Public Adjusters

JEFFREY GOULD: The only way to ensure that your interests are being protected is to do it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you.

DAVID PISANIC: You should hire a public adjuster if the claim is more than you feel like you can handle.

JEFFREY GOULD: Frequently in a fire such as this, there is lot of debris that is thrown outside the windows and on the yards and pick through or taken away by local authorities.

DAVID PISANIC: There is a tremendous amount of cataloging and remembering what you had, what your personal property was?

JEFFREY GOULD: And you have to recreate what the interior of the house looked like. Only the homeowner or an expert who had experience in repairing these claims can do that with the detail that the insurance company is going to require and in a timely manner.

DAVID PISANIC: It is often a good idea to hire a public adjuster.

JEFFREY GOULD: You need to protect your own interest.

DAVID PISANIC: That might seem crazy for me to say that, but it really makes everybody's job easy in most cases because the public adjusters know how to make all the lists and they know how to go through what you own and they know how to evaluate your property and all that kind of stuff for you. It is not the insurance company's job at that point to explain to you what your benefits are.

A public adjuster is going to tell you about all of those aspects of the policy. The public adjuster is going to tell you, he will make more money for you in the long run and so, it really would not cost you anything, which could be a case in some circumstances, the public adjuster will save your money.

JEFFREY GOULD: If you hire a public adjuster or a lawyer you are in control of the claim.

DAVID PISANIC: If you hire a public adjuster, I as the adjuster for the insurance company have to be a lot more careful because I know that I have got another set of experienced eyes looking at what I am doing.