From September 2001 to March 2008 I worked as an independent contractor for Allied Inspections out of Fresno California. Allied held a contract with a major insurance company to manage their inspections in many states. My territory was the Kansas side of Kansas City and lots of rural areas North, South and West of Kansas City. I performed hundreds if not thousands of inspections over those years.

Although I had extensive experience working as a contractor on buildings and had worked as an inspector for an engineering firm, I was surprised to see what insurance companies consider important as it relates to their underwriting inspections.

For instance: Peeling paint on a house just might get the policy cancelled. We did have discretion to characterize the peeling paint as a minor (rectifiable) condition or a major (policy canceling) condition but those lines were not always perfectly clear. I tried to rely on common sense and to remain as neutral as possible even in the face of an irritated homeowner, many of whom I've encountered.

Irritated usually because they were not aware I was going to come to their house. So, I've been met by gun wielding homeowners, cussed off the property, the victim of canine accompaniments, told to move my car off the curb on the street and many other "I'm going to let you know who's boss" type of behaviors.

I soon learned to not let on when I encountered any sort of condition the insurance company would want to know about. To get in to a discussion about shortfalls and undesirable conditions with a homeowner is a loosing battle. So, the job was somewhat stressful.

What attracted me to the job was independence and the prospect of making some decent money. I was paid by the inspection a flat fee of $14.50. Problem was I never knew how many inspections I had on any given day or where in my huge territory they were. There were the really good days when I had 20 inspections all within one area of town but those days were the minority. Usually it was 10 to 15 inspections spread out all over town.

When Allied went out of business and lost the contract I lost my job which was hard then but it is OK now - I think six years as an inspector was just about right.