Discord and Discourse With a Florida Public Adjuster About His "5 Ways to Trick an Insurance Claims Adjuster"

Florida public adjuster Mike Keeler believes his own messaging.  At least he seems to do so.

I was looking for content for my “So, You’re About to Be Deposed (Or Violently Overthrown): How Should You Prepare and What Should You Expect” presentation tomorrow at NEIASIU’s 15th Annual Joint Training Seminar in Massachusetts, when I came YouTube returned this video (click the image above to view) in my “depositions of insurance adjuster” search results.  

Those of you who know me know I couldn’t resist–both watching the video and dropping a comment onto it.

“Trick No. 4”, according to Mike is:

If they ask you for a recorded statement, all right, when you’re going through a recorded statement they usually try to pin you down as to what happened. You play dumb. When did this happen? Um, and let’s say the claim was two months ago. Well, I don’t remember. I just know I have a leak. And why did you wait two weeks to report it? Well I was trying to attend to the leak. You keep everything simple. Keep everything very simple. Brief. Use I don’t remember exactly. When they ask for a time, I don’t remember exactly, maybe sometime in the afternoon. I, I really don’t know. All right so you use that quite a bit because you want to preserve your rights to pursue the claim. You don’t want to get boxed in. You don’t want to say something that you might regret. Something that may hurt your claim. So use I don’t know exactly as one of your main phrases to answer when a recorded statement, okay?  When did you roof get damaged? I don’t know exactly. When did you notice the first ceiling? You know, I don’t know exactly. I can’t give you a date cause I give you a date it may be off. Those are examples.

Mike also seems to be a “last word” kinda guy, but it’s his YouTube channel so I have no complaint with that.  For your entertainment, my initial comment to Mike’s video and the discourse that followed are as follows: 

Mike doth protest too much, methinks. I’ve never liked the “you need to hire me because the insurance company is going to screw you” sales pitch, and thought most public adjusters had abandoned it years ago.  Most but not all, I see.  

And I hope the three people who emailed Mike with “choice words” for me chose their words more carefully than Mike does.  Encouraging insureds to “trick” their insurance companies’ adjusters sounds to me an awful lot like promoting insurance fraud at worst, or coverage-voiding conduct at best.