The Tortoise and the Hare of Payments
Under normal circumstances, as a moving organizer, PHA receives a deposit of 50% of the estimated costs with the balance due upon presentation of an invoice at the end of the project when all items have been unpacked and put away.
But, there is another segment of my business where the costs of my services are reimbursed by one or more major Insurance Companies….
Imagine that you have recently purchased a new construction condo – Brand new flooring, new appliances, granite countertops – the works.
You throw some laundry into your washer before you leave for work…. You telecommute but you are meeting a colleague for coffee. You’ll be back in an hour…. No problem. NOT! You come back to a flood of water throughout your unit – the floor is warping, all of the bottoms of your furniture look yucky, and anything on the surface of the floor is destroyed. Yikes. What happened? In one building, the original builder purchased “discount” high-end washers that had a plastic coupling instead of a metal coupling on the water hose….the plastic coupling soon melted from the heat of the hot water and 27 out of 99 units got damaged!!!
After the restoration company has sucked out the water and placed industrial heat fans to dry things out, your Insurance Adjuster recommends a General Contractor and floor installer to make things right. BUT, before your floors can be replaced, you need to be packed up, furniture and items put into storage, and you need to find a temporary residence while all the repairs are done.
PHA is one of the vendors invited to submit estimates for the pack out, storage and pack back in… When PHA wins the project, we understand that we will not get paid until all repairs are made, and the furniture and personal effects, including the hanging of artwork, are returned to their original location. And, the homeowner has signed an approval accepting that the vendor’s job was done satisfactorily.
PHA submits invoices and homeowner's approval to the Insurance Adjuster for their review and payment. These documents cannot be submitted via email – they can only be faxed. And, now the waiting begins, and goes on, and on, and on…. Follow up to the adjuster either gets ignored completely, or you’re told… “I see it in my folder but there are hundreds of requests ahead of you”…
Eventually, PHA gets paid…but, if Insurance Companies would get into the 21st Century and accept the use of Electronic Signatures through a product such as Adobe EchoSign – many of us vendors out there could probably get paid in a more timely fashion!
This post is written as an entry to this month’s Adobe EchoSign challenge.
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