Seasonal Patterns of Moving Claim Assignments
As a repair firm, do you know the month-to-month pattern of your moving claim repair assignments and workloads? What share of your total business activity is in support of performing moving claim repairs? How effectively do your various workload requirements mesh with each other?
I was intrigued with a moving company executive’s statement that 50% of all moves happen between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Let us make that the four months of June through September. It means that on average 12.5% of moves happen during each of those months. It also means that in the other eight months of the year the rate is only around 6.25% on average. If the peak summer period is shortened to just three months at 16.67%, then the other nine months are at only 5.56%. The conclusion is that statistically our claim repair workloads should be at least twice as high following the peak summer as the other months. What is the delay from the date of the move to the claim assignment? Are we prepared to handle those workloads? What conflicts do we have with those workloads?
From our firm’s historical data we have found that our claim repair assignment seasonal pattern basically follows the relocation by two to three months. This delay would allow time for the claimant to complete their claim forms and for the paperwork to move through the moving company and national claims office system. This means that our peak claim workloads are generally during the August through December periods.
Two aspects are interesting in this data. During the peak repair period November seems mysteriously weak and for unknown reasons April is rather strong for a non-peak period. But, it does reflect the logic of the national peak period and that claim assignments to the repair firm follow some two to three months later.
There are several implications. During our five-month peak repair period of August through December, we are busy performing 54%, or 10.8% per month, of moving claim repairs for the year. That leaves only 6.6% for each of the other seven months. Such unbalanced workloads cause staffing issues and implications to our other markets, let alone how quickly we can complete claim repairs.
Additionally, I have asked other repair firms what share of their total workloads are from moving claims and the general agreement has been around 40% to 60%. The seasonal pattern of claim repairs is one reason why we must have other markets to keep us busy all year round.
Another implication is the degree to which the moving claim market is in direct competition with our other natural markets. Since we all repair furniture damaged in moving claims, it must be assumed that we all also repair furniture for other markets including the retail customer market. So when is the retail repair market the most active? Here is our data for the seasonal pattern of our retail repair market.
This data reflects that while August, a peak moving claim repair month, is also a higher retail repair month. September through December reflect a softening of the retail repair market, with May through August being the peak period for retail furniture repair. This reflects a generally good matching of the retail furniture repair market to the moving claim repair market.
Our concern became that our total business market has yet a different seasonal pattern. Moving claims represent a major market, as does retail furniture repair, but we also perform other woodworking-related services. I am sure that other moving claim repair firms might also have such other markets. Maybe it is furniture making or cabinet work. Accordingly, our seasonal pattern for total order volume follows:
This data reflects that in spite of the August to December peak moving claim season, our total market is weakest during the moving claim peak period. That is a good conclusion because it shows we can better respond to the claim repair requests without sacrificing retail timelines.
Let us take a look at all three charts on top of each other.
Finally, the make-up of workloads from among the markets should be considered. All of the data presented is based on the month of receiving the work order.
For moving claims that market is about 40% based on assignments for performing Inspections Only, but based on dollar levels it represents less than 10% of what we do. Such Inspection Only assignments are usually completed within 7-14 days of receipt. It is the more major repairs that take longer. Our experience is that the typical moving claim repair assignment takes about two weeks for inspection and approvals, and another two to four weeks for full accomplishment. That is a total of six weeks over the new order month and the following month. This means, for example, that if December is a peak new order claim month that in January we are still performing the claim repairs received in December.
For our retail repair market about half of the orders are performed within two weeks. The other half are for major repairs and/or stripping and refinishing which takes up to eight weeks. That means that about a fourth of all repair orders are spread into the next month. Similar spreading of workloads is also true for our other markets.
The Sales data in the following chart reflects the month for completed work by type. It should be noted that the monthly seasonal pattern is much more level due to staffing and capacity limitations.
The conclusion is that the workload for any peak period month is actually spread to some degree into the next month, which hopefully is a weak month. We will be overloaded with work already if it is also a peak month. To some degree that means that our weak month of April is assisted by workloads from the better month of March. The same would be true for October based on September. Where it creates workload problems is June based on May, and in September based on August. Finally, we find moving claim repairs in late November and December are hard to accomplish per the normal flow of work because of the holidays and the claimant not wanting their items repaired during this period. This means that December usually flows into both January and February, which are already heavy total market months.
The conclusion is that while repair firms certainly want to receive moving claim assignments, which everyone wants to complete as quickly as possible, there are clearly some direct seasonal pattern conflicts with our other markets. As repair firms we must address this conflict and claim adjusters must recognize we have to deal with other pressures in spite of their desire to get their claims closed.
