Navigate an Insurance Claim with Our Licensed Public Adjuster in Michigan

Our public adjuster near you in Ann Arbor will help the insureds through the entire claim process by:

• Evaluating the insurance policy to establish the best strategy for success.
• Preparing a detailed inventory of the losses and substantiating every aspect of the claim, making it difficult for the insurance company to reject the claim on documentation or other technicalities.
• Filing the claim with your insurance company, we advocate and negotiate for the best settlement for you throughout the entire process.

Legally, you can speak with your own insurance company and represent yourself. However, in practice, you should not talk to the insurance company alone, as that will adversely impact your claim. You need your own advocate. Whether you hire a public adjuster or an attorney to navigate your insurance claim is up to you, but here are the differences you should consider: 

• In some states, including Michigan, a licensed attorney can adjust insurance policies without being licensed as an insurance adjuster. However, such attorneys are forbidden from advertising themselves as a licensed insurance adjuster unless they pass the insurance adjuster’s licensing exam.

• Attorneys specialize in different fields of law. Just because an attorney who previously did something like social security disability law or immigration can legally adjust insurance claims does not mean that an attorney is truly the best advocate for a claimant. Insurance adjusters are specifically qualified and trained.

• Adjusters use very expensive subscriptions to software such as Xactimate, which costs around $3,000 a year. Failure to adjust claims with the tools accepted by the industry may lead to a denied claim. The insurance company will run its materials, repair, and labor estimates through insurance adjuster software.
      
  Software and procedures that the standard attorney has no knowledge of or experience in, but your public adjuster would know. An attorney can read contracts, negotiate, or yell at the insurance company; however, if an attorney is not familiar with documenting loss and proving it with what is acceptable to the insurance industry, then the results of utilizing an attorney may or probably will be less after attorney fees than utilizing a public adjuster.

• An attorney typically will charge you by the hour at $250 to $400 an hour, plus charging fees for phone calls, emails, postage, driving, etc. If an attorney does not charge you by the hour, they typically charge a 33% contingency on the claim amount plus costs for copying, emails, driving, and other fees that they term “their out of pocket.”

• Attorney licenses are often state-specific licenses. They must go through that state bar for a license to represent someone. In comparison, the insurance industry is relatively uniform. Our licenses have reciprocity across the country in 47 states but California, New York, and Hawaii.

• A public adjuster gets a small percentage of your settlement, usually 10%. A far lesser amount than what attorneys charge. You do not have to pay anything out of your pocket to employ a public adjuster. They are only paid when you are paid by the insurance company on the settlement/claim.
      
  Unlike attorneys who charge to send an email, make a phone call, or make a photocopy, most public adjusters do not charge in such a manner. Remember that statistically, claimants who utilize a public adjuster to advocate for their interests can achieve up to 8 times (800%) of the payout amount versus going through the insurance company’s adjuster.