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    House Cleaning Blog

    How to Avoid Paying $96,000

      Tony Slade  |    Jun 20, 2019 3:38:25 PM  |    Thousand Oaks

    What Happens Without Car Insurance?

    Imagine the results of crashing your expensive car forcefully into someone else's vehicle, consequently wrecking both of them, and being forced by law to pay the bill yourself. Follow through, and I'll show you how to avoid that in all aspects of your life.

    In my former life back in the United Kingdom, I used to sell cars for a living. And because I was pretty good at it, I ended up running a few luxury dealerships for the company I worked for. With that, came some great perks like getting to drive some of the most luxurious or exotic sports cars as part of my salary.

    Great, or so it would seem to most people, but it really wasn’t. I quickly got bored (or spoilt) by these cars that most people could only dream of sitting in, let alone driving. And besides, they weren’t mine. I couldn’t cash them in to pay my mortgage.

    And what’s more, everybody I knew or met thought I was an expert on cars and would ask me their opinion on what they should buy, even though I really had no idea. I knew how to instill into my team how to give great customer service and I knew how to run a business that just happened to sell cars, I didn’t know what the best car to buy was. That’s what our sales team was for.

    I always wanted to sell cars in the USA too, so around 10 years ago, I applied for a role at Galpin Motors in the San Fernando Valley and for a while, I really enjoyed it until the long grueling 12-hour days really took a hold. So I promptly gave that up.

    Knowing that I worked in the car industry, whenever I was at a dinner, someone would always lean across the dinner table, usually when I was in mid-conversation and interrupt me to ask what car they should buy, I would always reply “an Aston Martin Vanquish”.

    They’d then look a bit exasperated and explain they need something cheaper, so I’d recommend, “a 1985 Oldsmobile Calais”. This normally does the trick and they go back to talking about something that is more interesting, such as accountancy, insurance or ornithology.

    However, at one dinner event, the man opposite really was quite insistent. He didn’t want an Aston martin or a 1985 Oldsmobile and demanded that I came up with another couple of alternatives. “A Bugatti Veyron or a Hyundai Accent,” I suggested, hoping that would end the discussion. But it didn’t.

    “Come on,” he said, “I’m being serious.” So, I suggested he buy a Hummer and attempted to finish talking to the woman to my right.

    “What car should I buy?” she immediately asked. I promptly got up, went to the lavatory and drank all of the restaurants bleach.

    Canva - Flowers with broken vase

    I hated being asked about cars as much as doctors hate being asked about people’s ailments. They can’t possibly determine, when they’ve consumed two bottles of red wine, what’s wrong with someone who’s fully clothed and on the opposite side of the table.

    Avoid the Paperwork, Focus on the Quality.

    Outside of work, I really try not to talk about my business. I will always have a business card or two readily available should someone ask but I try hard not to push it upon folk and I’ll often avoid any conversation that leads to discussing work.

    However, a few weekends back, I happened to be in the presence of a group of people who were adamant on sharing their experiences which happened to involve House Cleaning. At first, my instinct was to run to the nearest rest room and guzzle their supplies of bleach. But I resisted.

    Something someone said caught my attention. One of the group, a successful businesswoman from the Conejo Valley, was explaining that her maid had sued her for $96,000.

    “Wow” I exclaimed. “$96,000 for what?” I asked. “For claiming she had fallen in my kitchen whilst cleaning,” she explained, and she added that her home insurance only covered $15,000 of that bill. Another, a well-to-do lawyer from Westlake Village, added that she had experienced a similar situation where a maid had tried to sue her for $59,000 for faking a fall on her property.

     

    The first lady had explained that her maid had claimed she was unable to work for 6 months because she slipped on her kitchen floor, so she claimed the total of $96k for loss of earnings and medical expenses. It turned out this maid’s main source of revenue was suing clients and actually pretending to be a house cleaner got in the way of this.

    The second lady had smelt a rat with the maid claiming from her and much like Columbo, decided to do some investigation work of her own. It transpired that this maid had a history of submitting fictitious claims and had filed the same claim against several of her clients simultaneously, as well as making 5 other separate claims in the past 2 years. Needless to say, this was exposed and the lady in question had her day in court and the whole scam exposed.

    At this point another member of the group, an insurance agent, piped up, which ordinarily would have sent me straight into a coma. I was at an event a few years ago and an insurance agent started talking to me. About 2 hours in, I fell asleep. When I awoke some 5 hours later, he was still going on.

    Anyway, this guy was quite interesting as it happens. He explained that in a lot more instances than people realize, claims from unscrupulous workers whether it be a bad maid service, a window cleaner, painter or whatever are successfully claiming from their clients for so-called injuries and what is more, their insurance providers are not paying out because the home owners have not carried out their due diligence. So, the bill, and the unending paperwork, lands squarely in your lap.

    Canva - Business Concept, Pile of unfinished documents on office desk, Stack of business paper, Vintage Effect

    By the way, it’s important to add that both of these ladies are now our clients.

    We all think we want cheap but what we have to realize is the backend cost. I have been guilty of this myself. As recent as January, I flew to Colorado to meet up with my mates from the UK for a week’s skiing in Breckenridge. My wife, having discovered that I may not be adequately insured and that they would only pay up if I were actually killed, not if I died of a heart attack, called my mates with some very specific instructions. "If he starts to go a bit blue, just shoot him or push him off the ski lift" she said.

    We wouldn’t knowingly get into a taxi if we knew the driver had no insurance. So why would we let a maid service into our house knowing they were not insured?

    And this is the problem, not just specific to California, but across the whole of the USA. There are scammers out there that are deliberately intent on ripping their clients off.

    When we are awarded a job for a new client whether it be for weekly maid services or a 52 Point Spring Clean (deep clean), a move in or move out clean, we don’t look to see how we can milk them for more money. We look at ways to best serve them, so they get really great service from us. If we can offer something that will save them money, we will do.

    One of the first questions we are asked is, are you licensed, bonded and insured? Most of our clients don’t just wish to know whether their house is going to be cleaned, they want to know they are not going to return to find the maid service they hired are not going to be flipping about the kitchen floor like a fish out of water, pretending to be hurt.

    Genuine accidents can occur at any time, and by hiring a reputable company like You’ve Got Maids, you eliminate the risk of being sued in the unlikely event an accident should occur whilst cleaning your home.

    I don’t use the H word very much, but I really hate what these scammers do to people, our industry and other industries. People work hard for their money and they do not deserve to be schemed out of this.

    That is not to suggest that every independent maid service out there is a scammer because they really aren’t. There are some other great companies out there too that are similar in stature to us. They genuinely work hard and wish to serve their clients as best they can.

    We at You’ve Got Maids know we can’t always win every client we quote for; it would be impossible to do so. But I will always ask that whenever a potential client choses someone else over us to carry out their weekly cleaning or bi-weekly cleaning service, that they ensure the maid service they choose are licensed, bonded and insured. Anything less just opens them up to risk.

    805.917.6243

    The chances are, if they are cheap then they are not fully insured. They are cutting corners and then I’d really question what other areas might they be cutting corners. Do they even background check other people that work with them? Their intention may not be to sue you, but should a genuine slip or fall happen, then the moment they can’t earn their money, they will look for some sort of recompense and the homeowner is the obvious choice.

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    You’ve Got Maids in the Conejo Valley, Malibu and Camarillo; are all licensed, bonded and insured. We background check and drug screen all of our team members. We have all our new recruits go through an extensive training period via the You’ve Got Maids University. We accept nothing less than a near-perfect score on their exams.

    Please whatever you do, choose quality over cheap because that low-cost house cleaner you choose today, may cost you a lot more in the long run.

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