Insurance adjusters are those professionals who evaluate the extent of the damage made to a homeowner during a catastrophic event like hurricanes or fire.
On the other hand, public insurance adjusters work on behalf of the policyholders and stay by their side during an insurance claim in exchange for an amount.
They are certified public adjusters who only work for the insurance policyholders but not the insurance companies. Moreover, when you hire a public adjuster, you’ll be saving a lot of money as long as your insurance company pays you the entire amount for your claim.
Who Is A Public Adjuster?
Public adjusters, also known as private adjusters, are the only professionals who work on behalf of the policyholders. Many individuals and business owners who need assistance in filing their insurance claims can get help from public adjusters.
If you want to claim for flood, hurricanes, storms, or any other reasons for the damage to your property, you can always have a negotiation and a settlement with your public adjusting agent.
The Help You’ll Get From Your Public Adjuster
The public adjusters are very experienced with the language and details of the insurance company. For instance, they know all the ins and outs of public adjusting and filing any sort of claim.
Moreover, they have comprehensive knowledge and experiences related to construction building or any other similar fields. Furthermore, they have advanced softwares, which can easily calculate your property loss.
Therefore, you don’t need to worry whether your adjuster is making the proper calculations or not!! They know all the nuts and bolts of your claim and will carry out their job perfectly.
Not only that, but your public adjuster can also help you to make a connection with your contractor or any other insurer. This can benefit you, especially when you are going to rebuild your damaged property.
Having a public adjuster throughout your insurance claim process will shield you from any sort of pitfalls due to your lack of experience in this “insurance claiming process.”
And, you’ll also be saving a lot of time as these insurance claim procedures might take forever if you don’t have an expert to guide you along.
Now, let’s see through an example of why a public adjuster should always be your prime choice.
For instance, you live in Florida, and as you know, this state is always at the risk of severe hurricanes and storms. Suppose your resident goes down due to an intense hurricane, and now you’ll have to file an insurance claim for your property.
This is where you’ll be needing a public adjuster as the claim procedures are never an easy job. So you need an expert who takes care of everything on behalf of you.
Your public adjuster will shortlist all the demolished items due to destruction and will investigate from the roof to the basement, not leaving anything behind.
He’ll then compile all the pieces of information and settle a fair agreement with your insurance company.
And they’ll make sure that you get the best claim possible. Public adjusters are far more helpful than independent or insurance adjusters. As they will always stay by your side as long as the case doesn’t get closed!!
Public Adjuster Vs. Independent Adjuster
There are mainly three different types of adjusters: company adjusters, independent adjusters, and public adjusters.
You already have got an idea about who public adjusters or private insurance adjusters are and how they can benefit you. Now, in this section of the article, you’ll be getting an elaborate idea of who independent adjusters are and why public adjusters are far better!!
Independent adjusters are those who work for insurance companies but are more like consultants. And they only work when they are needed or are hired by the company for specific expertise.
In short, you can say they are only at duty when they are summoned!!!
Independent adjusters don’t have offices everywhere like the public adjusters. And they also don’t have the power to go everywhere. So, what independent adjusters do is that they make agreements with different adjusters in various areas.
Therefore, they’ll contact the adjuster before moving on to the claim procedure, and after the approval, they’ll be working on behalf of the insurance company.
Independent adjusters will not even check your damaged property thoroughly. Instead, they’ll always be in a hurry to wrap things up as quickly as possible. In such cases, there are higher chances that you might not get your claim entirely, as these adjusters do not do proper investigations.
So, you can say that independent insurance adjusters are temporary adjusters that work for a specific insurance company during a claim process.
And once his job is done, he doesn’t have any responsibility left and won’t help you further.
But that’s not the case for your public adjuster. He’ll always be by your side as long as you don’t receive the entire claim from the insurance company.
How Much Do Public Adjusters Cost?
Many public adjusters don’t charge any fee to visit the site of a loss until they decide whether or not to work on the policyholder’s claim.
But the moment they take your case, they’ll charge an amount for your claim procedure.
Usually, a public adjuster will take a percentage of the claim you’ll receive from the insurance company.
For instance, you hire a public adjuster with a settlement of 20% of your claim amount. Now, if your insurance company pays you a final amount of $100,000, then the adjuster will take $20,000 from this total amount.
Although, this fee varies from adjusters to adjusters, and the state law itself usually limits the percentage. For example, in Florida, the payment of the public adjuster can not exceed 20% for a supplemental or reopened claim limit.
Depending on the experience public adjuster’s fees will vary. Let’s say an inexperienced adjuster will limit their costs to $5,000 per claim. On the other hand, experienced adjusters might range their costs from $10,000 to $15,000 each claim.
You can also negotiate the fees to a lower rate, especially if the claim is large enough, such as a loss of $1 million or even more.
In contrast, having a public adjuster will always help you to have the upper hand.
Choosing The Right Adjuster
In order to choose the right public adjuster, there are a few things that you need to do.
At first, always check whether your public adjuster is legally practicing or not. Public adjusters must have a legal license in every state they practice.
Even in this field, the public adjuster must continue his educational courses to maintain his expertise. The more they practice, the more expertise they’ll gain.
Remember that no matter what, never work with an adjuster who doesn’t have a license as it’s against the law for an adjuster to practice or work without a license.
If any of your contacts have ever worked with a public adjuster, take their advice and ask for their experience. And if there’s no contact as such, no need to worry as you can directly ask the adjuster to provide you with all the necessary pieces of information regarding their work with previous clients.
I’ll highly recommend you read the reviews of the adjuster online before proceeding with your insurance claim!!
The experience of a public adjuster matters a lot. You’ll not want an adjuster with less experience to handle your delicate case. So, as a policyholder, you should always hire a professional with more experience.
To assure their level of expertise, you can always ask the adjuster about the types of claims they have worked for and how long they have been practicing in this field. Through these questions, you’ll get a lot of evidence regarding his level of experience.
A professional adjuster will always display all these details on his website. Also, in many cases, an experienced public adjuster will always charge you a large number of fees for the claim procedure.
Keep in mind that the number of years a public adjuster has been practicing doesn’t affect his experience level.
For instance, a qualified adjuster will only work on those claims through which he can earn a high amount of money.
So, in this case, the number of years practicing didn’t matter. An experienced and qualified adjuster will only proceed with those complicated cases as he’ll be able to grab a good amount of cash.
In the end, whenever you are going to hire an adjuster, make sure you take all the details about the claim procedure. And do remember that an independent adjuster will not always be by your side, but a public adjuster will be with you till the end of your case.
So, make sure to clarify all your questions before you go on hiring your public adjuster!!
