that's a good point. That's a good point. I do that I do. walkthroughs of people, you know, sometimes we don't literally have to walk around, because some of the things I have to explain, they can't see because they're under the house or up in the attic. So I'm not going to put them on my ladders or make them crawl into the house.

Stephanie Jaynes: 21:44

And having them fall you up the ladder.

John Laforme: 21:46

Yeah, no, I actually have stickers on my ladder, do not climb inspect to use only because too many times I turn around, and there's a customer on the roof behind me. I'm like, whoa, whoa, what the hell you to get off here. So yeah, that's a that's a good point for inspectors to, I would put some labels on your ladder, just so he can say that you tried to keep them off the roof. You know what I mean? You can't stop them from climbing a ladder, you can't stop any of that. But unless you're at that bottom of it, but that's not going to happen. So back, as far as my agreement goes, I want to kind of go into an actual real experience, like, I'm the insured. So for example, use me as an example, I say to you, hey, look, this morning before you before you logged into this podcast, I got a letter, I got an email from a client saying, Hey, you miss something big on my house. And if you don't do anything about it, I'm going to take you to small claims court or I'm going to sue you. Well, first of all, small claims court is not part of the deal, because it's mandatory arbitration in the agreement, so how do you deal with that if somebody files if somebody follows a small claims case against me when they shouldn't have in the first place.

Stephanie Jaynes: 23:10

So it all comes back to your agreement, when it comes to dispute resolution, which is what it's called, um, somebody has a problem with what you did. And they're asking to resolve it. There's a clause or a section of your contract that should address dispute resolution resolution of disputes. Recently, just actually, back in January, we had inspector pro released state specific contracts for inspectors that they can use. And we actually give you discounts for using our contract. Because we're very confident that they work because we didn't just base them on the standard of practice in your state. But we also base them on case law in your state our claims experience over the last 12 years in your state. So there are some nuances in there that are really unique to us, that we've found to be successful, just based on dealing with allegations and claims and lawsuits in your state. But going back to that resolution of disputes thing, um, in our resolution of disputes provision, we actually are all about small claims court in the last seven years, we've had really, really, really good results come out of small claims court. But if the dispute exceeds the jurisdiction, meaning they're asking for more money, or it's more complicated than a small claims court can handle that's when we send them to binding arbitration. Um, but we even preface that With, but you've got to send them to an arbitrator who has knowledge and experience in the home inspection industry. Because it's not enough to just send them to arbitration and things like that if the arbitrator has never seen a home instruction case in their life. So we have a few arbitration companies that we recommend, just because we've had, again, really good results with them. So

John Laforme: 25:24

alright, so let me let me get into a little deeper. So yeah, if if a small claims court case comes in, and I get served, I then have to send that to you my insurance company, and then decide if you decide if your company is going to follow through with that through a small claims process? Is that what you're saying?

Stephanie Jaynes: 25:45

So no. So I realized I didn't answer your question. So I'm sorry. So if you're getting served with anything, the first step that you need to make, and even before he gets served, if you're getting any sort of complaint that you think might turn into a claim, we recommend bringing it to your insurance company, because if they're like us and have a pre claims process in place, you might be able to nip that thing in the bud before it even becomes a lawsuit. So if you get served, call your insurance company, they'll open up a claim, assuming that it qualifies as a claim. And if there is a lawsuit and a money, money demand as a claim, right? Yep. And then they're going to look at it, and they're going to compare it to your agreement. So in your case, where your agreement says, Hey, stuff needs to go to arbitration, not court, the first thing we're going to try to do is contact whoever is representing the claimant, and be like, Hey, listen, they signed this contract, here's a copy of it, it says arbitration, you can't take us to court. That's the first battle that we'll do with them. Because you're totally right, we are going to get way better results for our home inspectors, if we can keep it in a small claims court or arbitration scenario. Because if we don't have to hire additional representation for you, other than just our claims adjusters and lawyers internally, that is way cheaper, we don't have to be, you know, adding those expenses to your last run, which is the record upon which, you know, your claims history is and if we don't have to do that, I mean, we might be able to just handle it internally and not even charge your deductible. So that's our like, ideal scenario. So the first thing we would do is try to get it in a small claims court or arbitration situation. If for some reason we couldn't. Most commonly the reason would be you didn't have a properly executed agreement. An example of that is you got the agreement signed, but after the inspection. Right, right, right. Because of that, they we might not be able to enforce that dispute resolution, in which case, we might end up in a court scenario. Does that answer your question?

John Laforme: 28:08

It does. It does. But of course, I have more questions. More questions, then? Yeah, yeah. So so that that's a good point, you brought up inspectors out there, you have got to stop letting people talk you into not signing your agreements, before, before you start the job you have, you just got to put your foot down and say this is my policy, I'm not leaving the house, because I will not leave the house without inspection agreement signed, prior to typically, a couple of days before, unless it's a next day inspection, and payment in full. That's how I that's how I run my business. And when I get there, all I have to focus on is doing the job. I don't have to worry about paperwork, I don't have to worry about collecting money, I can just spend time with the customer. And I think it's just a much simpler process because I like convenience. And some spectra software provides me with all that convenience, with my scheduling emails and everything else and the ability to run payment through there. It just makes life so much simpler. So the other question I have back to the small claims part. So who if it has to go to small claims? Who is the person who physically goes to the small claims court and defends it?

Stephanie Jaynes: 29:22

Typically you fights we do. So one of the one of the benefits of small claims court that we've found is again, we don't have to hire somebody to represent you. But that doesn't mean we're sending you in a loan. Essentially what we'll do is our claims team will coach you and practice with you on the phone and give you your point by point rebuttals. They'll tell you everything you need to bring, what to wear, how to address the judge, how many copies of everything to bring and we'll go through because one of the things that happens when you get sued, not everybody knows this is, um, the claimant has to put into writing what their claim actually is. So they have to say, here are all my issues, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Um, so we go through those accusations one by one with you said that you're prepared with a strong rebuttal against all of those things, right. And we give you things to say verbally, to her about those things will also help you to pick out things either in your agreement or report or your photo archive, or all three that support your claims. So like, if the argument is you miss the mold in my house, okay, let's keep it really simple. The mold was behind the wall. Here's the evidence that you ripped over the wall after I was there. Here's a picture of the wall from when I was there. Here's the lack of all of the signs of mold. On inspection day, if you took any sampling here, the negative samples that I took around the area that you say you found mold, and we help you and assist you so that you're as prepared to go into that situation as you possibly can be now good. And a different scenario in which you do require representation. who represents you kind of depends on the state we have. Different lawyers and attorneys that we've worked with, in the past that we have good experiences with that will send your case to if you need to appear in court with representation. If we don't have a good experience with an attorney, we're not calling them back to represent other home inspectors. So we try to focus on people who have experience in the industry, but have also gotten good results for our inspectors. Because the bottom line is, and we totally get that as the insurance company, we we are made out to be the bad guys a lot. Um, but at the end of the day, we both want the same thing, we want your claims outcomes to be as positive as possible. Because if you're saving money we're saving money to that's just the reality. Right? So everything that's representation,

John Laforme: 32:19

go ahead. So everything you just described, sounds like a real pain in the butt. Okay, because I, you know, shed some real realistic light on that. Okay, now, we're talking about arranging paperwork, we're talking about getting on phone calls with your insurance company to, you know, get the tips that you just mentioned the help that you just mentioned, all that takes time, that takes hours and hours and hours of time to prepare to go to small claims court, and I'm talking from experience, right, so I just want to share all this. So the reality of it is, it's a real big inconvenience, and you're gonna be it's possible, you could spend money on your deductible, it's possible, you're losing jobs, because you have to appear somewhere, or you have to be on a phone call to get more information, it's gonna be a real big nuisance to you. So it's real important to take each job as seriously as possible, everyday go to work, try not to be a volume inspector, because when you're doing too many inspections in one day, I'm telling you, you are going to miss something, or you're going to forget to report a part that was really important. Like, you know, what Stephanie mentioned earlier, is is the not mentioning you couldn't get in the attic, and all of a sudden, there's a problem from the attic. So it's, I'm just trying to really put some urgency on this, because that's the reality of it. And that's Yeah,

Stephanie Jaynes: 33:50

and that's one of the reasons why, you know, six, seven years ago, we as a company kind of shifted gears to, we realized, with all of the experience that we've had defending claims, and with all the patterns that we could observe from the claims that we've handled, we realized that there were things that home inspectors could be doing to prevent them. And that preventing claims was so much better than dealing with claims. Yeah. So if you look at our blog, if you read any of our articles, if you listen to our appearances and various webinars and podcasts, the things that we mostly talk about are okay, what are the things that you guys can do now? I all of your inspections to prevent complaints from ever reaching your cell phone or their inbox? And yeah, well, that's what is really important is is putting practices in place so that you don't even have to get the nasty phone call and don't have to go through this process if you don't have to.

John Laforme: 34:55

Okay, a good mindset to have when inspecting houses How would I defend that? If I don't write that up? If that looks like I need to write it up, and I decide Well, to me, it's really not a big concern. How would you defend it? You got to think about that when you're looking at it going, can I could I defend myself here? I'm sorry, but this is the business we're in. You have to start thinking like you're an attorney. Because how can I defend this? How can I prove this condition today? I can take a photo. That's how I can write it up my report. You know what, there's an issue here. It's kind of an anomaly. I can't figure out what it is. I definitely want to point it out and let the my client know that, hey, there's something going on here. But I can't identify what I'm looking at. So it could be could we whatever, humping the wall could be a six inch I'm sorry, a four inch drain pipe in the wall. And it's an old construction where they have to go around the pipe like this. And they have these little humps in the wall. Hey, what's Why is there a hump on my wall? Oh, that's because the house built 1920. And back then they just, you know, they weren't that they weren't that super attention to detail, I guess. On those things they didn't they didn't believe in Fern out walls to fit the pipe. So just stuff like that. So those are the things you can do to prevent these things. Yeah, I don't want my phone. I don't want to answer those emails. It's like, ah, and when I do get those emails, typically, it's a bunch of nonsense. It's a cosmetic thing. It's this, it's that but you know, I do call I call them right back, which is a really good point I want to make, if you do have somebody with a complaint, don't ignore them. Just call them right away and say, Hey, what's going on? Okay, let me just let them talk. A lot of times, they'll just hang themselves by them talking to you about what they think is wrong. And then when they're done talking, then ask them well, did you follow through and get the further further recommendation? I'm sorry, further evaluation that I recommended for you? Oh, no, I didn't do that. Well, why didn't you do that? Well, that's why you're calling me now? Well, I gave you instructions, you didn't follow it. So I really can't do nothing for you. That's how I address it. If that's the case,

Stephanie Jaynes: 37:09

it's really smart. There's, there's a direct correlation between promptness and how low your payments can go. And when I say how low your payments can go, I mean, spending $0. On complaint, right? That's the ideal, right? That's our goal, too, is how can we get the inspector to pay $0 and not see a premium increase later. That's the goal. So when it comes to addressing client complaints, you're absolutely right, getting back to them quickly, is a huge part of it, ignoring them doesn't work, because ignoring them just makes the matter. And that's usually when they find the time to hire an attorney. It's in those those first few moments that you're able to have a more rational conversation and hopefully point them in the right direction. You were talking a lot about, you know, when you get the email or you get the call a lot of the time, it's bogus stuff. And it's true back when we were looking at types of claims. One of the other things that I tried to establish with the claims team as I asked them, Okay, how many of these are legit, like the inspector messed up? It's 100% their fault, they miss that defect, they're totally liable. And again, we went through the 1000s of claims that we had seen and turned out only it was 80% of the claims that we had received in the past 10 years were meritless, meaning the inspector, at least wasn't fully at fault, or the claim was somewhat exaggerated, something that made it where it was like, You know what, this shouldn't have been an insurance claim. So when you're faced with that reality, 80% of these things are frivolous or meritless. You have to come at it thinking you had kind of given it the cya mindset, which some inspectors don't like. And so those inspectors I would say, come from it, then as an educator, like, pretend every client you have is a first time homebuyer and they're 12 years old. Like you have to really break it down for them. Because the things that are really obvious that it's a visual non invasive home inspection. Well, when HGTV is showing people pulling walls down, and you know, doing all sorts of things to the property to find problems with it. They're more like flippers than home inspectors. Yep. You realize that your clients don't have the same expectations as you do. And the only way say knowledge is you write those expectations. Yeah,

John Laforme: 39:55

right. They don't have the same knowledge. So I kind of I kind of go by this rule. Don't assume the person Next to you understands what you're saying, because what is common knowledge to you does not mean it's common knowledge to the person next to you. And if you can kind of use that mindset, when you're understand I never expect my homeowners to know what I'm exactly doing, because 99.9% of the time they don't. But I do expect them to know what a doorknob is, and what a window is, and what a door is. So those are things I expect them to know. So just kind of use that mindset as would be my recommendation to other inspectors. Remember, it's, it's so it's so normal to you to call this one thing out, because you see it every day. But remember, it could be a first time homebuyers member, some people never lived in houses, they lived in apartments their whole life. And then they now they're walking into a detached single family home and they're like, Whoa, what is all this? What this is, is your responsibilities, what it is, that breaks, you fix it, no more landlord. And so that's how it works. So that's how I

Stephanie Jaynes: 41:05

and I think it's, it reminds me of, again, one of the top 10 reasons clients file claims. One of them that we've been seeing more and more over the last three years is that the issue was acknowledged by the Inspector. But the issue is more severe or pervasive than the client understood, from just talking to the inspector or reading the report, I'll give you an example. Let's say the client has a leak. And you just say, Okay, you have a leak. And the client is like, okay, maybe a leak doesn't sound very extreme to them. But in this case, this leak, if not resolved, could could create extensive damage to the property. So if they don't have that sense of urgency, they may not promptly fix it, and then blame you for all of that damage that occurs later. Yeah. So it wasn't delivered properly, that you are using layman's terms when explaining what something is a leak is great, layman's terms, you have a leak? Yeah. But then sometimes you need to, depending on the situation, break down what that actually means. Right? So that the client understands whether or not this is something that needs to get fixed now, or if it's cosmetic, or whatever it is, um, so that the the level of understanding there is equal? Because yeah, a lot of times, even if you do report on it, there's not an understanding of what that information actually entails.

John Laforme: 42:45

Yeah, report writing is a whole nother episode on the podcast. report writing is it's it can go so in depth, and I got to get on that myself. So let me jump back a little bit to Sure. Your, your explanation of the claims issue? I brought that up, because I got dragged into that a few years ago. And it was completely meritless. It was a bunch of nonsense from the word go. And that's why I asked you that specific question the way I did. So you answered it very well, because you answered it the opposite of what my old insurance company answered it as, but I'm not going to say it was the insurance company's fault. I'm gonna say it was the lawyer that they hired here in California to help me through this. So my contract had the mandatory binding arbitration clause in it. And here, I got somebody sending me papers for small claims court, and I'm like, well, they're already breaching the contract because it was signed way in advance. There's no there was no question about the legitimacy of a signed contract. That was that was done days before I got there. The client never even opened the report for months, which my software told me so. And all of a suddenly they move in 90 days, 120 days later, and then I get a call before five months later, oh, there's mold here. Why didn't you tell him? Well, let's look at the report. I had, you know, I had I've done hundreds of homes since then. So I had to pull it up. Look at the report. And like Ma'am, I showed you 14 different areas of moisture damage in the house. Your own realtor was there. And we talked about how musty it smelled upstairs. You were told multiple times to get a mold inspection. And then she starts going into all these pointless conversations with me and I went and looked at it and there was some staining under a cabinet, which just on the back part of the cabinet itself and it was all dry. But you know, I don't know when when it happened. And it was it was crazy. So I contact my insurance company and they put me in touch with a lawyer and then he he ignores the smallest Part. I'm like, I called them up and I said, I got a binding arbitration clause here. Why are you trying to give me instructions to go to small claims court? Did you even address this with them? And also, there was silence on the phone. The lawyer went silent. And by the way, I was on the phone with the adjuster. We had a three way call going, it's the adjuster. Am I saying that right? Mm hmm.

Stephanie Jaynes: 45:26

So to talk about who the parties are, for people who are unfamiliar, a claims adjuster is somebody who works for the insurance company and handles claims. So when you file a claim that it goes first to an adjuster, adjusters aren't always attorney, sometimes they are, we have plenty of adjusters who are both. But they're licensed specifically to look at and kind of manage the claim for the insurance company. So when you do get assigned a lawyer, if you do get assigned a lawyer, the adjuster is the one who would do that for you. But they're still the ones that are kind of acting sometimes as an in between. Yeah, with you guys, but mostly an in between, for you, between you and the insurance carrier as things are developing.

John Laforme: 46:20

Right. Right. Right. So that's what happened. And I was concerned, you know, I've been I've been self employed for a long time, not in this business, other businesses in the past. So I've had to deal with some legal stuff. So I kind of had a understanding of how these things should unfold. And I wasn't seeing that with this, what was going on with this lawyer. It's like, I first of all, never talked to the lawyer directly. I kept getting this assistant like, well, I don't like that. First of all, I should have been in touch, he should have called me and said, Hey, this is what's going on, we get your cover, we're going to help you with this, this. I didn't get that kind of service. So and then when I called him out on the fact that he didn't even address the binding arbitration with the with the with the plaintiff. That was it. Then he goes, Okay, well, I'm gonna have to get back to you on that. Then what happens the next day, he sends him a letter saying that they breached the contract and it got dismissed. Oh, there we go. I saved I literally saved my own. But on that one, from getting dragged in. Yeah.

Stephanie Jaynes: 47:15

I think something that's really difficult this is this is both like a cautionary tale about some insurance providers, but also a cautionary tale against not having insurance. Because the reality is, it's one thing to inspect homes, it's another thing to manage, and address complaints that are coming from clients for home inspections, right, the home inspection industry is small, there are if you trust the US Census, on their predictions of how many home inspectors there are in a given year, there are only about 40,000 in the whole nation. That's a very small number when you compare it to a lot of other professions. So because it's so nice, it requires a lot of industry expertise and knowledge, which Yeah, unfortunately, you're not just going to run into if you try to hire an attorney yourself, or are working with an insurance provider who perhaps goes from working with home inspectors one minute to working with appraisers, or another type of contractor or doctors or whatever. And that specialization is really important. Because I mean, I would guess it not knowing this attorney personally, I would guess he didn't even understand the importance of a pre inspection agreement. Maybe he was sent a copy of your contract, but didn't even look at it. Whereas because our claims team only handles home inspector claims. That's all they look at. They know. Okay, first thing we're going to do look at this agreement. See if there's anything that we can do with that, yeah. Second thing we're going to do, look at the report, see if there's anything we can do it that third thing we're going to do look at any extra notes or photos that were taken that didn't end up in the report, but are still evidence from inspection day. But if you aren't dealing with home inspectors every single day, and the complaints that come against them, you don't really know how to address those kinds of things. Which is why, like I said, at least here at inspector Pro, our team only works with home inspectors, we don't work with any other types of insurance, and any other types of claims. And a lot of the attorneys we hire and even going back to our conversation about contracts the arbitration company that we recommend people go through and the the main one that we recommend his, uh, let me make sure I get their name right. As I'm talking about construction dispute resolution services, and even here in the name, they only work with the trades. So they see lots of home inspector complaints and lots of complaints that have to do with residential and some commercial properties. And because of that building knowledge that enables them to make much more sympathetic verdicts on the complaints that are coming through, then your typical arbitrator or small claims court judge who is going to be really sympathetic to the client, because they're the one they can identify with, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? Right, right.

John Laforme: 50:49

So what about attorneys fees clause? Do you have that in your contract?

Stephanie Jaynes: 50:54

I wasn't going to call you out on this. Because you brought it up? No way. That's fine. That's fine. So we are really, really, really, really, really against attorneys fees, clauses. So to catch people up on what this means. So an attorney's fees provision is a clause in your pre inspection agreement that awards legal expenses to one of the parties in a dispute. So an example of an attorney's fees provision would be in any arbitration or legal action in which were found to be without fault. The client agrees to reimburse us for any attorneys fees incurred at our defense of the proceeding. So the idea behind this provision is home inspector started in there because they think, Well, what's a good way to deter litigation? Again, we're talking all about risk management, what's a way in which I can prevent somebody from filing a lawsuit against me? Well, an attorney's fees provision sounds really good, because I'm basically telling them, Hey, if you take me to court, and it's not my fault, you're paying for it. And not at least should give them pots. So that's the logic behind it. The logic is sound. The problem is it doesn't work. And it can come back to bite you. So we actually wrote an article about this for the reporter in July of 2020. And we used Michelle Silla, who is pretty well known in the home inspection space because of her. Her work with a couple other vendors. And her speaking at some conferences, but anyway, the show has actually had an attorney's fees provision in their, in their agreement. And it came back to bite them essentially what happened was, they got a complaint, it was mold behind wallpaper. So it was pretty obvious that they weren't at fault. Um, but it escalated into this huge claim that didn't just bring them in, but also brought in the sellers, the listing agent, a bunch of other people involved in kind of a cover up. That happened.

John Laforme: 53:17

Right. Whoever went to the party

Stephanie Jaynes: 53:19

were dismissed. Yeah. From the court case. Yeah. But due to the provision in the inspection contract, the shows were still obligated to play the clients 1000s of dollars in attorneys fees, because the ultimate claim against the sellers and the real estate agent was still good. Does that make sense? Yeah. So the show was weren't at fault at all. They didn't do anything wrong. They were dismissed from the case, they didn't have to pay anything in damages for negligence to the client. But they did have to pay attorneys fees because of that provision, being in their contract. So the reason we say don't do it is just because if you are just one of a bunch of people named in a lawsuit, and any one of those people was negligent, and is legit, like at fault, you could end up paying attorneys fees. With everybody else on that list. Even if you're dismissed from the court case, generally, it's just a very dumb reality. I don't

John Laforme: 54:27

know I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to call I'm gonna have to get you on a phone call with Greg pi from who is I'm not sure if you heard of Greg. He's out here in California. He's a home inspection attorney. And I've had many, many talks with him. I've actually had him go through my contracts in the past and, and he demands it. He's like, You got to have this in here. And now now at different states, it could work differently. Would you agree?

Stephanie Jaynes: 54:53

I would also agree that depending on the case, you know, it can work differently, right. I mean, we we have seen attorneys provisions or attorneys fees provisions work out in people's favor before we've seen it happen. Yeah. seen it happen in the reverse, we just recommend like, hey, with with the ideal that cuz cuz what happened to the Sheila's is the opposite of the ideal you having to pay money when you're not at fault. That's kind of the thing that we're trying to avoid. So while it might be satisfying to get people to pay your attorneys fees, if you end up being able to prove that you weren't liable, ah, because it can hurt you when you aren't liable to begin with, we just recommend against it.

John Laforme: 55:45

Right? Yeah. So you made a good point, there was a whole bunch of people involved in that case. And so when I try to when I try to explain that to other people, I'm like, Look, everybody who came to the party has to clean up. And that's basically what it is. So just because, you know, the termite guy did something wrong. They're gonna go after him, they're gonna name me they're gonna name everybody that was at the party, everybody who walked in the door, any, any contractor, any inspector, any, the buyer, the who knows, I'm sorry, the seller, you know, everybody's going to be involved. So that's just that just goes hand in hand with with a legal proceeding, when there's a whole bunch of people involved, but they're just going after who's got the deepest pockets? And if you can prove you have no pockets, well, they might kick you loose.

Stephanie Jaynes: 56:32

Right. And that's actually an argument that a lot of people have for not caring insurance, people say, well, insurance money puts a target on our back in our experience, and obviously, we're biased because we're an insurance company. That isn't the case. And one of the ways in which we can kind of prove that is because there are some states that require insurance and some states that don't. And there's no correlation between, Hey, these are the states that require insurance, they get way more claims versus these other ones that don't they get way less, right? Ah, the only people who need to know you carry insurance or you and maybe if you're doing some inspections for a builder, and you need to provide some proof of insurance, you show them, right. There was one guy, this is a, this is a funny story, one client of ours. Though, type two years ago, she had had four claims or something come in in like, a month. Oh, and all of them were meritless. But it gave me pause. And I was just like, What is this guy doing? If anything, right? I don't know. It could be terrible luck. But what is happening? He's the common denominator, you have to just magnetize them, right? Yep. Well, turn turns out that he thought a good marketing strategy would be to market how high his insurance limits were. So on the homepage of his website, and also when he would meet potential clients and even

John Laforme: 58:16

study things I got, I got to scratch my head about that one. Okay, no.

Stephanie Jaynes: 58:23

She would talk about well, and it kind of makes sense. So some, some different people, you know, like, I'm, I'm doing work on my backyard right now. For in preparation for summer, and one of the general contractors that, you know, came over one of the ways he tries to differentiate himself is he says, Hey, I'm licensed and insured, not everybody, you know, who's coming in to give you a bid is licensed and insured. But he wasn't showing me You know, I carry 2 million and in coverage, so you know, but this guy was, I mean, a copy of his proof of insurance certificate was on his website, and I had to call him and be like, this is a terrible like, this is not working. And that's the only that is the only time in my experience being here for six years that I've seen insurance be a target, but it's because he was advertising it as if it was free money. As long as you're not doing that, right. Right. Nobody is going to come after you assuming that you have insurance money and it should increase your liability.

John Laforme: 59:31

Right. So you kind of have your little story that was a good story by the way. That was really good. That's the first time I was he still is he still you're

Stephanie Jaynes: 59:43

like a stress he is. Thankfully, like, other than that great inspector, like when it came to defending those claims, they were legit money grabs, like she didn't do anything wrong. You know, it's still headaches of having to deal with those things. But he, he had good quality work, you know. And he'd been in the industry for a long time, he'd been an inspector for over 10 years, this was like a move to, to try and compete with some of the newer guys who are coming into his area, and to try to differentiate it himself. But I was like, this just isn't the way to do it. I think part of the reason I was the one making the phone calls, I was the marketing person, telling him that this wasn't a good marketing strategy, and that there were other ways to market his business. But

John Laforme: 1:00:35

I actually had years ago, I did this inspection, and I can kind of picture the house to this day, it was a small house in Van Nuys area. And client hires me I show up, everything seems fine, you know, I go through the whole place. His realtor was there. And, and his dad was one of them, too. And then I don't know, maybe couple, three, four weeks later, I get this email. And it's kind of really vague, but it's got a picture under the house. And it says, John, it looks like you miss something. And it's just a photo under the house. There's no arrow, there's no, there's no indication. There's no explanation at all some. I'm like, Hmm, I'm not sure what you're showing me. What can you please explain what you're trying to point out here. And I never got a response back. And then, about a month later, I get a phone call from a woman saying that she's representing this client? And she goes, Well, I'm sure you're aware. He's a disabled vet. And I'm like, Well, no. Why would I? How would I know? Somebody? He's a disabled vet. He walked in the house by himself. He walked in without any kind of assistance. He just seemed like a normal guy. Me. Why would you think I should know that? Oh, you didn't know that? Like, well, no, I didn't know that well, with what's the problem, she was trying to get me to give her my insurance policy. She was a scam. I don't even know if that guy want to buy in the house. You know, he may not even bought it. And somebody else showed up. While you know, I'm going to try and scam this guy. For some, they were just trying to get my policy on that lady. If you have a complaint, I'm going to send you a form, you can fill it out. And then that's where it all starts. And she never I never heard from her again. But she was literally just trying to get me to give her my policy number and who to call file a claim was a scam. It was a total scam.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:02:30

That's so strange. But yeah. Just I mean, that's one of the perks of having an insurance provider you trust to is just being able to kind of call us in situations like this and be like, What do I do? What information do I need to collect? How do I respond? Um, cuz yeah, it's different all the time. You know, we've got people who call us because the real estate agent is getting sued. And they're like, Should I be worried yet? Uh, you know, because the reports are getting passed around to people who weren't their clients, they're like, Oh, how do I deal with this? You know? So finding an agent that you trust? Yeah. That you can call up with questions like this? Because we heard it before. Most of the time, how can be beneficial?

John Laforme: 1:03:27

Let me ask you this question to this. This has been happening quite a bit. And some people are kind of sneaky about it. Some of the clients or their relatives have kind of sneaky about it. So I start doing my overview. At the end of the inspection, they start recording me, I'm like, Are you recording me? Well, yeah. Because we want to send this to the client. But I'm not here to do a verbal. I'm not here to do a video inspection. I don't want you recording me. Well, as I'm just giving you a couple bits and pieces of what's going on with the house, I have to go home and just detail out a complete report for us is that if I do any kind of talking right now, it's not to be recorded, because you're going to take it out of context. And I'm not finished, I have to look at all the pictures underneath the house I took, I have to look at all the photos. I'm not done yet. So please don't do that. And they just think it's normal just to throw on their camera and start videotaping. Do you guys have a problem with that?

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:04:21

I haven't heard about that phenomenon. Before. Most of the things I've been talking with inspectors and claim students about right now is the opposite. Um, since doing our article on body cams a couple years ago, we're having more and more inspectors interested in wearing them and using them. So we've gotten a lot of calls about, okay, how do I do this? What do I do if a client is upset by the fact that I'm wearing a body cam or like the seller is because it's their house and their stuff? Like how do I approach that? Um, but I haven't heard of issues With the opposite where people are recording you. And that can be tricky. And but going back to the thing that we were talking about earlier, which is the things I say to you verbally, are not my official report, right. I think the easiest way to encapsulate that is to write that statement in your inspection agreement, and it's already in there. Yep. Yep. And that's the best thing you can do. Because then should they use their secret video footage? Like maybe you were able to catch them in the act and say, Hey, yes, don't follow me like this? Yeah. Like, let's just not do that.

John Laforme: 1:05:44

Oh, man. Yeah. So I didn't notice,

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:05:47

for example, and then it was brought against you later, you could just say, hey, my verbal comments in my written comments are different, like I was able to find things in the photos that, you know, changed my verbal statement. So you need to honor those instead? And the best? Yeah, the best way of dealing with that is having it in your agreement in your report. Yep. Yep. That's weird. I haven't heard that. California seems to be you guys start some of the weird trends that we see. We have a lot of a lot of our insurer inspectors come out of California. But also California, as you know, and I could say this, because I already told you I'm a California native. But a lot of like the weird kind of complaints and things kind of start seven times in California, like the report sharing I mentioned earlier, those are phenomenons that will start to bubble up in California before they bubble up in some other places, sometimes for us.

John Laforme: 1:06:48

So I want to I want to cover how inspectors say they can't afford insurance. This is just cracks me okay. Sorry. This is this, to me is just absolutely ridiculous. If you are a business owner, just the fact that you said you're a business owner, you have expenses, right out of the gate, whatever that is, okay? It's going to be whatever kind of business you're in, you're going to have expenses. This is one of those expenses that you make room for. Okay, at the very beginning of your expense list. My insurance is my insurance paid is my insurance paid just like your car insurance. Even if you buy a used car that's paid for you pay cash for it, you still going to get insurance, right? I think you're kind of a dummy if you don't, so I don't mind saying that. Now, my policy, if I just pay cash for it, it's like 2800, or 2900, something like that. But I financed it, because I'm in no rush to give you my money. So I just kind of do the, I just kind of do the finance option, because that's what I like to do. But that boils down to like just over $250 a month. So to put this in perspective, if you're a home inspector who only wants to do one inspection a month, well, then I understand that this kid's not affordable, you can't afford to have insurance, because you're only making, I don't know, four or 500 bucks a month. But if you're a serious home inspection company, or a serious home inspector who's actually out there doing to at least one a day, that's if you did one a day, that's like 30 houses a month. And if your average price is $400, how can you not afford to pay 250 bucks for insurance a month? It doesn't make any sense to me. So I just look at people and scratch my head going, What are you talking about? You can't afford insurance, you can't afford not to have insurance?

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:08:40

Yeah, I think for people who are in states where insurance is not required, it feels much more like an optional expense. In large part, because, you know, you're paying quite a bit out the gate, especially if you try to pay in full. And because, um, a lot of guys, when they're starting out, or maybe working part time, the number of inspections that they're doing aren't as high. So they figure my likelihood of receiving a claim isn't as high, which there is some truth to that there is a correlation between the number of inspections you perform, and your likelihood of a claim meaning. The more instructions you perform, the more likely you are to receive a claim just because it's just like the number of getting to a car, the more likely you are to get into an accident, right? Similar. For me, there are kind of like two major arguments, why insurance, it's actually more expensive not to carry insurance. The first is that the whole purpose of insurance is really to address those big claims. You know, those things that kind of are out of the blue, that you can expect that come back to bite you. And again, going back to the the statistic we shared earlier, when 80% of the claims against people in the industry are meritless, you're statistically likely to get something even if you are the best inspector in the world. Yeah, in fact, another statistic we haven't talked about yet, is that over half of all inspectors will face at least one claim during their careers. So if more than one in every two inspectors, he's getting at least one claim, you know, you're you're just, the question becomes do I want to go at it by myself for with help. Um, so obviously, when you have the expertise of a specialized insurance company, like us, with experience claims adjusters and attorneys, like we've talked about, we're way more likely to be able to dismiss this, at little to no cost to you, as opposed to you trying to defend it yourself, or hire an attorney yourself, which can be a lot more expensive, right. Um, the second thing that I would bring up is similar to what you mentioned, I think the price of insurance is less of an issue if you are charging enough to mitigate your risk. Um, so one of the things that we've seen as the space has gotten to be more competitive is some home inspector solutions are to be the low price guy, you know, like, I'm the Inspector who's going to charge the least for my services, and that's how I'm going to capture business. But, um, if you read any, you know, books on business, it's just a fact that if you compete based on price, it's just a race to the bottom. Yep. And you will end up unable to sustain your various expenses and things. It's, it's very difficult, especially in a service based industry versus like a product based industry, a product based industry would be you sell shoes or something, right. And a service based industry, it's really, really, really difficult to write on price. Just because if you don't see and put $1 value to your services and your expertise, like other people will, either. Mmm, yeah. And the reality is, I mean, you, you shared your, your average, average annual cost, California is a little more expensive. And depending on the amount of inspections and things you do there, there are all sorts of things that affect price that we can talk about if you wanted to. But I'm looking at the entire nation, the average that most of our inspectors are paying is somewhere between 15 120 500 bucks a year. So if when you're starting your business, you're putting that into your calculator as one of your business costs, just like you would business cards, and equipment and tools and all kinds of those other things that you need. Um, then you'll be able to figure out, okay, I need to be charging at least 350 bucks and inspection to cover these costs and make a profit. Yep,

John Laforme: 1:13:41

there's this one a one.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:13:44

Which I mean, I get it, I think a lot of people are attracted to the home inspection industry, in part because of the ability to start your own business, be your own boss, control your schedule. And I totally see the alert. And those things, especially if you are somebody who comes from the trades with a lot of that knowledge and you want to spread that knowledge, use it to your advantage. But yeah, you have to have some of the business savvy that you can't get from your traditional continuing ed courses. And knowing how to price your services so that you can pay your expenses is one of those pieces of business savvy, which we actually have an article on pricing our inspections on our website, too.

John Laforme: 1:14:30

And I want to add to that, I want to add to that a bit too with shortcuts when it comes to when it comes to you know, home inspectors who want to just work for themselves, you know, they may not have ever had a business before. So right once again, it's a learning curve just like your software's to learn. My toughest thing when I did this was the software was a learning curve for me. I never had to deal with that type of software before and other and other past businesses or jobs. You know, I just never did, but but that business part for me was very easy. Easy because I'd had businesses in the past. So it was just kind of like a basic 1234. And then you're up and running. But if you if if you guys out there are girls out there don't have business experience, then you should get help for that. So people can set you up correctly. So you're covered correctly, right from the beginning, because I kind of agree and disagree with some of what you said a little while ago about the but you're going by stats, so you're probably right. No, I'm just giving you my opinion.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:15:30

Disagree with me, I am totally

John Laforme: 1:15:32

fine. I'm not gonna, I'm not Yeah, I'm not gonna say I disagree completely, because it can easily go either way. But I look at when you first start being a home inspector is when you're most at risk, because you are just learning. And you don't have a system in place yet, unless, of course, you came from a multi inspector firm, where you already had training and you have a system in place that you already use. If you have that system in place of I do the kitchen first, then I do the bathrooms, then at the attic. If you have all that and you stick to that routine, chances are you'll have I think you'll have less of a claim issue. That's something we didn't mention yet. So I guess I can get into that now. So this is

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:16:14

actually something you picked up on and your instincts are correct. So back when we started doing this, and didn't have the statistics to back it up, we inferred kind of based on how other insurance works. If you're a brand new driver, or you get you're young and you have your first license, you're more likely to get in an accident, then, you know, some of the older guys who are more experienced, we assumed that that was going to be the case with inspecting isn't isn't. So the correlation there is a little tricky. So there's some truth to the fact that in your first three years, you're more vulnerable. But there's a lot of things that like impact how vulnerable you are right, and the big one that you mentioned. So there are two mentioned first is whether or not you've had experience inspecting, or even just being in the trades before that has a huge impact and whether or not like, and how much your your vulnerability to claims is the second thing, which I I'm really proud of you for picking up on because Thank you like a lot of comments vectors Don't. Don't think about it. Do you have procedures so that when you inspect one house, and then you respect the next house, like you start and end in the same places? Like yeah, you walk around the outside, and then you go to the basement, and then you do whatever your procedure is, you're checking things the same way, every house every time. Yeah. And once you get into multi inspector firms, all your guys are doing that, too. That is so important and make such such a huge difference. In and whether or not you're you're missing stuff. Um, so yeah, those are we we used to think the correlation was a lot stronger, we're starting to think, okay, it's not as strong as we originally thought, like the new guys are, like just destined to have more claims than the ones that have been around for a long time. Not necessarily anyway, it kind of depends on what their experiences and what procedures they have in place from the get go. That's really where we kind of are able to determine there, whether there's an increase in liability and vulnerability or not.

John Laforme: 1:18:38

And some new inspectors can also over report, which is kind of like a blanket coverage. You know, they're they've reported the things they have to report and they went overboard. And blanketed the all these other little possible points that never arose because they actually did that, you know, when I first started, I over reported, you know, but then again, depends on who you're dealing with that day, if you're dealing with a relative who's used to a minimalist inspection guy who just comes in and goes, bang, bang, bang, and he's out in 45 minutes. You know, they may be looking at me go hey, you over report and like, Why? Why do I over report? Oh, what do you used to dealing with the last inspection you use? Had? What a five page report? You know, that's just, it's just not right. So, it all depends on who's at the party that day. You might get some criticism on that. But you know what, another point I want to give to home inspectors is you have got to run your business, the way you want to run your business. A lot of times you're going to get pushy Realtors calling you and they're going to try to sway you off your policies to get them do them a favor. Oh, you do this for me. I'll get you 15 more inspections a month. That's a bunch of BS right there. I've heard that line so many times. And I just nowadays when I get that call, I'm just like, oh, wow, really? That's awesome. And I kind of just, you know, patronize I'm a little bit because it's so it's so ridiculous the offer they're giving you I'm like, ma'am, I'm already doing 30 houses a month. I'm one guy, I can't do any more, I don't need 15 more houses. So would you like me to come do that house for you tomorrow not, it's kind of like that. So

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:20:14

it comes from the confidence that you have as a specter and having been in it, I'm more sympathetic to some of the guys who are newer and are really struggling to drum up business. Um, but I kind of think I've been in terms of, I mean, I'm biased. I'm pregnant right now with my second one. So I think a lot. Thank you. And, you know, educating kids, and also some of the things kids go through, I mean, it's classic peer pressure, right? When you're, when you're being told to do one thing by a client or a real estate agent, because it's going to be better for you. And I think the best way to prepare and this is a part of risk management is know what you're going to say and how you're going to say it before you run into that situation. And stick to you even mentioned in a lot of your stories. So far, when you get phone calls and things like that, you have a forum that you sent to clients who have complaints, so that they can fill it out with all of the information that you need to then address their complaint and address it with the insurance company and things like that. Having that sort of preparation ahead of time. It's a really important risk management tools.

John Laforme: 1:21:28

That's number one. Yeah,

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:21:31

yeah. You can't wait until somebody is badgering you about your prices to come up with the reason why your prices what it is, right? Same thing with, you know why the agreement has to be signed ahead of time, like you should, you should make sure that you think about your answers to those types of questions yourself so that you can better explain those things to your client. Because it's it's much harder to do when you're put on the spot.

John Laforme: 1:21:59

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. There's a lot there. I mean, I could easily get into helping guys market but I don't think that's what this podcast is about.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:22:09

Probably not. But it could be you could have a person on after me.

John Laforme: 1:22:15

Yeah, I'm doing a I'm sure I'll I haven't done a specific podcast on how I did it with marketing. But I touched on it on my last episode, with another inspector I had sitting across from me just kind of talking about random stuff and drinking some beer. You know, it was kind of a really laid back podcast that day. I don't see you have a beer. But I now I know why. Because you're pregnant. They

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:22:36

didn't have Yeah, they didn't have a logo behind them, and a podcast mic in front of them while they were talking to you.

John Laforme: 1:22:46

That's hilarious. Let's see. What else did I want to cover here today? Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about? Anything that I might overlooked?

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:22:57

I mean, I think we've talked about a lot of it. Like we've touched on some really important points,

John Laforme: 1:23:03

I think, I think so

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:23:04

I think the main thing I would want people to get out of this, or at least be you know, at least curious about it open to is there's a lot of information out there and available to you about how you can limit your liability and manage your risk. And it's simple stuff. Like, yes, a lot of the a lot of the things that you need to do. aren't, you know, these cataclysmic changes you need to make to the way that you're inspecting and doing business, at least hopefully not? Right? Most the time, it's snapping a few extra pictures, or investing in a software that emails their agreement ahead of time for, you know, take us up on the fact that we have these agreements now that you can use. Um, you have, there are a lot of resources out there. Go ahead.

John Laforme: 1:24:06

Did you say you had state state specific agreements? I'd like to see you guys. So anyone

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:24:12

that I do. I have a couple actually, depending?

John Laforme: 1:24:17

You said, can you send me a California one? Because that's where I live?

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:24:20

Yes. And you get $1,000 off your deductible, if you use the agreement, and really, from an instruction with that, yeah, we're that confident in it. And a free claim is if you combine it with some of our other discounts, it could mean that you spend $0 Even if it goes to court.

John Laforme: 1:24:41

I think I didn't hear you say one thing did you say $1,000 off and then did you say a free claim or some?

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:24:48

So we have multiple deductible discounts, programs, all based on your risk management practices. So the first one is is you can get a discount for consecutive years without claims. So every year, you don't have a claim up to five years, you can get 10% off your deductible, then we have the early reporting discount for using pre claims assistance, which pre claims assistance is exactly what it sounds like. It's it's a program that we have to stifle client complaints before they turn into claims. So for us a claim as a written demand for money, right. But if you're just getting a phone call, like yelling at you, that's not a claim yet, but it could turn into one, let us help you resolve it for free. And if it does turn into a claim we're not successful, then you at least get a discount. And then the third one is, if you use one of our state specific pre inspection agreements that we put out this year, you can take not a percentage off, but $1,000 off. So if you combine all those three discounts with with two of the deductibles, if you have the 1500, or the 2500, there's a good chance you pay $0 on your deductible, if you have the$5,000 deductible, you could get it as low as 250. But the point is, the idea is we're giving you incentives for basic risk management practices that you should already be doing to protect your business because we're just confident that they work. And we'll put our money where our mouth is, and yeah, sounds like you still get a claim we'll pay for it is basically what we're saying. Um, but yeah, with the agreements, the seven years in the making. We released them in January, I, I have looked at every single one, but more from the more from like, my English major, and marketing background, like I looked for grammar, and then I looked for nuances, so I could talk about them on things like this. But the people actually writing them were attorneys. Um, but yeah, we went through every single state, looked at what was out there looked at what claims we'd received again, over the last 12 years or so to see if there was any case law that we felt needed to be incorporated into it, that would add or remove various provisions. And we're really, really proud of them. Obviously, we haven't had too long to test them out. And lots of our inspectors have been adopting them as their agreements as they were new their insurance for the year. Um, but we're really, really excited about them.

John Laforme: 1:27:47

Okay, oh, if you guys are handling it, and it's, you know, the legal side of it comes your way, and you're comfortable with him. What's that? That's a lot. That's a lot to be said, right there.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:27:56

Yeah, as far as I know, we're the only insurance company that has put together pre inspection agreements for home inspectors. I know, there are some franchises and associations that have done agreements, but they haven't been state specific unless, of course, the franchise or association is state specific. And they haven't incorporated claims case law like we have, simply because they haven't had access to it.

John Laforme: 1:28:25

Well, you know, it sounds to me, like your company's doing the right things. And it's, you're taking the pre emptive approach. And if you guys keep pushing that onto your inspectors, it's going to have a trickle down effect, and then everyone's gonna catch on. And to me, it's common sense. It's just look, what why Why walk into a situation when all these open doors when you can walk in with only one open the one you have to walk through, you know what I mean? Don't Don't Don't leave all these openings. And that's what I think a lot of inspectors do they did this leave themselves open to problems by not doing this or doing this this way. So yeah, you got I think you guys got a good thing go in there. Everything you just said, makes a lot of sense to me. And, and that's a, that's a good, that's a good marketing for getting more business. So anybody listening, but you've got to get signed up with an inspector Pro, because they're actually doing things and they're doing things to help us. So I would definitely give them a call. And who do they ask for? If

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:29:23

you're interested, go to our website, Inspector pro insurance.com. We have our application there. So you could apply for errors, omissions insurance, and general liability insurance. So again, those are if you're accused of being negligent, and then general liability, which we did talk about very much.

John Laforme: 1:29:39

Oh, that's right. We need to can you mention that real quick? Okay. Sure. Yeah.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:29:43

So not as common as Arizona missions claims but still really important. So general liability is when you cause bodily injury or property damage during your inspection. So the most common ones Again, water damage is really common, but this is different. So the most common water damage general liability claim when we're talking about that is you're inspecting a system, let's say the tub, you leave it running, walk out of the bathroom to go inspect something else, while the tub fills up, it overflows, and you flooded the place of my our worst. And it may not be the worst, ever. But this one came in last year. And it was very memorable. It was a Condo Inspection. And it was like a multi level, almost like an apartment complex, but it was technically a condo. He's on the fifth floor. And he turned the water on. And literally every single unit all the communal spaces, their like basement area where they had just like their, their, you know, stuff anyway, wow, flooded that entire place. That was a lovely general, like, sociology. Um, another common one, power outages, actually. So if you trip the GFCI My favorite story about this was a narrow, like escape for us and the inspector cuz it ended up getting dropped. But so what happened was, the home inspector was testing the exterior world outlets, he tripped the GFCI breaker in the crash. And there was a bunch of stuff, he knew he did it, but there was a bunch of stuff in the garage, so he couldn't locate the wall outlet to reset the GFCI. So he just made a note of it in his report, I was like, Hey, I couldn't turn this back on. We know why this is going to be a problem. Because again, people do not read reports at all or immediately sometimes. So the problem was the person who read the report, they either overlooked the trip breaker or they didn't like read in a time. But the seller was a scientist and had rare seeds in this refrigerator. Oh, I'm talking$500,000 worth of rare seeds in these garage refrigerators. Ah, so that was the claim that landed on our desk. And we're like, ah, but thankfully, the seller dropped the claim for reasons unrelated to the inspection. I think if I'm remembering correctly, um, the company that the the seller worked for, that dealt with these rare seeds, they had insurance that they were able to tap into and use instead of blaming the inspector. But it could have been a half a million dollar claim that he was liable for?

John Laforme: 1:32:58

Well, well, my input on that is this shame on the say, shame on the scientists for plugging a frigerator into a GFCI receptacle in the first place. That's that's just not a good idea. Anybody with a home and you have a garage with a GFCI? Don't plug your frigerator in there and go on vacation, because you may come back to all your all your purchasable goods being you know, just no good anymore. And then to the inspector that was he pushing the button on his tester. Is that why he tripped that thing? Because it was on a?

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:33:28

I don't know, I don't know, bliss effects, but he did something.

John Laforme: 1:33:31

Yeah. I wouldn't recommend doing that. Guys. We've all done it. Look, I've done it in the past. And I realized, you know what, I can't find this breaker. I mean, I mean, it's GFCI it couldn't find it anywhere in the house. And I had to tell him, but what I do my advice for that if you come across that where you've tripped something and you can't find it, make sure you tell everybody there before you leave that you need to know that. Yes, you need to make sure you tell them as don't just put it in your report and just forget to tell them on the way out because they're going to come home and expect their stuff to be on. That's a bad one. So yeah, I would just make sure you tell everybody in the house.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:34:07

Yeah. The other thing that's really common where we've seen it be an issue is with hunters, that's when we run into an issue. So again, a trip a breaker or cause some sort of power outage. And we've got freezers full of meat that people got from hunting. That's another like weirdly common.

John Laforme: 1:34:31

One that would not know your first if not your first offense can be from your places. What are you doing plug in your fridge right into a GFCI

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:34:39

right. next most common general liability claim a stealing holes. So literally you're putting your foot through the ceiling when you're walking around up there, that's really common. And then fourth Now if you want to read a lot of like interesting comments and discussion, this is this is other than like the top claims articles generally, our most talked about article series was our garage door series. Do you remember this one? Did you read our garage door series? I don't remember. So it came from this, we wrote a two part article series on garage doors after this top general liabilities claims list came out. And it's because a another common general liability claim, in our experience, the fourth most common is it comes from you testing, doing the performance test on the garage, right? When you do the auto reverse pressure activated test, whether you're doing it with to buy for your hands, whatever. Um, it's during that auto reverse test that something breaks, and then the inspector is held liable for that garage door. So in our two part series, we go over all the ways to do the test, and then various associations and home instructors opinions on whether or not you should or shouldn't do the test. And people got my lights are turning on

John Laforme: 1:36:22

me. Yeah, it just came back on,

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:36:28

people got very heated and very excited about their opinions. On the auto reverse test that was that I'm not even just like people whether or not you should perform it, but the people that how to perform it, whether you should do with your hands or to buy for, like, people were getting nasty to each other. And that's for

John Laforme: 1:36:49

sure, I, I do not use two by fours to test garage doors. If it's an auto reverse by you know, I, if it's that type without the electric guys, then I'll just grab it with my hands. Just give it a little resistance. And if it's going to work, it's going to work. But uh, yeah, I don't I don't get embed into it like that. I just I test the door my own way, but I haven't had any issues yet.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:37:14

And then the last one was, or is frozen plumbing. So similar to you know, a power outage happens. But this could even be you know, you're testing the H HVAC system. You forget to turn the heat on. And it's the middle of winter and you live somewhere like not California and it gets really cold. And the sellers are out for a while. And their pipes freeze and burst. Or it's like more common is it's an unoccupied home. I left the heat off when you left. Oh god because it's vacant. It has time to get cold enough for the pipes have burst. Yeah. And there's a lot of damage that comes Yeah, I don't have that problem. So those are liability claims. Notice how most of them are property damage. We don't deal with that many bodily injury claims. However, when we do, they're some of the most expensive claims we get if you can imagine. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, somebody during your inspection. I

John Laforme: 1:38:16

was gonna ask you have you had any claims yet with drones, giving clients haircuts, stuff like that.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:38:23

So we we have had at least one claim that I know of where a drone ran into somebody. It wasn't like severe. I think they got like a little scratch on there. But, uh, yeah, but not anything crazy yet. Most home inspectors, at least in our experience, thankfully, like had been pretty smart and have followed our advice to get some training on using their drones before they go and bring them to an inspection. So we haven't actually seen a lot of drone injury claims. We see a lot more of what you talked about earlier in the podcast, people following inspectors up their ladders.

John Laforme: 1:39:05

Yeah. And don't let them do that. You got to

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:39:09

Yeah, the sign thing is great. So like having a sticker having a sign. We know people who use cones, that is not a bad idea either. And it's not just keeping them off the roof but keeping them out of the crawlspace keeping them out of the attic. Yeah. Just telling people you know, hey, this area that I'm about to expect it's not safe. Yeah, one time like wearing the appropriate like attire to get right next to this electrical panel. You know, like, you're just you can't do that

John Laforme: 1:39:44

right. So here's a quick little story for you. I had a house to do. It was a mid century one level. Single family homes pretty big. And but I can only put my ladder up in certain areas just because the way it was built up against the hillside and stuff and, and when I had to set up my ladder I had to be it had to be steep, like almost straight up, and I didn't like climbing it. First of all, because, you know, it's dangerous for me, but I used a lot of caution. I knew what I was doing. And then I walk across the roof. And this is a pretty big house. So the roofs pretty big. It's a flat roof. And I turn around I Oh, actually, I'm looking at something I hear somebody say I'm like, what that was talking to me. That's right around. My doctor client is on the roof. I'm like, What are you doing? I'm like, What are you doing up here? He said, What do you mean? I said, You shouldn't shouldn't climb my ladder. It goes, Oh, the realtor told me I could climb your ladder. Oh, I wish you with it. I wish you were there for that when I wish somebody videotaped me. School, this young realtor up and down. I was all over him. I said, Don't you ever tell someone to climb someone's ladder? Again, you know, the liability we're talking about here? And it was like this. I was like this. So that didn't? Yeah, so don't if you're a realtor don't don't tell you the customers to climb ladders. And it's just not good. It's just not good. So yeah, that's, that's why it's important to put stickers on there. And people ask, can I follow you around? No. I don't want you to follow me around either. You guys ever have problems with that? Like customers following the the contract around? I mean, that the inspector around?

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:41:25

I mean, so we we touched on it? We asked about it during a preparation for one of our other articles on you know whether or not it's good to have a client present at the inspection or not. And people talking about one of the negatives is maybe that issue is they're trying to get into places where they shouldn't. And again, it goes back to this have your rules before you start the inspection. So you kind of know how to handle clients who are falling like you can follow me into these areas or not? Or, Hey, you're not allowed to follow me at all. But I will give you a walkthrough at the end. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. That kind of stuff, like just have your rule ahead of time. And then stick to it and just be like, these are my rules, you're way better off establishing that kind of stuff ahead of time. Yeah, ladders of danger and stuff like that. The last kind of insurance that we do sell, which we started two or three years ago, we sell workers compensation for home inspectors, as well. So especially multi inspector firms who want to keep their clients safe, not their clients, their inspector safe to, um, that is something definitely to look at. And we do articles on safety, as well. So we actually have an article on ladder safety. We have an article, what's it coming out?

John Laforme: 1:43:04

Well, I got a few pointers for you on that. And that ladder safety if you haven't thought of it already. Sure. Be careful with those telescoping ladders when you're using them for roofs. Because if because they have a smooth metal surface, and if they touch the gutter, they get to smooth surfaces touching and when you step off, the ladder can get kicked out from under you. I do not you I almost happen to me once. But my cat like reflexes saved my butt. And I just I just grabbed on real quick, you know, so that saved me from that. But so at that point, I no longer use that to get on a roof. I use a little giant and I have rubber strips on the bottom of the on the back of the ladder that touch the gutter so that there's no slippage at all. Yeah, that was scary. Yeah, you don't want to do that. ladders are

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:43:47

no joke. And unfortunately, we hear about a lot of our instructors and other inspectors. I mean, you've seen on Facebook all the time, guys going off of roofs and off of ladders. It's just a common way to get injured. Um, but yeah, we've done articles on that we've done articles on electrical safety, the one I was looking at. So on the 15th of this month, we have our snakes article coming out that was actually by the request of some other inspectors. Yeah, that we interviewed for other things. How to Stay safe.

John Laforme: 1:44:24

Would that be like Louisiana or North Carolina or something like that? We're all listening. Yeah,

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:44:28

a lot of the Lakes, Florida and Louisiana people had like a lot to say, I hate snakes. I didn't even want to look at the pictures that we included on the articles identifying the snakes. But yeah, so we're trying to put out content that's, that's helpful for that element of risk management to just staying safe during your inspections. But yeah, it was partially inspired by we did an infographic a couple years ago on animal tax, in part because there was a a home inspector in the industry again, this was really huge on Facebook who, who got mauled by three dogs during an inspection? Oh, it was awful. It was really, really terrible. Um, and it kind of sparked this conversation about what do you even do when there are potentially dangerous animals, particularly dogs, but also other animals? Sure, on the property. So we did a bunch of interviews and some research and put together an infographic on that. But one of the animals that was brought up that was somewhat regionally specific, but not as much as like gators and bears, which are other ones that were brought up. Is people encountering bears and gators.

John Laforme: 1:45:48

That happens that that happens. That happens up in this area up in the mountains area, la Kenyatta Flint ridge. I've actually

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:45:57

got a guy who was talking me about it was in Northern California. Yeah. So

John Laforme: 1:46:01

over here, well, this is Southern California is just that it's just the foothills area of Southern California. Okay, talking about and, and one day, I remember going to a job in that area, and I saw a bear across the street. And I'm like, shit. I'm like, I was afraid to get under the house and come out and have this thing staring at me. So I'm like scoping the neighborhood for a couple of minutes. Go. Is this thing gonna sneak up on me or what? That's a little jarring when there's a black bear. Just cruising around the street like doo doo doo doo doo. But real quick, I want to tell you about a funny snake story that recently happened to me. Oh, okay. I don't I never see snakes. I never see snake skins. I don't see any of that. I've never seen that. In California. And again, I'm in Los Angeles area, Southern California. Okay,

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:46:50

cuz I grew up in Los Angeles. Yeah. You know, you don't see snakes.

John Laforme: 1:46:53

Yeah. So basically, I get this phone call from one of my customers. She goes, so John, thanks for the report and everything. I'm like, Okay, so what's going on? She goes, Well, the termite guy was under the house. And he said he saw snake trails underneath the house. And I'm like, Oh, really? So I said, Well, let me check my pictures, but I don't recall seeing any snake sales. So as I'm starting to open the folders for my fifth pictures, I'm thinking, is he referring to my little robot tracks from my little crawl bot I use underneath the house. That's what it was. He thought he thought my crawl the wheels from my crowbar or snake tracks. And I was laughing as I call the client back. I said, You know what? I think he's referring to this. And I showed her a picture. She's so she was like, do I need to get it? Do I need to get a snake specialist out here said I think you're good.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:47:40

Yeah. Yeah, you don't want snakes in your house. The worst snake story I heard. We we used to do this. We don't do it anymore. Because we have our funny home inspection story contest every year. That's coming out. But we did for a couple years a spooky home inspection story contest. It just wasn't as popular. So we didn't do. We stopped doing it after a couple years. But the one that won one year was actually a guy in Australia. And he got stuck like he got his foot caught in something he might have put his foot through the ceiling or maybe it got stuck somewhere else. He got stuck in the attic. And you know, Australia, just giant poisonous snake. He watches it devouring like a rodent in one corner of the attic. And it's slithering over him to get to it. Whoa, he's just like losing his mind scare. They fully people hurt him and we're able to help get him out. Oh, but yeah, I was like, have not fun. But anyway, that's coming out on the 15th if you want to, if you're worried about snakes on your inspections, yeah. Well, I think I've good stories to share and share them with us on social media.

John Laforme: 1:49:03

You need to check out if you haven't already. Check out my YouTube channel. I got some great crawlspace videos on there of what I find under houses. Oh, yeah, it's pretty cool. Some

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:49:13

of the funny home inspection story. submissions have been things that people find in crawl spaces that they initially think are scary and then ends up being funny. Yeah, like we're dog collections. Or I won't get one but there was one guy who the home inspector, the real estate agent, and the buyer all thought that he had found very treasure and he did find something but it was not what they when they open the box. It was not what they expected. So let you go read that one.

John Laforme: 1:49:50

Alright, I'll check it out. I'll check it out. But hey, you know what? I think we're good. I think we covered everything. Thank you again for taking the time because we just had almost two hours here.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:50:01

I know but it's so much fun. There's so much to talk about when

John Laforme: 1:50:04

you can converse and have good stuff. I tell all my all my guests, you know what? It could be an hour, it could be two, as long as you haven't fun. We're just talking. What's there's no rush? There's no rush at all.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:50:14

Well, great. I appreciate you having me. And yeah, anytime if you end up having more questions, or if you get questions submitted and want me to come back to answer stuff, Oh, absolutely. There's a million things you could still talk about,

John Laforme: 1:50:26

now that I've formally met you, I will keep you in mind that any type of insurance stuff comes up. And if I can help out with your education part and trying to help everybody get get through this thing we call inspections better than I'm all for it, because that's what I tried to do in trying to educate people. And I learned stuff. I learned new stuff all the time. So I don't know everything, but I absorb a lot.

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:50:51

There's a guy, a business guy named Simon Sinek. And he wrote a series of books like the the most popular one, and he has a TED talk about this. It's called Start with Why. And the the premise of the book is, people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. And I think the reason that home inspectors who are educators are successful. And one of the reasons we've been successful as an insurance company is because we actually have the same way as our home inspectors are why is we want to use our expertise and our knowledge to educate home inspectors so that they can better manage their risk. And the reason that works so well is home inspectors have the same one for the clients. They want to use their expertise and their knowledge to help their clients manage their risk when they're buying homes. Right. Yep. So yeah, we're, we're actually like, really on the same page when it comes to why we do what we do. Even if it looks like kind of different on the outside.

John Laforme: 1:52:03

Yeah, that's awesome. That's it, man. So John here from home inspection, and I want to thank again, my special guest, Stephanie Jane's well, great

Stephanie Jaynes: 1:52:13

meeting you. Yeah.

John Laforme: 1:52:17

Okay, just a friendly reminder, if you're buying a home, don't panic, Home Inspection authority inspection authority, you can schedule us online or go into home inspection authority. Inspection. Authority four. We offer general home inspections, mold inspections and testing, sewer camera inspections, indoor air quality testing, swimming pool and spa inspections, and light commercial inspections. We use specialized tools to provide the most thorough inspection possible such as drone for roof inspections that are not accessible. Crawl bought for under homes and tight crawlspace is to get to those areas otherwise not accessible. And we use thermal imaging technology as well. So give us a call at 800-950-8184. Like I said you can schedule online at home inspection authority inspection authority for seven