When you’ve experienced loss due to a fire or flood or some other kind of catastrophic damage to your home or business, there are a lot of important concerns to address. First of all, most importantly, is to ensure that there is no longer any imminent danger. Following that, is to ensure that everyone involved is safe and sound.
Once all of that has been assured, it’s time to address financial and material measures. If you have homeowners insurance, you will need to file a claim for the damage, fire damage claims, flood damage claims, or otherwise.
Once the claim has been filed, it’s time to assess the damage. It’s certainly too overwhelming a task for you, the homeowner, or business owner, so the insurance company sends out a representative to assess the damage. This person is called a company or independent insurance adjuster.
But you shouldn’t just rely on the insurance company’s adjuster, and I’ll tell you why in a minute. To help you handle the overwhelming nature of these claims, you would be wise to handle a public insurance adjuster. What is a public adjuster? Public adjusters do the same job as the insurance claims adjusters, determining and reporting the value of your loss, but with one very important difference. While a claims adjuster is representing the insurance company, the public adjuster is representing you.
Insurance companies operate on profit, so the less money they have to pay out on claims, the more money they make. Therefore, their goal is obviously the pay the lowest possible amount for your claim, and the insurance adjuster knows this. A public adjuster, however, is representing you, and is paid through a percentage of your settlement. So they will work with you to help you get the highest settlement possible for your claim.
Though it’s undoubtedly a stressful time for you, it’s important to make sure you are looking out for yourself, and that you have someone on your side who is also looking out for your best interests. Therefore, your best bet is to hire a public insurance adjuster to handle your insurance claim.
