Main MenuThere is one question I get asked more than any other about our services and the field of Public Insurance Adjusting. When I present our services to a potential new client, or during a conversation with a new acquaintance when the “what do you do?” conversation is initiated, there is ALWAYS the following comment and statement.
That is awesome, why have I never heard of that before? Which is commonly followed up by “man I wish I knew about you guys when my house got hit by hail last year”, or “I could have used your help when my insurance company jerked me around after our fire.” And the most common, “Do you have a card, I know someone who is going through hell trying to get their insurance company to pay for….”
It is truly rare in these circumstances that I don’t experience someone feeling a personal connection to the services we provide, either as a result of their own experience with a claim, or the experience of someone close to them.
When answering the question of why someone hasn’t heard of Public Adjusters before, I always answered without having truly sat down and thought it out. Today I am doing just that, this blog post I’m going to outline the reason I believe you haven’t heard of a Public Adjuster before.
The Unfamiliar Claims Landscape
Insurance claims and the claims adjusting business is a highly dynamic, convoluted and complex landscape. It takes years of experience and trial and error properly navigate this environment. Most clients, potential clients, and consumers of all walks of life have never filed a claim, or have extremely limited claims experience. As a result their realm of understanding as to the possibilities, their rights, what they’re owed and options available to them is unknown. The ability, right and benefits of a Public Insurance Adjuster are one of these unknowns.
The Inherent Assumption of Honesty and Good Faith
Most people, in my experience, are honest and upstanding people. In their dealings with others they have a sense of honesty and fair dealings, which inherently translates to an assumption that those around them are also honest and good people.
This assumption, in our experience, is rarely more prevalent that in the dealings with their insurance company during a claim. You see most people believe their insurance company will deal with them fairly, honestly and will pay them fairly. After all, you have paid these company premiums faithfully, for years; you have never asked them to pay for anything, and your agent has been nothing short of a friend and trusted advisor. As a result most insured’s never suspect that their loss or damages are being shortchanged and underpaid by their insurance company, and are usually shocked to learn of the nature of insurers claims practices and see the examples of our successes as a result of our experience and these claim practices by insurers.
It is usually only in cases where an insured has strong convictions about damage, price or scope of restoration, and strongly disagrees with their insurance company, that they start to research their countermeasures and discover public adjusters.
Regional Exposure to Losses
Most regions of the country do not experience the widespread repeat catastrophic loss that some do. For example, most regions don’t experience persistent loss to hurricanes and tropical storms like Florida and the Gulf. Most regions don’t experience devastating hailstorms like Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. Most regions don’t experience widespread wildfires like California, Utah and Colorado.
In regions where catastrophe is common, insured’s are more experienced with losses and the necessity of Public Adjusters to obtain fair settlements from ever increasingly greedy insurance carriers.
Number of Public Adjusters
In most states Public Adjusters are not incredibly common, unlike some Hurricane prone states like Florida where there are thousands of Public Adjuster, most states only have a few dozen to a few hundred. Last time I checked with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies there were only thirty-something Licensed Resident Public Adjusters in Colorado, divide that our over many, many, many thousands of claims filed annually and you can understand why Public Adjusters are not a more known tool available to insured’s.
We hope this post has shed some light on the well-kept secret of Public Insurance Adjusters. If you believe you may have sustained a loss or just want to make sure you have been compensated properly for your loss contact a Licensed Public Insurance Adjuster in your area. You will be surprised what we can do for you!