<p>We own a rental house that suffered a fire yesterday. Fortunately, the house was vacant. Tenants had just moved out a few days earlier. The fire was electrical in nature and the damage is in the tens of thousands. A friend who is an independent insurance adjuster in this state suggested that we call in a public adjuster to work with our (state-run) insurance company, who is notoriously hard to deal with. We have no experience in this area and don’t know what to do.
We have already been approached by three restoration companies who want our business but we hesitate to use these “ambulance chaser” types who got our name and address from the police scanners. We don’t know any contractors so would be choosing blindly.</p>
<p>I’m hoping someone here will have some advice for us - thanks!</p>
<p>There are attorneys who specialize in “bad faith”. You may not need to go there. Fine out how much damage cost wise you have a what will make you whole. Get several bids. This might be an easy process…or not. Do NOT get friendly or volunteer extra information. </p>
<p>I used an independent adjuster this year. for kitchen damage. The agent from my insurance company was totally onboard with him. After the hurricane damage, I got practically nothing from her (same agent). If I had known better, I would gladly have given the independent adjuster 20% to get something more than what I did, which was 10% of what it actually cost me for repairs.</p>
<p>We used an adjustor for our rental fire. He got the maximum amount of the coverage. I think it was probably worth the fee.</p>
<p>We used an adjuster once and it worked out very well. It seemed like he knew the insurance company’s policies, procedures, rules, maximum allowances, etc. better than anyone at the insurance company.</p>
<p>If you have significant, potentially high dollar damage, then yes, the right public adjuster can really help. We used one several years ago and he helped a lot. We had to find experts to counter our insurer’s experts. He knew items of damage we might have overlooked. It more than made up for his cut.</p>
<p>patsmom, I have no advice, but am very sorry for this. Sounds like it’s going to be a huge PITA to get everything back to the way it should be. Good luck.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of a public adjuster, I wonder if we have them in our state. We’ve had a couple smaller fires in our rentals, but felt the insurance settlements were fair but those were with a previous insurance company and I’m a tad leery of our current one, the rates are lower which I like, but I wonder what going through the claim process might entail. So sorry to hear the news patsmom. I try not to think about such things and thank goodness the rental was empty.</p>
<p>Yes, we were very fortunate that it was empty, for many reasons. No one was hurt, no furniture or clothing or food was affected, and no one was displaced. </p>
<p>We will be meeting with a public adjuster tomorrow morning. We’re expecting the damage to exceed $50K, maybe by quite a bit, so I think it’s best.</p>