Continuing Education (CE) Courses for Insurance Professionals

Preparing You to Fully Assist Your Policyholders

As an insurance professional, you're often the first contact for a policyholder who has experienced a disaster. The more you know about the disaster mitigation process and recovery, the more you can guide your client in taking the right steps to control the damage, and therefore control costs.

With Continuing Education (CE) course options from ServiceMaster Restore, you and your staff can be better equipped to help your policyholders by understanding the latest disaster restoration techniques, procedures, and best practices.

Continuing Education (CE) Classes Designed to Help Improve Customer Service

We have developed curricula that emphasize the cost-saving benefits of quick response and expert action in a variety of critical areas. In addition to helping you understand the effects of a disaster and the steps involved in restoring the structure and the contents within it, these courses give you the knowledge needed to put your policyholders at ease.

Browse the available insurance Continuing Education (CE) classes below.

Water-Related Courses

Through this course, you’ll learn:

• How water can damage carpet, wood floors, and other building materials
• How much time can pass until damage occurs
• What steps can be taken to reduce or minimize the damage
• The water removal process
• The principles of drying and dehumidification
• Information regarding mold growth and the mold mitigation process
• The use of antimicrobials during water damage cleanup and restoration
• Odor control techniques

These principles apply across many common residential water losses. Our water damage restoration services address extraction, structural drying, dehumidification, and restoration after water enters a home.

The source of the loss can significantly affect the mitigation process. A burst pipe may send clean water rapidly through walls, ceilings, insulation, and flooring, while flood damage may involve standing water across basements, crawl spaces, and larger areas of the structure.

Water category also matters. Losses involving a sewage backup require additional precautions because contaminated water can affect porous building materials and introduce biological hazards that are not present in a typical clean-water loss.

This course is designed to help you control claims costs through subrogation investigation and reporting, plus teach you the value of mitigation first responders in achieving this objective.

Understanding the origin of a water loss can also help establish a clearer record during mitigation. Plumbing failures such as burst pipe water damage often have a distinct source, while flooding and water intrusion can involve several contributing conditions that need to be documented during the restoration process.

Mold-Related Courses

This program introduces the science of mold and explores the potentially harmful effects of mold on building materials and occupants. Through this course, you’ll learn:

• How mold grows
• How mold spreads
• What actions should be taken to remove mold in a safe and reasonable manner
• Procedures such as containment, negative air, and the proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE)

Mold problems are frequently connected to unresolved moisture. Leaks, flooding, and burst pipes can leave moisture behind walls, underneath flooring, and inside insulation even after visible water has been removed.

Through this course, you’ll learn:

• Mold detection processes
• Mold removal and containment processes
• The source of mold and growth requirements
• Health effects associated with exposure
• Removal myths
• Proper versus improper cleanup methods
• Containment and safety best practices

Fire-Related & Smoke-Related Courses

Through this course, you’ll learn:

• How smoke and odor flow throughout a home
• The damages smoke can cause in certain stages, including seconds, minutes, hours, and days after a disaster
• What should be done about smoke and odor damage
• Proper smoke mitigation steps that can help reduce loss

Fire losses frequently involve more than smoke and soot. Firefighting efforts and sprinkler systems can introduce a substantial amount of water into the structure. Our fire-related water damage restoration services address standing water, saturated materials, and hidden moisture left behind after fire suppression.

Odor-Related Courses

Odor is often associated with pet contamination, fire, smoke, water, and mold issues. Given this, insurance professionals who are informed about odor mitigation can better support their customers during the claims process. Policyholders can benefit from the insurance professionals' expanded knowledge of odor, which in many instances can reduce costs or additional claims expenses, expedite the claims process, and provide better support throughout recovery.

Odor can also help indicate the type of property loss involved. Persistent musty odors can accompany unresolved water damage, while a sewage backup can create both contamination and significant odor concerns that require specialized cleanup.

Packout-Related Courses

This course demonstrates how technology is enabling restoration professionals to manage and track packout inventory, movement, and restoration progress better than ever before, giving the homeowner or business manager a sense of security throughout the process. The course covers the tools and technology of evaluating, restoring, and tracking inventory from start to finish.

Furniture-Related Courses

Through this course, you’ll learn the various causes and types of damage that can occur to fine furniture and wood surfaces in a property loss situation.

Water losses can be especially time-sensitive for furniture and wood surfaces. Flooding and plumbing failures can expose furniture to standing water, elevated humidity, and moisture migration that may increase the extent of the loss if mitigation is delayed.

Legal-Related Courses

This course is designed to provide a practical look at ethical decision-making. Instead of relying on a gut feeling, this process takes the decision-maker through several filters, which ensure that all parties affected by the decision are considered.

Biohazard-Related Courses

What can the customer expect from a quality restoration firm in dealing with trauma and biohazard losses? Understanding the unique losses that are classified as trauma and biohazard cleaning is the first step in understanding how to respond to the customer's needs. How these types of losses are handled greatly impacts customer retention for the insurance company.

Some water losses also involve biological contamination. A residential sewage backup requires different safety and cleanup procedures than a typical plumbing leak because contaminated water can affect both the structure and its contents.

Hoarding-Related Courses

This course covers why hoarding is important to insurance companies, adjusters, and professionals. It is designed to help you:

• Understand hoarders
• Identify a hoarder
• Learn how to handle a loss properly when a hoarder is involved. This course also covers the impact on the claims process and claim cost, as well as concerns that arise when a loss of this type is encountered.

Business-Related Courses

This is a three-hour presentation that focuses on what happens when a disaster occurs in a business and the importance of pre-loss planning. The class provides instructions and hands-on scenarios to assist insurance professionals in putting the right pieces together to create a plan. Participants will discuss and develop five key components of a plan, including:

• Assessing business threats and risk levels
• Determining what a disaster planning team looks like
• The importance of insurance in the plan
• What continuity looks like for the business
• Whether the plan is effective

Not all courses are approved for all states. ServiceMaster Restore is an approved CE provider in 48 states.