Public Adjusters: FAQs From Curious Homeowners
When your home sustains damage, you will be left relying on the insurance company to step up and make sure your home gets repaired the way it should because you carried proper homeowner's insurance coverage. However, sometimes, the insurance company you have trusted for so long will try to cheat you out of the amount of money you really deserve to save themselves some money. This is one reason why private insurance adjusters are such a valuable thing to homeowners. Here is a quick look at a few of the most commonly asked questions about private adjusters and the answers you should know.
If your insurance company has offered a settlement, can you still hire a public adjuster?
A lot of people assume that hiring a public adjuster is out of the question if their insurance company has already assessed the damage to their property and made an offer. However, you can hire a public adjuster to assess the costs of the damage at any time between when you file the initial claim and before you accept a settlement offer from the insurance company. In fact, it is not a bad idea to hire a public adjuster after you have received an offer to ensure what you are being offered is actually a fair price or not.
What do you do if the adjuster's assessment is much higher than the insurance company's?
Once you have had an outside adjuster assess the damage to your claim, you can submit this adjustment to the insurance company as proof that what they are offering is not enough. In some cases, the insurer will try to work with you to get their settlement offer closer to the adjuster's amount. However, your insurance provider may also completely disregard the adjustment, in which case you should hire an attorney for help.
Is it true the private insurance adjuster's estimate can be valid proof in court?
If you do end up having to take your insurer to court because they refuse to pay you enough for the damages to your home, the public adjuster's estimate can usually be used as evidence in your case. In some situations, an attorney may actually have you get more than one estimate from more than one public adjuster, which is done to show the court that more than one estimate proves you should be offered a larger settlement. But this can depend on the size of the difference between your insurance company's settlement offer and the public adjuster's estimate.
For more information, check out a website like Skipton Claims Management.
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