An Insurance Claims adjuster’s job is to make sure that policyholders have paid the premiums they owed, and that policyholders who had a policy that they should cancel no longer have a policy. To help the policyholders get their money back, a public adjuster will make sure that policyholders have not been issued with too many policy numbers, and will also make sure that policyholders are not issued with too many policy numbers for too many people.
What a Public Adjuster Can Do for Policyholders
While a homeowner’s or property owner’s insurer will be responsible for paying all claims made on policyholders, a Public Adjuster’s job is to help policyholders. For this, the Public Adjuster is responsible for collecting premiums, and for making sure that policyholders are paid their premiums. If the Public Adjuster is unable to collect premiums, then the Public Adjuster will be responsible for helping policyholders get their money back from their insurance company. The Public Adjuster will also be responsible for helping policyholders make sure that their policy is not in the wrong policy class, and also will be responsible for helping policyholders decide if they should buy a different policy, and if they decide to buy a different policy, will help policyholders pick the right policy. The Public Adjuster’s job is also to help policyholders decide if they want to buy a different type of insurance, and if they decide they do, they will help policyholders select the right type of insurance that will suit their needs.
As a Public Adjuster your duty will be to help policyholders. While you will help policyholders collect their money, your duty will be to help policyholders recover any losses they incurred while they were collecting their money from their insurance company. Your duty is to ensure that policyholders are made whole by the insurance company, but the Public Adjuster’s job is to ensure that policyholders are not made whole by the insurance company. The Public Adjuster’s job is to help policyholders decide whether they want to buy a different type of insurance, and if they decide they do, will help policyholders select the right type of insurance that will suit their needs. The Public Adjuster will also help policyholders choose the right policy if they decide they do not want to buy a different type of policy, and will help them select the policy that will best suit their needs.
In a typical business the Public Adjuster is only an extra set of hands, helping policyholders that would not be able to manage the collection process themselves. The Public Adjuster will be asked to assist policyholders to recover their money and compensate them for any losses. They are not an accountant, nor a lawyer. Their role is to act as an independent decision maker, taking all the circumstances into account, and working out what each policyholder should do in order to collect their money, and ensure that they are made whole.
What do you do if you receive a request from a policyholder, that the Public Adjuster is asking you to intervene?
– You should always intervene to ensure that the policyholder is made whole by the insurance company.
How do you decide that?
* You may think that the Public Adjuster is asking you to help the policyholder by reducing the amount of the claim by a specified amount. In that case, it is best for you to do whatever you can, to ensure that the policyholder is made whole by the insurance company.
* Or maybe the Public Adjuster is asking you to reduce the amount of the claim by an amount that is greater than that specified by the Policy. In that case you should, but not necessarily, ask the policyholder to enter into a settlement agreement.
* Or maybe the Public Adjuster is asking you to reduce the amount of the claim by an amount that is less than that specified by the Policy. In that case, you should, but not necessarily, ask the policyholder to enter into a Settlement.
* Or maybe the Public Adjuster is asking you to adjust the policy to a lower amount than that specified by the Policy. In that case, you should, but not necessarily, ask the policyholder to enter into a Settlement.
* If you are not sure what to do, you should do nothing.
* You should not, however, ask the policyholder to enter into a Settlement Agreement that is less than the amount specified by the Policy.
As the Primary Insurance Adjuster to an insurance policyholder named John Smith, whose policy was purchased on January 8, 2008, the first thing you should do when you receive notice of the request is to do the following:
1. Contact John Smith by phone and ask him if he wants you to do anything. If he tells you no, you should follow the second step of this procedure and call the policyholder’s insurance carrier (often, the Carrier’s Claims Department) to ask them to tell John Smith to take whatever action they think is appropriate.
2. If John Smith is willing to tell you what action to take, let him know so that he can get back to you. (Do not delay this step so that you can chase John Smith down later. It just creates problems.)
3. Contact the policyholder by phone and explain to him what you want to do. For example, if you want to adjust his policy to $500,000 then tell him that you are adjusting his policy to $500,000 and if he does not want to pay that, that is fine too. Tell him that by paying that much, he is taking responsibility for the payment of the unpaid portion of the policy.
Note that you did not ask the policyholder to sign anything, and you did not ask him to enter into any Settlement. If you ask him to enter into a Settlement, he should say yes. Also, if you ask him to enter into a Settlement, you should tell him that if he does not agree to the settlement, you will file a lawsuit on his policy, and you will sue for $500,000. If he agrees to the Settlement, you did nothing wrong, and should let him know that you have filed the lawsuit. The final point about Settlement: You should not waste your time trying to get people to settle things they don’t want to settle. The insurance carrier does not want to file a lawsuit on a policy that it knows the policyholder will fight.
Also, a policyholder will not sign a Settlement that is less than the amount stated in the policy. The Settlement should be set as close to what is stated in the policy as possible.