How to Scale Restoration Insurance Billing Without Losing Quality

Dollar symbols representing quality restoration insurance billing

As your water damage restoration business grows, the number of claims you’re handling grows with it. When your restoration insurance billing department is going through a period of growth, it is easy to fall into the trap of sacrificing quality claims work in favor of speed and volume. Many restoration contractors learn the hard way that the insurance billing strategies that worked when they were a small company aren’t guaranteed to yield the same level of results when they are buying another truck, adding new team members, and handling more water damage jobs. Communication slows, payments get delayed, and invoices start slipping through the cracks.

So if your restoration company is growing or expecting to grow in the future, how do you make sure quality restoration insurance billing isn’t sacrificed? At One Claim Solution, we’re restoration insurance claims experts, and we’re here to share our recommendations for how to grow your claims operations the right way.

Scaling Restoration Insurance Billing Takes Preparation

If you want your restoration company’s claims billing department to succeed as your company is growing, that takes planning and preparation. Far too often, contractors fall into the trap of thinking that hiring a few new billing team members will be good enough. But scaling without structure and planning often leads to chaos.

Evaluating Your Current Claims Billing Success

Making sure your claims billing department is ready to handle higher claims volume should be at the front of your mind as your business begins to grow. Take time to evaluate your restoration company’s current insurance billing processes and level of success. Here are some of the things you should be considering before expanding:

Are our current restoration insurance billing processes clearly documented and easy to follow?
Does every team member know their role in the claims process?
Do we have a system in place for tracking claims progress?
Do we have a way to gather data about our claims performance and identify strengths, weaknesses, and trends?
Is our preexisting team and training strategy ready to handle onboarding new team members?

If the answer to any of these is “no” or “I don’t know,” that’s a sign to pause and strengthen your claims billing before multiplying the workload. Your billing weaknesses don’t disappear as your team and workload grow. Instead, they multiply and create chaos. You will always be better off solving any problems now, not later, when they have had time to amplify with the increased workload.

Build a Leadership Structure That Matches Your Growth

As your claims volume grows, your organizational chart should evolve too. A small restoration company might get by with one person handling all claims-related communication or a more informal billing team structure. But once you grow, you need clearer separation of duties and leadership roles to prevent wires getting crossed, claims falling through the cracks, and claims payouts suffering.

Establish Defined Responsibilities

The bigger your team is, the easier it is for claims to fall through the cracks because everyone thought someone else was taking care of it. Separate responsibilities by role so that each position owns specific parts of the restoration insurance billing process. This creates accountability, reduces overlap, and gives people the opportunity to specialize and become experts at their tasks.

Create Layers of Leadership

Once your claims team has expanded beyond a couple of people, it’s time to start thinking about adding a claims billing team lead or department manager. Your billing leader’s role should be more than simply checking work. Empower them to support and coach team members. Set up a regularly scheduled time for your department lead to coordinate with upper management. This will help increase transparency and prevent bottlenecks in your company’s billing.

Set Goals for Your Insurance Billing

What does successful claims billing look like as you begin to handle more water damage claims? We encourage restoration contractors to consider this early on and set goals. These goals could revolve around your average days to payment, the ratio of billing employees to claims managed, or profit margins.

Regardless of what metrics you choose to design goals around, be sure to set a deadline for these goals. When that deadline arrives, check in. How do your restoration insurance billing KPIs compare to your target metrics? If you find that billing performance is lagging behind your goals, that’s a sign to reevaluate how you handle your claims billing, your goals, or both.

Know When to Get Restoration Insurance Billing Help

Growing your in-house water damage restoration insurance billing team is challenging, no matter how much you plan and prepare. If you’re struggling to maintain quality claims billing results as your company is growing or you’re looking for new solutions, it may be time to consider outsourcing insurance billing.

One Claim Solution was built to help restoration contractors manage claims more effectively. We’ve already built the processes, technology, and claims team structure that make scaling possible. When you partner with our claims specialists, you get all the benefits of a seasoned claims department without the growing pains or overhead. That means more time to focus on your jobs, customers, and expanding your company. Reach out to One Claim Solution to see how we can help you streamline your claims processes as your company grows.