Little-Known Role of Public Adjusters Brings Recourse to Homeowners; Ethics Are Key
Knoxville, Tenn. – Several months since severely damaging wind and hail storms swept through East Tennessee, many homeowners are finally getting their homes – and in some cases, their lives – back to normal.
However, for one segment of homeowners who are still awaiting full payments from their insurance companies, the process of being made whole continues to linger.
With East Tennessee home-damage claimants numbering in the tens of thousands following the storms, there may be thousands of homeowners who have not reached an appropriate settlement that they believe holds true to their original insurance company contract.
“In my experience, the majority of insurance claims are handled appropriately, but a significant number are not,” said Catastrophic Claims Consultants (CCC), LLC, President David R. Charles, a 32-year veteran of the insurance industry who has worked scores of major disasters in the U.S. since 1977, including the 1994 Northridge Earthquake in California, Hurricanes Andrew, Ike, and Katrina, and the 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attack.
According to Charles, the company is seeing several areas of Greater Knoxville in particular where some homeowners feel they are not receiving proper insurance settlements. For example, CCC’s staff often manages client situations where a homeowner only receives an insurance payment to repair part of their roof, when in fact the entire roof was damaged in a storm.
“For homeowners who don’t have a positive experience, they can be left with little recourse to restore their home to its pre-storm condition – which is generally the underlying promise of any homeowner insurance contract,” Charles said.
Public insurance adjusters negotiate on behalf of homeowners and policyholders to make sure the insurance company fulfills its obligations.
“If we find that a homeowner has not received a fair settlement or if their insurance company is waffling on what they will pay, we aggressively pursue proper compensation – again, in keeping with the insurance contract,” Charles said. “We also help our clients prepare and protect themselves in the event of future damage or catastrophe.”
According to Charles, there generally is low awareness about the role public adjusters can play to help homeowners negotiate an insurance settlement they are entitled to receive. In addition, the industry also has its share of bad actors.
“In any local area that has experienced a disaster, we often hear of contractors – primarily roofers – reaching out to homeowners and offering to negotiate with the insurance company on their behalf,” Charles said. “Not only is this practice unethical but it is also illegal in the state of Tennessee. Homeowners often do not know the illegal nature of this sales pitch when they are confronted with it by contractors and how it can put them at risk.”
Catastrophic Claims Consultants advises Knoxville area property owners to follow several key steps when considering how a public adjuster can help them:
- Understand the role of a public insurance adjuster before engaging anyone to provide these services on your behalf.
- Avoid individuals who offer these services when doing so poses any conflict of interest, such as providing the construction services based on their own assessment of damages and negotiations with the insurance company.
- Also, avoid any company that dives right into demanding more money from the insurance company without conducting its own objective assessment of the property damage and whether additional compensation from the insurance company is even merited.
2. Check for credentials, such as licensure in the state of Tennessee.
3. Beware of firms that demand up-front fees for services, regardless of the outcome they
negotiate on your behalf with the insurance company. Public adjusters work purely on a
contingency basis, ensuring that the homeowner does not pay anything unless he or she
receives some form of settlement.
4. Maintain reasonable expectations. The purpose of a public adjuster is not to turn a
previous $200,000 home prior to a disaster into a $300,000 home following a
disaster. The focus of both the homeowner and the adjuster should always be on
restoring property to its pre-storm condition and making sure insurance companies
follow through with that obligation.
“Professionalism and ethics are key,” Charles said. “It is important for the public to be informed about how a public adjuster can assist them as well as the qualities of a credible service provider.”
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Catastrophic Claims Consultants, LLC is a public insurance adjuster firm representing policyholders in the insurance claims process. The firm’s team members have serviced thousands of insurance claims, from individual homeowner claims to $30 million commercial losses resulting from fire, smoke, wind, hail, water, mold, sinkholes, additional living expenses, freezes, vandalisms, falling objects, theft, collapse, lightning, other business interruptions and loss of rents.
