IN STORMS’ WAKE

While his counterparts scramble to keep up with damage reports following this year’s repeated hurricanes, independent insurance adjuster David Abod is sticking closer to home. He’s heading south, but only near the Pennsylvania border, where he’s assessing damage from two recent hail and wind storms.

It’s not that he couldn’t handle the challenge; Abod, of Harveys Lake, has decades of experience responding to major disasters, beginning with the cleanup from tropical storm Agnes flooding in 1972. “So I’ve been around forever doing this stuff,” he said.

Abod made catastrophic damage appraisals his primary focus 25 years ago and has responded to most major events since. This year he was asked to stay around while other adjusters flocked to Florida, Louisiana and Texas in the wake of Gustav and now Ike.

“We’ve got many, many claims right in the Philly area,” Abod said Thursday, reached by cell phone while on assignment. On Friday morning he was given another 21 claims to evaluate.

Freelancers come into play when big storms outstrip the staff insurance companies have to assess damages, delaying checks being cut and repairs being made. They head off to some of the country’s most beautiful spots each year, but usually when restaurants are shuttered, beaches are flooded and tourist sites abandoned.

They have tricks culled from experience in hard-hit regions and from dealing with people at the height of anguish. Most pack enough clothes for weeks at a time because power and untainted water may not be available.

When he’s going to be away from home for an extended period, Abod drives a motor home with a car hitched to the back. Once on-site he uses the car to get around and sleeps in the motor home.

Abod has worked for major insurance companies and government agencies. “I have many certifications and licenses,” he said, including for assessing large commercial losses by the National Flood Insurance Program.

Adjuster Barry Schoch, of Murrells Inlet, S.C., said the worst disasters involve tornadoes because often there is so little warning to prepare.

“You’ve got a house and 10 minutes later you don’t,” Schoch said. “They just don’t have the time to get the mental situation resolved.”

It’s not steady work and many of the freelancers rely on handling regular claims from fires or thefts or do something else to make a living in between storms, said Tom Vaughan, vice president of the National Association of Catastrophe Adjusters.

“The money is tremendous at catastrophe time,” he said. Some adjusters can make up to $300,000 in six months — but they work long hours and then can go through some serious dry spells.

“What’s left after taxes and expenses are paid out, you’ve got to live on,” he said. “And wait for the next bad day.”

Abod described the pace when he’s working a major storm this way: “You have no life; I go out at 6 a.m. and work until 11 (at night) on the computer” completing piles of documentation. “If you’re awake, you’re working.”

There also can be long periods away from home; he was on the job for most of a year straight after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

There are rewards beyond the pay, Abod said. “The days go by real quick. You’re really helping people that need it and that’s really rewarding.”

But sometimes Abod is the bearer of bad news. Much of the damage caused by Katrina was from flooding, which most homeowners insurance doesn’t cover. “We don’t want to say no, but sometimes you have to,” he said. “It makes you feel like a real heel.”

The past couple of years have been slow, said Schoch, who remembers 2004 and 2005 as a couple of the busiest years in decades for catastrophe adjusters.

In 2004, six hurricanes struck the U.S.; in 2005, seven made landfall, according to the Insurance Information Institute. The average, including those two years, is just shy of two a year.

In those two years, insurers had more than 5.5 million hurricane claims with losses that topped $81 billion. Katrina alone accounted for $41 billion in insured losses, according to Insurance Services Office Inc., which tracks insurance industry statistics.

In 2006, no hurricanes made landfall. In 2007, the insurance industry had relatively small losses from Hurricane Humberto and Tropical Storm Gabrielle.

So far this year, the industry has handled more than $9 billion in insured losses from floods, wild fires, wind and hail storms and tornadoes, according to Insurance Services Office data.

Hurricane Gustav’s insured damages alone could range between $4 billion and $8 billion, according to Swiss Reinsurance Co., a Zurich, Switzerland-based insurer that serves as a financial backstop for regular insurance companies.

Depending on Hurricane Ike, insurance companies may be dealing with the claims from five storms at once, said Gary Kerney, who worked as an independent adjuster for a decade and is now an assistant vice president for Property Casualty Service, a unit of Insurance Services Office Inc. in Jersey City, N.J.

Independent adjusters follow the claims standards of the companies that hire them, are regularly supervised and get their work reviewed, said Kerney, who estimates there are about 15,000 company and independent adjusters who can handle claims in the U.S.

Abod, 56, said he’s been spending more time supervising lately, because newly-minted adjusters need an experienced hand looking over their work, especially after a major storm like Katrina, when the number of adjusters hired by one firm he has worked for spiked.

“You become almost like a trainer,” he said. “There’s no school that’s going to teach you this job. We need field support managers out with those people.”