On November 2nd, 2012, our founder, TJ Welte, headed out east to work Catastrophe claims for Superstorm Sandy on Long Island in New York.  He had worked for two larger independent adjusting firms over the last 8 – 9 years, but decided on the drive out to New York that he was going to take the money that he made from this storm and put together his own company.  While waiting for access to Long Island, he met up with another adjuster, Chris Hodges, from Southern Illinois at a Chili’s for dinner on November 4^th, 2012.  They had not met before, but they were working for the same company for this storm and both had heard of the quality of product that the other produced.  After just two hours of talking claims and the industry, TJ told Chris about his plan to start his own adjusting company.  Chris responded by asking TJ to contact him when he was ready, because he wanted to work for him.  On September 16^th, 2013, after almost a year of creating the company, research, and planning, TJ Welte launched Priority Claims, LLC based out of Le Roy, IL with a second adjuster, Chris Hodges, located in Anna, IL and they started handling claims within the bottom two-thirds of Illinois, south of I-80.