What Is Life Like As A Public Adjuster?

Question

What kind of money do you make?

What are the hours?

How do you get customers?

Answer 1

And some states do not allow public adjusters.

So you want to check with the insurance dept of the state you want to practice in to see if you are allowed.

(we don't have them in my state!)

Answer 2

Public adjusters represent policy holders on insurance claims- they do almost exclusively fires.

They get their clients by listening to police scanners, and going to the scene of the fire, often arriving before it is extinguished.

They tell the policyholder that their insurance company is going to rip them off, if they don't retain their services. They need to do this quickly, while the policy holder is still emotionally distraught.

They then document and negotiate the claim, in exchange for 10% of the total. They make their money by exaggerating the loss, dragging it out (while blaming the ins. co. adjuster for the delay) and trying to intimidate the insurance people.

Some of them get involved in arson-for-profit schemes. kickbacks to the firemen, etc.

It's a very shady business. I have known many public adjusters. They remind me of a "Sopranos" character.

The money is good. They like to drive Cadillacs.

Answer 3

When I was an adjuster in Minneapolis/St. Paul I was unlucky enough to deal with public adjusters on fire claims.

Dion's answer is very, very accurate.

If you are aggressive enough and work in a big city you can make very good money. However, it would entail long hours because house fires don't occur only between 8 and 5.

The bottom line is that in order to be successful as a public adjuster you MUST be a fear monger, pushy, good at creative math and have no conscience.

The part I love about PA's is that they take 10% of the settlement, which means they either have to jack the price of the claim up by 10% which could be considered fraud or they leave their clients with 90% of what they need to pay for legit repairs.