Restoration companies with a rich revenue mix often rely on Third-Party Administrators (TPAs) to maintain a steady influx of jobs. TPA involvement can bring simplification to a complex sector, resulting in a quality end result and successful working relationship between insurance companies, restoration companies and property owners. While the construct of TPA work can look different, the goal is consistent, quality work and streamlined communication, creating cost efficiency and standard service times across the TPA’s network.
Working with a Third-Party Administrator
TPA partnerships with restoration companies bring steady work during industry slumps and require minimal referral fees or extra marketing. Independent restoration groups seeking work with TPAs must meet the technical standards and capacity to enter into agreements. The dynamic between TPA assignments and the restoration business response requires an agreement in which your business commits to perform the work provided in an equitable, upstanding way.
The bright side of the TPA partnership is tempered by the realities of restoration work. The little-effort mindset will not win the business needed to make a TPA partnership worth it, and TPAs are often just one part of a successful revenue mix. TPA work adds value to the restoration operation, but it’s not always the lifeblood or primary revenue stream. The partnership with a TPA is at its best when the restoration company continues to grow and nurture significant contacts to maintain relationships with program administrators, adjusters, and property owners. You are starting a new strain of business, and like any startup, it takes time and diligence to grow well. The business must prove itself in its long-term goal of excellence for the TPA to provide value.
The Processes for Successful TPA Partnerships
Once the relationship between TPA and restoration business is firing on all cylinders, it takes proper administrative support and quality systems to grow and thrive. TPAs are a new line of business, and creating a system that integrates that business line’s requirements into day-to-day procedures can take adjustment. Office staff, project managers and estimators will need the flexibility to find their way into a new system that best serves TPA workload and requirements.
Program success begins with administrative support that can field calls and provide quality front-end service, building a solid foundation for quality partnerships in the industry. Skilled, well-spoken, communicative staff must helm the office efforts to ensure calls are met with appropriate action, even when the task is less than desirable in the scope of assignments. TPAs route work that may vary in scope and skill requirement, and as such, answering the call to those positions requires consistent professionalism and estimating acumen to handle any size job. The successful TPA partnership requires a concentrated, collaborative effort to ensure any assignment type can be successfully accomplished to bring property owners a positive outcome.
A Quality Restoration Response
As a job is handed off to the project manager, the need for continued communication and documentation increases. Now the restoration company must answer to both the TPA and the property owner, ensuring the project is carried out to completion within the parameters set by the TPA and to the satisfaction of the property owner. Clear guidelines for the project scope are set between TPA and restoration group, requiring diligence and expectations that may not apply in other job scenarios.
BluSky Restoration Contractors, a restoration industry leader, believes in the importance of a quality team and understands how TPAs can help strengthen the restoration industry as a whole. “When restoration companies of any size are held to the standards set forth in a TPA arrangement, they are given new accountability and work standards to achieve,” says a representative of the company. “Our industry is a patchwork of businesses, big and small, and we are working toward the same goal—providing restoration and remediation services through skilled work and clear communication that ultimately benefits the property owner.”
The crux of a successful partnership with a Third-Party Administrator is quality communication—from management, admin support and project managers. The quickest way to tank any TPA project is to communicate improperly or let problems fester due to lack of clear expectation. Property owners require cool heads and skilled hands to efficiently address the property concerns and restore property to its original condition. Passing the buck and pointing fingers will not only cause internal concerns between the restoration company and the TPA, but it will ultimately result in a mismanaged job and less work down the road.
TPA work can improve the restoration operation by requiring a standard procedure that is efficient, effective and streamlined. From a well-trained staff to improved customer service, the requirements of TPA work are set to provide quality and cohesiveness within the restoration operations. When TPA arrangements are well executed, it’s a win for the restoration business, the insurance company and the property owner.
