You pay a public adjuster. The insurance company does not, and the fee is not built into your claim.
That surprises people, because the pitch they have heard sounds like "it costs you nothing." It does not work that way, and any firm that tells you it does is either confused or hoping you will not read the contract. Here is how it actually works.
The insurance money pays for repairs
When a carrier approves part of your claim, that money is the cost of fixing your house. If the carrier approves a $20,000 roof, the $20,000 is what the roof costs. It goes to the roofer.
Our fee is a separate, out-of-pocket cost you agree to in writing before we do anything. It is not a line on the carrier's estimate, and the carrier never sees it. You hire us, so you are the one who owes us.
We think carriers should cover the cost when they wrongly deny a claim that was owed. Texas is the one state where fee shifting like that exists. Minnesota is not.
How our fee is calculated
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.
Here is a generic example, not a client result. Say the carrier offers $8,000 for your roof and $0 for your siding, and we take both trades. If we get the roof raised to $20,000 and the siding stays at $0, we charge on the roof and nothing on the siding. If the roof stays at $8,000, there is no fee on it at all.
The trade-by-trade structure keeps us honest. We do not get paid on trades where we did nothing.
The $200 Minnesota review fee
On Minnesota residential claims, there is also a $200 initial claim review and documentation fee. It covers an on-site inspection, getting your full policy from the carrier, reviewing every coverage, and a straight go or no-go answer on whether the claim is worth pursuing.
If we take the claim and win, that $200 is credited toward the final fee. If we look at it and say no, you have paid $200 for an honest answer and a policy review you can use however you like.
The consultation itself is free. The claim review is not, and we will not pretend otherwise.
What if my contractor offers to pay the fee?
This comes up a lot. A roofer likes the job, wants the claim to go well, and says "I'll cover the public adjuster."
That is allowed. But we are hired by the homeowner, and the homeowner is responsible for the fee. If the contractor changes their mind, or the job falls through, the bill lands on you. So if a contractor is covering it, get that in writing, and read the contract you sign with us as if nobody else were paying.
Also ask what the contractor expects in return. Usually it is the repair job. That is fine, but you should know it going in. Minnesota also bars public adjusters from paying for referrals, so a good firm will not be splitting anything with the roofer. We talked about how contractors and adjusters fit together in our post on why your roofer cannot handle the claim.
Do I have to spend all of it on repairs?
No. The policy covers the damage, and what you do about repairs is your choice. Say the carrier approves dented gutters and you decide you do not care about the dents. You can choose not to repair them and use that money however you like.
The catch is that carriers typically pay in stages, with part up front and the held-back depreciation released after the work is done and invoiced. Carriers pay what is invoiced. So if you skip an item, or find a contractor who is cheaper than the estimate, the difference does not always come to you. We cover that in our post on recoverable depreciation.
An approved roof that never gets repaired also has a downside. Carriers share claim data, and a home with an approved but unrepaired roof can be hard to reinsure.
Is it worth it?
That depends on the gap. If the carrier offered $10,891 on a hail claim that ended at $238,239 (a real Minnesota claim, with the homeowner's name left out), a percentage of the approved trades looks small next to the difference. If the carrier offered $3,100 on a $2,500 deductible, there is no room for a fee to make sense, and we say that on the consultation call.
Here are the only numbers we publish about our results. Of 69 claims where the carrier had already made a real first offer, 100% closed higher. The median increase was $18,840 per claim. Median means the middle claim, not the average pulled up by a few huge ones. We walk through the full comparison in the honest math on whether a public adjuster is worth the fee.
The short version
The homeowner pays. The insurance company does not pay a public adjuster, and the fee is not baked into your claim. It is a separate cost, agreed in writing, charged on a trade only if we get that trade increased. If a firm tells you the carrier covers it, ask them to show you where that is written down. Our FAQ has the rest of the basics.