A Few Red Flags to Watch Out for when Hiring a Public Adjuster

If you live in a disaster prone area or have had a major accident at your home, you will find a number of contractors, adjusters and restoration companies coming to you to provide you their services. During this time, it may be difficult for you to know whom to trust and who will work with your best interest in mind.

When making an insurance claim, hiring a public insurance adjuster can be a critical decision. But, just like any other business, there are a few bad apples. You should be informed to be able to make the right call to ensure that you get your claim fast and fair.
Hiring-Public-Adjuster

Here are the top red flags to look out for –

  • Since a number of people do not know exactly who public adjusters are, there is no harm if they come to you for providing their services. If they come to you and tell you about damage to your house that you didn’t even know yourself, you should be very cautious. Most of the public adjusters are helpful in large losses like flood or fire. All the reputed public insurance adjusters like http://www.benchmarkpa.com/ will not get involved in a small loss to your home. Since most of the companies pay out well if the damage is small, there is no need of hiring an adjuster.
  • There are limitations to the amount of fees that the public insurance adjusters can ask of you. If they insist that you pay their fees upfront or before you even receive your insurance check, you should find another adjuster for your insurance claim. A good adjuster will only ask for payments once you receive your claim and you do not have to pay them anything if you do not get any money.

Public-Adjuster-consultation

  • If a public insurance adjuster asks you to use a particular company for restoration, he or she might be getting some amount of money from the company for referring it to you. You need to know that in many states it is prohibited by law to provide recommendations or even provide a signed disclosure about any financial benefit from a contractor or restoration company.
  • If the adjuster asks you to artificially inflate the claim you make, you should avoid him at all cost and report him to the state’s department of insurance. This will not only result in you paying higher premiums but is also punishable by law.

You need to ensure that you review a few public insurance adjusters before you pick the right one so that you can use their resources and their knowledge in order to make a successful claim.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *