We Lived Paycheck to Paycheck
Now we Live Storm to Storm
I’ve started another publication here on Substack and wanted to share with my current community. Here’s a snippet of the introductory essay.
Welcome to “Weathering the Storm.” This feels like the most opportune time to start this column. My husband and I are currently at the time of the year where we do the most weathering. The hardest part of our job isn’t deploying to “ground zero” post hurricane, or loading our family up and traveling long hours across multiple states or even spending months on the road away from home — the hardest part about our career in catastrophe insurance adjusting is waiting on the weather.
My husband Cory and I own a catastrophe insurance adjuster business and this publication is dedicated to sharing about our “Stormlife”.
Stormlife is a term coined to describe working 4-6 months out of the year deploying1 to major weather events to assess property damage from assigned insurance claims. We are currently waiting for mother nature to decide when it’s time to pay our bills again. My husband and I do this every year. We “ballpark” our budget on what’s currently in our savings built up from the prior hurricane season. This waiting game is the largest deterrent from adjusters staying in the industry. The seasonal income and inconsistent work, year to year and storm season to storm season is a large factor on why the turnover rate is so high for independent adjusters. It can be extremely challenging to avoid running out of money before the next batch of claims. 2
“Weathering the storm” is an idiom that means to endure a difficult situation or period without being harmed or damaged too much.
There are a lot of qualities a successful catastrophe insurance adjuster must possess but the one that ranks the highest is: endurance. “On season” endurance to work day-in and day-out for long deployments following a catastrophe. As well as, “off season” endurance which is arguably more arduous. During off season you need to: budget your profits, pay your taxes, maintenance, repair & replace your equipment to prepare for a new storm season, AND avoid blowing your savings because you think you will get called out again soon. Off season endurance is all about remaining resilient through the waiting for the next storm—whenever you do eventually get called out again.
Our catastrophe insurance adjusting business is our primary household income. Our last paycheck was received the end of November 2024. So imagine making your annual income in a handful of months; but you have to budget it for the full year. $80,000 feels like a lot of money in 2-3 months during a busy hurricane season. But what if from September to November $80,000 hit your checking account but that money needed to last to till the following May.
People that are not in the industry will see on the news a small outbreak of tornados across rural America and assume we will be called out! That’s not how it always works for adjusters on CAT teams. We not only have to wait for severe weather events, but we also have to wait on a large influx of claims to fill up the local adjuster’s schedules that already reside in the area. 2025 storm season is upon us and it is still a mystery on when we will get the call from our independent adjusting firm that they need us. They will eventually call, notify us of the state we are needed, a general location, the insurance carrier, type of claim/peril and will issue us a batch of claims. Within 24 hours we will load up and set sail to whatever state our assigned property damage claims are in and just like that have income streamin’ in again. Prior to starting our own business in 2017 we lived paycheck to paycheck. Now— we live storm to storm.
I’ve included a timeline synopsis of our deployments since my husband and I got our “foot in the door” to this industry on a hail storm in Colorado seven (7) summers ago. We’ve gained an immense amount of knowledge since that first storm. We can honestly say we learn something new every storm. We also repeat this saying often: “Every storm is different.” Twenty-six (26) deployments later we can truly say, no single storm is like another. Here’s a snapshot of our experience to date:
July 2018 - Colorado Springs, CO HAIL
August 2018 - Flagler, CO HAIL
September 2018 - Fayetteville, NC- HURRICANE FLORENCE
October 2018- San Antonio, TX - WIND
April 2019 - San Angelo, TX - WIND
May-July 2019 - Katy, TX - WIND/FLOOD
September 2019 - Beaumont, TX - TROPICAL STORM IMELDA
May- June 2020 - San Angelo, TX - HAIL
July-October 2020 - St. Louis, Missouri - WIND
October- November 2020- Houston, TX - HURRICANE HANNA
July - August 2021 - Omaha, Nebraska - WIND
August- September 2021 - Phoenix, Arizona - HABOOB
September -October 2021- Galveston, TX - HURRICANE NICHOLAS
December- January 2022 - Salina, Kansas - Derecho
May-June 2022 - Watertown, South Dakota - WIND
June- July 2022 - Watertown, South Dakota- WIND
October- November 2022 - Fort Myers Beach, FL- HURRICANE IAN
March 2023 - Phoenix, Arizona- HABOOB3
April-June 2023 - Minneapolis, Minnesota - HAIL
July-August 2023- Indianapolis, Indiana- WIND
September-November 2023 - Perry, Florida - HURRICANE IDALIA
May 2024 - Houston, TX - WIND
July 2024 - Alvin, TX - HURRICANE BERYL
September 2024 - Houma, LA- HURRICANE FRANCINE
September-October 2024- Clearwater, Florida HURRICANE HELENE (While working Helene we had to evacuate as family to Alabama to avoid direct impact from Milton and then returned to assess new damage from the second hurricane)
October- November 2024- Clearwater, Florida HURRICANE MILTON
This publication is written through the lens of a catastrophe insurance adjuster’s wife. As well as a mother, a teammate, an entrepreneur, and business owner. I’ve been able to hold my own with the fast paced workflow, construction material verbiage, podcast interviews and will most certainly shed some light on where there is room for women in this male dominant industry. I credit a lot of our success in this business because we’ve always operated as a team. There are storms I’ve been on the roof with him holding his ladder for a step-up. And there have also been those storms where I’ve been in charge of the home front and he’s traveled solo. We are both a huge advocate for teams in this industry: husband and wife teams, empty nester teams, father son teams, sister in law and brother in law teams— we’ve seen a lot!
The primary purpose of this publication is to educate. We also hope to pull back the curtain on areas of this industry that seem shadowy or even difficult to find. We’d like to offer up our own real-world insights and tips that we were taught or have learned along the way. We do not know everything. We also recognize the industry has changed since we got into this seven years ago. The industry is constantly evolving. What industry isn’t?
Each year when we are waiting for the next storm, there’s a small whisper that creeps in the back of our minds. It always questions or even taunts this narrative of: what if? “What if this career has ran its course and we have to find another way to make a living?” But then his phone rings, the adrenaline hits, he starts making “first contacts” to our insureds and I start packing the camper. Storm season is officially underway again. Once we are on the road, usually late into the night, no more calls can be made, no more voicemails to be left. My husband and I will glance over at each other. I’ll see the headlights gleaning sporadically in his eyes from the highway traffic. We will both reach our hands out to one another over the truck console interlocking our fingers. We will take a moment to connect after the BUUUZZZZ of getting ‘Called out’ and Cory will always say something sly like: “See baby, Mother Nature is the best kind of job security! Let’s go run em’ and get back home!”
Thank you for Weathering the Storm with us.
Becka + Cory
To read this full essay and subscribe to Weathering the Storm to receive future essays: Subscribe for free here .
Great read, I love to hear how you conquer life as a couple. Life is truly better together!