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My first encounter with Harvey Goodman was on the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters assembly in Carmel, California, in 1985. I used to be 26 years outdated and giving my first speech to a public adjuster group after leaving property insurance coverage protection. There may be at all times one individual within the crowd who likes to quiz the speaker—Harvey Goodman.
Since then, I’ve developed a deep respect for Harvey after engaged on a lot of circumstances, discussing varied insurance coverage protection points and easily observing how he conducts himself and his enterprise. When folks ask me who the most effective public adjusters within the enterprise are, he has been on my prime 5 record for many years. It’s onerous for me to think about a property insurance coverage subject the place his examine, information, and precise expertise merely will not be on the highest depth of understanding.
Right here is Harvey Goodman’s interview:
Who based the corporate, and what position did it play within the founding of the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters?
The corporate was shaped in 1941 by a merger of the Goodman-Wagner firm and Gable & Gould. The founding president and driving drive of Goodman Gable Gould (GGG) was Will Goodman. Will Goodman was additionally a founding father of the Nationwide Affiliation of Public Insurance coverage Adjusters (NAPIA) and its President for NAPIA’s first six years.
Paul Cordish was Common Counsel to NAPIA from its founding in 1941 till roughly 2000. Cordish was the lawyer who integrated GGG in 1941. Paul Cordish and Will Goodman have been greatest buddies.
Is the Goodman who was the primary President of NAPIA your grandfather?
Will Goodman was my father’s uncle. My grandfather was by no means within the public adjusting enterprise. There hasn’t been a Gable within the enterprise since earlier than I used to be born, and there hasn’t been a Gould within the firm for 2 generations.
Many individuals mistakenly assume that I’m a lineal descendant of NAPIA’s founder. Nevertheless, my grandfather handed away when my father was eight years outdated. My father went to work within the agency after faculty, attended regulation faculty at evening and was the president of NAPIA in 1986.
GGG has had seven previous presidents of NAPIA. Amongst these embody Karl Denison, who has been working at GGG for 42 years. My cousin Randy can be a previous president and has been within the public adjusting enterprise for over 50 years.
When did you first get entangled within the enterprise, and what did you do?
I began within the enterprise whereas in faculty doing private property inventories and have labored right here full time (and typically extra) for 47 years.
At one time, you deliberate to go to regulation faculty and that didn’t final—why not?
After faculty, I attended regulation faculty for less than three days and determined it was not for me. I’ve been deposed and testified many occasions as a witness. I discover it attention-grabbing what number of legal professionals have commented that I made the proper choice to cease once they discover out I continued with public adjusting slightly than a profession in regulation.
My dad and mom have been dissatisfied, however I realized that searching for your individual path results in a extra productive and satisfying profession and life. The precept of discovering your individual path slightly than any individual selecting it for you has helped me be a greater mum or dad, and each mum or dad wants all the assistance they will get.
What has been your historical past with NAPIA conventions?
The primary annual conference assembly that I attended was in Atlantic Metropolis after I was 13 years outdated. I do not forget that as a result of I received bar mitzvah’d a few weeks later. To at the present time, I bear in mind a few public adjusters who have been near my dad giving me bar mitzvah presents at that conference.
I additionally went to a few different conventions in Florida after I was a young person. There have been some very “colourful” personalities within the trade on the time that made fairly an impression on me as a younger skilled.
After I began working full time in the summertime of 1977, I started usually attending conventions and was elected to the NAPIA Board of Administrators in 1981. I served constantly till I used to be placed on the ladder and was put in as president in 1998 at Landsdowne Resort in Leesburg, Virginia.
Inform me what it was wish to work with Paul Cordish?
I used to be one of many final presidents to work full time with Paul Cordish. I knew Paul nicely as he was additionally GGG’s common counsel. He was certainly one of if not the neatest folks I ever knew. He forgot extra about public adjusting than most individuals ever knew. He was encyclopedic in his information of insurance coverage, and he had beforehand been a member of the Maryland State Legislature.
Randy Goodman, who adopted me as president of NAPIA, and I have been additionally instrumental in having Paul Cordish conform to carry on Brian Goodman to study from him and finally take Paul’s place as NAPIA’s common counsel. On the time, Paul was about 90 years outdated and it appeared like a transition was wanted. Paul Cordish and Brian Goodman have been the one two common counsels that NAPIA has ever had.
What are essentially the most vital technological and trade adjustments in public adjusting because you first began?
The technological adjustments within the trade have been a pure prevalence as know-how is altering all the things in our lives. Generally that’s good, and typically it isn’t. It will probably truly be each on the identical time.
I bear in mind after I began, we hand wrote our inventories utilizing carbon paper to make a number of copies for the insured, the insurance coverage firm and for us. We then would return to the workplace, worth the stock and use an including machine to whole the numbers. We’d print the including machine tape and test it in opposition to the stock.
These repetitive processes are accomplished extra simply with know-how and software program that does many of those duties for you. Nevertheless, what’s misplaced is I’d intimately know the stock and will talk about it and advocate for our consumer, the insured.
In the present day, the folks on the insurance coverage firm are pictures and studying analytical experiences, however typically have by no means been to the loss location. For them, it’s only a numbers sport. The old-time area adjusters are retiring, and the coaching the brand new adjusters get will not be at all times within the area. Folks must be mentored to know the method and make it work, irrespective of which facet of the desk you sit on.
How has your group modified within the final 20 years, and what’s your most vital administration problem?
The largest administration problem in any group is folks. We’ve had an important monitor report for protecting folks, nevertheless it’s at all times a problem. As you realize, we have now many individuals in our group who we employed out of school. Many of those have made our agency their one profession alternative and have been on our crew for many years.
We now have turned administration of the agency over to 6 principals who vary from mid-thirties to early fifties. Our senior persons are nonetheless concerned within the adjustment course of; nonetheless, we wanted extra youth and contemporary concepts. I’m very happy with these youthful professionals who’ve been with our agency for years and are greater than able to step into administration roles.
What’s it wish to have your loved ones working with you?
I’ve the nice good thing about working with my daughter, who joined GGG after a profitable profession in New York actual property, and my son-in-law (married to a unique daughter), who joined GGG out of school. I couldn’t be extra excited to come back to work on daily basis and work together with them, albeit in some ways, they’ve already surpassed no matter I’ll have achieved in my profession.
How has your agency modified over time?
Will Goodman wrote an article for Finest’s Information in 1951 that appears as if it may have been written immediately. My perception and understanding was that NAPIA was shaped to boost the professionalism of the trade. After I began within the enterprise, many states like Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida had residency necessities for licensure in a state. Our agency and NAPIA have been instrumental in repealing the residency necessities, which have been extra restrictive than useful to the patron in addition to the general public adjusting trade.
That is one cause for our agency’s evolution relating to the kinds of claims we deal with immediately versus the claims being dealt with after I began. We have been an area agency in 1977, with two workplaces in Maryland. We sometimes went out of city for our purchasers who known as us. We had robust pockets of enterprise in Southern Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Within the 1980’s, we expanded additional into these areas and the Carolinas. In the Nineties, we expanded into Florida and north to New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
We presently have workplaces in eleven cities, and we have now lively claims working in dozens of states, together with Hawaii and Alaska. A big a part of our enterprise comes from referrals from prior purchasers and contacts within the enterprise neighborhood.
What has NAPIA meant to you personally and professionally?
NAPIA has been nice for me personally. I’ve made a few of my closest buddies there.
I’ve additionally realized from many deeply skilled public adjusters. I beloved sitting on the bar listening to and studying from Sidney Greenspan, Bruce Swerling, and Bob Lucurell, amongst others. After my father, they have been among the brightest minds within the enterprise.
It has additionally been nice interacting with the celebrities of the enterprise from my technology, similar to Ron Papa, Invoice Greenspan, Jim Beneke, Bobby Levin and others who grew up with me within the enterprise. We now have frequent points with claims and customary points operating a enterprise.
I even received to spend some high quality time operating with you at just a few conventions whereas we have been coaching for half marathons and marathons.
How would you describe your philosophy of property insurance coverage adjustment, why have you ever grow to be so profitable at it, and what would you counsel to a youthful public adjuster?
At GGG we’ve at all times nurtured an important work tradition. Two essential issues I’ve realized and tried to go on to the subsequent technology are onerous work and nice communication. We put within the hours wanted to get the job completed, and we’re very proactive with each our purchasers and the insurance coverage firm.
We prepare our folks that you just don’t look ahead to the consumer or insurer to name you. We name our purchasers to maintain them knowledgeable as to what’s going on and even allow them to know when nothing is occurring. Within the claims course of, that’s not at all times the simplest motion as a result of the method typically appears harder in the course of the declare. Nevertheless, with onerous work and due diligence, these issues do get resolved.
In life, enterprise and claims, issues is not going to at all times go easily. It’s the way you reply and react when issues don’t go as hoped or deliberate that reveals who you might be. I’ve realized that my companions and the crew at GGG are the folks I wish to be within the bunker subsequent to me when bullets begin flying.
As soon as, whereas engaged on a really giant loss, Harvey and I left his busy workplace for dinner. Once we got here again after 8 pm, everybody was nonetheless there working. I used to be amazed and requested if it was at all times this manner at his agency. He instructed me, ‘Chip, folks at all times ask how we get such giant claims just like the one we’re engaged on tonight. I don’t assume others understand how onerous all of us work right here. I didn’t inform them to remain. For all I knew, they most likely assumed we’d be gone for the night. It’s our folks and our work ethic that I feel makes the most important distinction.’
In case you are keen about and love what you do, as Harvey Goodman does with public adjusting, is it actually work or simply high-level play?
Thought For The Day
The grasp within the artwork of residing makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his thoughts and his physique, his info and his recreation, his love and his faith. He hardly is aware of which is which. He merely pursues his imaginative and prescient of excellence at no matter he does, leaving others to determine whether or not he’s working or enjoying. To him he’s at all times doing each.
—James A. Michener
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