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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