Great, on the learning and meeting people sides. Poor, on the management and Training sides.
Pros
This was my first CAT. Very difficult for me. There are some great people to work with though. You meet people who are very willing to share their knowledge and you get to help people whose lives were affected by natural disasters plus make money doing it. I do not have a background in construction or had anything to do with it. I was really new to this. There were people who helped me and I really appreciated that. I still would like to do it now that I know what it takes. It is still a potentially lucrative deal if you can close enough claims to exceed your expenses. You gross 65% of all your claims but after the taxes I made about 26% of all my claims bottom line. The only way to make anything is to close a lot of high dollar damages such as severity 1 claims but those were gone when we got there. This CAT was 99% training because I did not make any profit on it.
Cons
I was disheartened by management. I heard with my own ears some really degrading talk from both Worley, Renfro, and State Farm management. Statements like "As soon as we get rid of the slow ones we can move faster. Hahaha" and "He's an idiot", "....moron". I was even spoken to in a degrading manner by a Worley manager. Several times I have heard management throw IA's under the bus. I even commented on it and the manager tried to cover it up with an excuse. There is no excuse for that behavior and he knew it so he stopped digging himself and bigger hole when he saw I was not hearing it. Unprofessional behavior really. I guess they think that they can behave like that because they are management. Well, if Worley or State Farm does nothing then I guess they are correct. And yes, I can confirm the "Good ol' boy network" as well. Because I was slow in getting with the program I was looked down upon. Help from trainers was not help but "let's get him/her finished soon so we can get rid of him/her". I really thought they wanted to help me but saw their motives so I just did the best I could and said nothing. I said "Thanks for you help" but I knew they were not helping me, just themselves. As for the training...that's a whole different matter. Really, really important information came to us after-the-fact. Information like how much time you have to contact Insured's once you receive their claims and how much time you have to inspect their properties once you receive their claims. We would received claims from State Farm with two weeks already lapsed and we already have the next two weeks of our schedules full. The pressure put on us (through no fault of our own but we were treated like it was our fault) was tremendous. Trainer's naturally gravitate toward those with experience in the classes and those with no clue remain clueless. We just have to bump our heads until we get what we needed. They always tell us to "Ask questions" or "Take notes" but how can you ask something when you don't know what to ask and when you look at all the notes you have taken you don't know how to apply it.
