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as of today.We have just hit our one year anni- versary date for launching our franchise sales. The majority of our franchise group are what we consider ‘conversions;’ meaning they were already doing some form of personal property or packout service before joining our franchise group.What we are able to provide is the ef- ficiency, national platform, and the template pieces that carriers and TPAs are now looking for from this segmented market of the resto- ration industry.” Loner believes that a national franchise mod- el for content packouts is the way forward for this part of the restoration industry, and that it will naturally follow the same course as did the fire/water cleanup and the textile franchise segments. “Once the territories are purchased, the local companies have little to no leverage because that national unified front has already solidified handling the business,” explains Loner. What gives these franchise companies, and now 1-800-Packouts, so much more leverage is that they are listed on a lot of insurance com- pany vendor programs. It is just easier for the 1-800-PACKOUTS carriers, and now for their TPAs –Third Party Administrators, which more and more insurance companies are subcontracting to handle their vendor management programs – to deal with a national operation than with a host of inde- pendent contractors. “What is happening now in our industry is that if you are an indepen- dent packout company in a particular area, and maybe you have even been doing it for many years in that market, the insurance carriers are stopping them from handling the packout, and they are bringing 1-800-Packouts in to take care of it.Why? Because we are a national vendor for them and they know what to expect when they are dealing with our company,” Loner states. “Being an Independent will become even tougher trying to keep the claim volume up, be- cause carriers and TPAs are looking for a unified front so that it is an easy-in and easy-out pro- cess for them.” Loner further explains, “For example, your house may be insured for a half a million dol- lars on the structural side because that is what they feel it will cost to rebuild in the event of