How a Good Public Insurance Adjuster Can Be a Roofers Best Friend

Hello All,

My name is Scott Friedson. I am a public insurance adjuster. I am also an active member of the National and Texas Association of Public Insurance Adjusters.

Over the years I've found that when it comes to insurance claims, roofers and adjusters can all agree that roof "damage" and policy "interpretation" can be subjective.

Unfortunately, the Insurer and the Insured often have different views of an insurance claim settlement.

I've met many great roofers over the years that are very knowledgeable about the insurance claims process and agree with them that a public adjuster is not necessary in every claim.

But if you are dealing with a larger losses (which most carriers consider over $50,000) and you receive either no response or responses from a Staff or Independent Adjuster that give you the impression that your client is going to have a dispute, don't count on the settlement process to get better without professional help.

Once a carrier has a position in a claim they rarely reverse themselves UNLESS they have a good reason to. A good Public Adjuster can be a Roofers best friend when the two parties work in tandem.

Together they CAN give an insurance company good reason to reconsider their position. A good roofer or general contractor can be considered an expert and good Public Adjuster is a policyholder advocate licensed and trained to interpret policy, negotiate settlements, and refer to insurance code and applicable case law.

I am happy to answer any questions anyone has about insurance claims. We care about the consumer being fairly indemnified. Settling insurance claims can be time consuming and complicated. The handling of insurance claims changes constantly claim by claim, case by case, state by state. To keep up, check out at www.InsuranceClaimRecoverySupport.com and www.Public-Adjuster-Blog.com Here is my latest post regarding the Statute of Limitations on 2012 Storm Claims http://www.rooferscoffeeshop.com/rcs/users/friedson/2012 Storm Insurance Claim Statute of Limitations Warning.pdf

Public adjuster takes 10 % of the claim but it comes out of the settlement so the insured is 10 % poorer to pay me I see no advantage to a P.A. here in LA

Yes, I got off track and didn't mean to include public adjusters in my example. And you are right, "independent" adjusters are often far from independent. I have had more trouble getting them to treat the insured fairly than with staff adjusters.

I think an independent adjuster gives the carrier a degree of insulation from the claim and they can more easily distance themselves if the insured is unhappy with the assessment. "Oh, sorry, that wasn't one of our adjusters, we just used him because the storm has our staff adjusters swamped."

Public adjusters do not work for insurance companies. We exclusively represent the interests of, and are paid by, the insured policyholder.

Both staff and independent adjusters work directly for and are paid by insurance companies.

BTW, does anyone else see a problem calling an adjuster who works exclusively for the interests of an insurance company "Independent"?

This is also why I think it is a conflict of interest for Haag Engineering to represent insurance companies in hail losses. They have published standards that the insurance industry has adopted which seem pretty clear to me to heavily favor the insurance company.

It's a ripe for a test case.

Reality being what it is, and human nature being what it is, there is too much influence on the adjuster or public adjuster by the prospect of continued business. I've seen it 19 dozen times, the independent adjuster favors State Farm because keeping State Farm happy can bring them a lot more business than can joe blow who has a single 1500 sq. ft. shoe store with a hail damaged roof.

twill59....I love ya too man! Thanks for the question. The short answer is neither.

I did not go to trade school and I am not a lawyer. Nor do I give legal advice or practice law.

Fortunately, I do have several good working relationships with some of the very best lawyers in commercial insurance claim litigation. I consult with them regularly to constantly improve our process in efforts to settle claims quickly and fairly while taking preventative measures to avoid appraisals and legal disputes.

I build and orchestrate specialized insurance claim teams by type of loss and location then package the claim file and negotiate the settlement.

My background as an Apartment owner and licensed Texas Real Estate Broker with the experience of approximately $100M in transactions over the past 10+ years has been invaluable in working the insurance claim business.

Through my career I've worked within the securities world for private placement Tenant In Common offerings, commercial finance, Multifamily Brokerage, Management and ownership and of course insurance claims.

The reason I think I love what I do is that like so many of our clients, I love commercial real estate but while the reward side can be easy to stay focused on, the risk management side can be easy to ignore. Day to day risk is managed via operations. Unexpected risk (like storm damage) is managed via claims knowledge. I am happy to share claim insight if anyone has questions. I gain a lot of personal satisfaction in helping people get their claim issues resolved.

Keep the questions coming!

Scott.........I love ya man! One question: Did you go trade school or Law School?