The insurance bill you pay as a homeowner offers you the necessary financial protection when your house encounters any form of unexpected harm. This includes broken pipelines, lighting destruction, house fires, and any other property damage. It’s also where the insurance company adjusters enter the picture to help you handle your claim. They professionally evaluate the damage to come up with an amount the insurance company will cover for your repairs associated with the encountered disaster. Once you and the insurance company come to a mutually agreeable amount proposed by the adjuster, repairs or rebuilding can begin.
So, what can you do when you can’t seem to agree on the insurance cost? That’s where you need help from a public adjuster to settle your insurance claims!
Differences Between an Insurance Adjuster and a Public Adjuster
In simple terms, insurance adjusters work on behalf of the insurance company. While they may have a lot of information about making claims and propose decent repair costs, they don’t work directly for the homeowners.
On the other hand, public adjusters perform the same actions of assessing the damages and writing up proposals for each repair and their costs. However, they work directly for the homeowners instead of the insurance company. However, considering that you need to employ public adjusters yourself, you also need to pay for their services. Granted, it doesn’t come out of your pocket since they only charge a small percentage of what you claim ultimately from the insurance company.
Simply put, the key difference between an insurance adjuster and a public adjuster is who they are employed by to perform the given tasks of making an insurance claim. If that’s the case, then the question arises – Why would someone hire a public adjuster and provide them with a percentage of their claims for the same job insurance adjusters do for free?
To put things into further context, let’s understand why relying upon your insurance adjuster can prove to be a questionable decision for you at times.
The Negative Aspect of Depending Upon Your Insurance Adjuster
The truth is that company adjusters work for the insurance business and not the homeowners themselves. It’s also true that your insurance company might want to save some dollars during the payout process when you’ve had a big loss. While some reputable firms discourage such behavior among their employees, you can’t be sure about your situation until it’s too late for you to reclaim your insurance.
Also, because the insurance adjusters work directly for the company, they also have to consider the insurance company’s needs before making an offer to the homeowners. Ultimately, the final deal you get isn’t usually what you should have originally received from the insurance company for covering the damages adequately. This is where you might understand why depending upon the insurance adjuster might not work in your favor as conveniently as you originally thought.
5 Reasons to Hire Public Adjusters
Working with a public adjuster can give you a notable edge when you find yourself in the process of making an insurance claim. Here are five reasons to hire them that would make the overall proceeding far more worthwhile for you despite their charges:
- Extensive Knowledge and Professional Standards – Insurance policies can be quite complex to interpret when you’re not an expert yourself. While the insurance adjusters may go over the details briefly with you during the claim process, public adjusters are much more invested in your well-being. They make sure you know your options and rights, helping you understand the insurance policy in simple terms. You can expect nothing less than perfect professionalism from them, considering that they require extensive training to become a licensed adjuster. Not to mention that they use their proficient knowledge to negotiate on your behalf instead of the insurance company.
- Save You Money When Making a Reclaim – When you aren’t satisfied with what your insurance adjuster puts down on the table, your only options are to employ a public adjuster or open an investigation with an attorney’s help. If you choose to go with the latter option, your attorney will likely have to hire a public adjuster to scrutinize your case. Ultimately, you’ll likely end up paying fees for both professionals. By taking the initiative and hiring a public adjuster yourself, you’ll save a considerable amount of your money while getting the best deal out of it.
- Save Time – It comes under the public adjuster’s responsibilities to manage your claim entirely on your behalf. This means you wouldn’t need to deal with anything yourself since your adjuster will be the one processing the paperwork, answering the calls and emails, and communicating with your insurance carrier. This also resolves your claim much faster compared to when you’re handling the matters yourself.
- Reveal the Missing Parts of the Claim – When making a big claim, like in the case of home fires or extensive flood damage, there can be many things that need fixing, which you can’t usually see on the surface. While an insurance adjuster might ignore those aspects when proposing a cost for the encountered damages, a reputable public adjuster will always add those repair jobs to the proposal for you. Because of their experience and determination to locate every possible damage, you can stop worrying whether the insurance money you’ll receive will be enough to cover the hidden repairs.
- Strive for Highest Possible Settlements – Lastly, public adjusters make it their mission to land larger settlement claims for the homeowners. As bigger settlements also profit them ultimately, you can expect them to work the best on your case without you having to interfere or check up on them time and again.
Public adjusters are professionals who you can hire at any time during the claim process, just as long as you haven’t signed the final release. Since they are dedicated experts in the field, you can expect your insurance claim process to be completed in a professional and timely manner.
