What a public adjuster does, what they charge, and when to hire one

What is a public adjuster?

Three kinds of adjuster can work on a home insurance claim. The staff adjuster is employed by your insurer. An independent adjuster is a contractor your insurer hires, often after a big storm when its own staff are stretched. Both work for the insurance company.

A public adjuster is the only one who works for you. You sign a contract with them, they handle the claim on your behalf, and they are paid out of the settlement. Most states license them through the state insurance department, the same agency that oversees your insurer.

What does a public adjuster actually do?

On a typical home claim, a public adjuster will:

• Read your policy and tell you what it should cover, including parts people often miss, like additional living expenses while you are out of the house.
• Document the damage to the building, often with their own estimate of what the repairs cost.
• Build or check the list of belongings you lost, the loss report your contents settlement is worked out from.
• Deal with the insurer's adjuster for you: meetings, paperwork, deadlines and the back-and-forth over each figure.
• Push back when the insurer's numbers come in low, and take the claim to appraisal if your policy allows it and the gap is large.

What they cannot do is give legal advice or sue your insurer. If the dispute is about whether something is covered at all, rather than how much it is worth, that is a lawyer's job.

How much does a public adjuster charge?

Most charge a percentage of the money the insurer pays on the claim. Figures around 10% to 15% are common, but the rate is set by your contract and, in many states, capped by law. Some states set a lower cap after a declared disaster. Your state insurance department can tell you the rules where you live.

Read the contract for what the percentage applies to. Some charge on the whole settlement, including money the insurer had already offered or paid before they were hired. Others charge only on what they recover on top of that. On a large claim the difference can be thousands of dollars, and it is worth asking for in writing.

Public adjuster vs insurance adjuster

The insurer's adjuster is not your opponent, and many are fair and careful. But they are paid by the company, they handle many claims at once, and their job is to settle yours under the policy as the company reads it. A public adjuster reads the same policy with your interests in mind and has fewer files to spread their time across.

Your insurer will still send its own adjuster when you hire a public one. The two of them work the claim out between them, and you stay the one who signs off on the result.

When is a public adjuster worth it?

• The loss is large: a house fire, a total loss of your belongings, or major water or storm damage.
• The claim is complicated: damage to the building and its contents, months of living elsewhere, or a cause the insurer questions.
• The insurer's offer looks low and you can point to why, but you have no time or energy to argue every line.
• You are already months in and the claim has stalled.

When you may not need one

On a small or simple claim, the fee can cost you more than an adjuster would recover. If the damage is limited, the insurer's offer matches your own estimate, and you are comfortable writing a few emails, you may do better on your own. The same goes for a claim that is mostly settled: a percentage of money already agreed is a high price for little extra work.

There are free places to ask first. Your state insurance department takes consumer questions and complaints, and nonprofit groups for policyholders publish plain guides to the claim process.

How to hire a public adjuster

1. Check their license on your state insurance department's website before anything else.
2. Talk to two or three. Ask how many claims like yours they have handled and how long those took.
3. Ask for references from past clients with a similar loss, and call at least one.
4. Read the contract: the fee, what it applies to, how to cancel, and what happens if you end the contract partway through.
5. Do not sign on the spot. Be wary of anyone who knocks on your door while the fire trucks are still there, and of anyone who promises a figure before they have seen your policy.

Many states give you a few days to cancel a public adjuster contract after you sign it. Ask what your state allows, and get it in the contract.

What about your belongings?

Building damage is easy to see. The contents part of a claim is a list of hundreds of items, each with a price, an age and some proof you owned it, and it is often where the most money is left on the table. A good public adjuster will ask you for that list early. Whether you hire one or not, starting it yourself is the most useful thing you can do in the first week. Our guide to making a home inventory list after a loss walks through it room by room.

Where Indemnia helps

Indemnia builds the contents list from the receipts in your email and the photos you take, with a price, a date and the proof attached to every line. A homeowner can use it to send their insurer a complete list, and a public adjuster can use it to build that list for a client in less time.