Often yes, but not always, and we will show you the math so you can decide. A public adjuster is worth the fee when the gap between the carrier's offer and a fair repair is large compared to what you pay us. When it is not, we tell people not to hire us.
Here is how to work it out on your own kitchen table.
A $20,000 roof, two ways
This is an example, not a client result. Say your roof costs $20,000 to replace, you have a $2,500 deductible, and the carrier approves only $6,000 of the work. Here is what you walk away with in each case.
| Carrier's offer, no help | Claim fought and increased | |
|---|---|---|
| Approved roof amount | $6,000 | $20,000 |
| Your deductible | $2,500 | $2,500 |
| Insurance company pays | $3,500 | $17,500 |
| Cost of the roof | $20,000 | $20,000 |
| You pay toward the roof | $16,500 | $2,500 |
| Public adjuster fee | $0 | A percentage of the approved roof, set in your written agreement |
In the first column you have a $20,000 roof and $3,500 to put toward it. Most people in that spot patch what they can and hope. In the second column you have a roof.
Our fee is a percentage of the approved value of each trade we take on for you (roof, siding, and so on), and we only charge it on a trade if we get the insurance company to approve more than it already had. No increase on a trade, no fee on that trade. The exact percentage is in the written agreement.
The honest test is simple. Once you have that agreement in hand, subtract the fee from the $14,000 gap in the table. If you are still far ahead, the math works. If you are barely ahead, it does not.
The fee is separate from the insurance money
The insurance money pays for your repairs. Our fee is a separate, out-of-pocket cost you agree to in writing. We say that plainly because it is the thing most homeowners get wrong, and the thing a few unscrupulous people in this business blur on purpose.
On Minnesota residential claims there is also a $200 initial claim review and documentation fee. It covers the on-site inspection, getting your full policy from the carrier, reviewing every coverage, and a go or no-go answer. If we take the claim and win, that $200 is credited toward our final fee. We go deeper on this in our post on who pays a public adjuster.
What our results say, and what they do not
Of 69 claims where the carrier had already made a real first offer, 100% closed higher. The median increase was $18,840 per claim, and we have recovered $1.97 million above carriers' first offers.
Read that carefully. We only see denied and underpaid claims, so we are jaded, and we are also biased. Those numbers are from claims we chose to take after a review, which is exactly the point. We say no to the ones that would not work. A median is also not a promise. Half of those claims came in under $18,840.
Here is one anonymized case. A homeowner in Minnesota had a first offer of $5,517 on a storm claim. The final approved amount was $38,021. Another had a first offer of $51,125 and a final of $87,083. Those are real, but they are not what you should expect, and no one can honestly promise a result on an insurance claim.
When the math does not work
There are three situations where we usually say no, and a good public adjuster will say the same.
The estimate is near your deductible. If the carrier found $3,100 of damage and your deductible is $2,500, there is not enough room for any fee to make sense. We wrote about what that letter means in our post on below-deductible claims.
You have an actual cash value policy on an old roof. ACV means the carrier pays the depreciated value, not the replacement cost. On a twenty-year-old roof, depreciation can eat most of the payment. A $15,000 replacement might net a few thousand dollars after depreciation and the deductible, and a fee on top of that can leave you worse off.
There is no storm to tie the damage to. Failed flashing or a bad install is a contractor problem, not a covered peril. No amount of negotiating turns that into a storm claim.
We turn these claims away, usually on the consultation call or after the $200 review tells us the answer. We would rather lose the work than send an invoice for a result that did not help you.
The costs that are not on the invoice
Time is the other cost. After you sign, expect about three weeks where it looks like nothing is happening, because we request your full policy (the carrier usually takes about two weeks to send it) and read it before we argue anything. Most of our claims take months of back and forth, and some take a year.
You also give up some control. The carrier deals with us, and you are copied on every email. For most people that is a relief. For a few it is uncomfortable. We covered the full list of downsides in what is the downside of using a public adjuster.
The short version
A public adjuster is worth the fee when the carrier left a large gap on a claim your policy covers, and the fee is small next to that gap. It is not worth it when the offer is close to your deductible, the policy pays depreciated value on an old roof, or the damage is not from a storm.
Run your own numbers first. If you are not sure, the consultation is free, and the claim review is where we give you a straight answer before you pay anything beyond that $200. You can also read how the process works before you decide.