Recently one of my rental properties was hit by a lightning strike which started a fire and damaged the property extensively. I am now being approached by public adjusters to be hired by me to deal with insurance claim. Their fee seems 10% of the eventual payment to me by insurance company. Do you have any experience dealing with public adjusters? Is hiring them a good idea?

Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions.

IMO if you're unfamiliar with how insurance claims actually work, you are smart to hire a public adjuster. Keep in mind not all PAs are the same as far as their expertise goes. Also if there is significant damage & high dollars involved most of them will be willing to negotiate their fee.

All of my properties even my personal houses have either a $5,000.00 or a $10,000.00 deductible. On relatively small damages up to say $5,000.00, I don't report it & just pay out of pocket.

On simple straight forward damages, I represent myself.

On major losses I hire a public adjuster to represent me against my insurance carrier. I've settled over 2 million in fire damages for which I've paid my public adjuster an 8-10% fee for their services.

I had an apartment building for 20 years before a tenant caused a fire destroying the interior of 2 out of 8 units. Since I'm a licensed contractor I offered to do the work myself (my company), with permits and inspections for $100,000. My insurance company said, "Okay, less $20,000 for your deductible"!

I told them I was already asking for my cost and going to save them a bunch of money. They wouldn't budge.

So I hired a public adjuster. A company that I never used before so there could be no hint of fraud or conclusion. Their bids for the plans, permits, designing, gutting out and replacement including a General Contractor, Electrical Contractor, Plumbing Contractor, Tile Contractor, Structural Contractor, Flooring Contractor, Window Contractor -- and so on came to $328,000. More than 3 times more than I had asked for.

Then my insurance company offered me the $100,000 grand without any deductibles. Now I wouldn't budge and let the Public Adjuster and his teams to the Restoration.

Whomever you decide to hire, I would ask if they would base their compensation on a percentage of the NET DIFFERENCE I received in payout. That way, if the original settlement offer is only $10,000 and the adjuster only find $10,100 total, I'm not $900 poorer than if I had just taken the original offer.

For a large loss, in a heartbeat. We used one when our personal home burned down. Best move we made. The amount of the claim went up because they know all the things you are entitled to. For instance we used Rent A Center furniture in our rental. With the claim amount being larger, I feel it made up for their %. They did the counting of books, etc in the part of the house that was still standing. They negotiated with insurance (much better for your blood pressure). We did have a recommendation from a friend that had used the person, so we knew they were good at what they did.

"Keep in mind not all PAs are the same as far as their expertise goes."

"Keep in mind not all PAs are the same as far as their expertise goes."