I typically spend Good Friday afternoon alone, reflecting on my life and the important personal and professional issues facing me. One thought was about Caeden Tinklenberg’s recent LinkedIn post on Kentucky’s HB 568 and comments by those in the insurance industry. Caeden’s post should not simply alarm public adjusters. It should shake the very foundation of the profession. Legislation that effectively sidelines public adjusters from negotiating claims, freezes licensing, and restricts their ability to serve policyholders is not just another regulatory skirmish. If the profession continues to treat it as background noise, the consequences will be far more severe than a two-year legislative experiment in one state.
Measures like those passed in Kentucky do not arise in a vacuum. They are reactions and sometimes overreactions to a growing perception problem. When seasoned insurance defense attorney Steve Badger publicly states that abuses by public adjusters are “on the rise” and have “increased exponentially,” that is not a comment to casually dismiss. It reflects what many in the insurance claims industry have been saying privately for years in internal meetings, claims guidelines, and strategy sessions. They do not trust a significant portion of the public adjusting community.
That perception, fair or not, is driving policy, legislation, and litigation.
Badger’s broader point deserves serious reflection because it is what most in the insurance claims industry believe. The central challenge from the insurance industry is more uncomfortable because it is a challenge to clean up the public adjusting profession, or risk having it legislated into irrelevance or prevented by contract.
Jason Sullivan, who works for carriers, commented that, while more blunt, echoes the same concern. When individuals can enter the field with minimal training and immediately influence high-stakes financial outcomes, the risk of incompetence and improper conduct becomes real. The public adjusting profession cannot credibly argue for greater respect while tolerating a licensing framework that allows underqualified individuals to operate with little oversight. I discussed this more fully in “Are Public Adjusters Useful or A Menace? The Need to Raise Standards to Gain and Maintain a Public Adjusting License.”
The uncomfortable truth is that there is a widening gap between highly skilled, ethical public adjusters and those who are neither adequately trained nor committed to professional standards. Yet the industry’s leadership has been largely silent or ineffective in addressing it.
That silence is no longer sustainable.
For over three decades, I have publicly argued before regulatory and legislative bodies that public adjusters serve a critical and necessary role in the claims process. They level the playing field for policyholders who would otherwise face insurers with vastly superior resources and expertise. But that argument loses force when the profession fails to police itself.
A true profession sets high barriers to entry, enforces meaningful ethical standards, and disciplines those who violate them. It does not defend the indefensible under the banner of solidarity. It does not ignore systemic weaknesses because addressing them is uncomfortable or politically inconvenient.
The current trajectory invites more Kentucky-style legislation. It invites more anti-public adjuster endorsements like those emerging in Florida and other states. It invites courts and regulators to question whether public adjusters are a benefit to the claims process or a problem to be controlled.
Make no mistake, the opposition is organized, motivated, and gaining ground. They have an army of lobbyists and are skilled at influencing public opinion, regulators, and policymakers.
The solution is not to deflect criticism by pointing to shortcomings within the insurance industry. That argument, while often valid, does nothing to solve the public adjusting profession’s internal challenges. The answer lies in leadership that is willing to elevate standards, demand competence, and enforce accountability.
That means more rigorous licensing requirements. It means mandatory continuing education that actually educates. It means enforceable ethical codes with real consequences. It means a willingness to remove those who tarnish the profession rather than quietly tolerate them.
Until that happens, public adjusters will continue to face increasing legislative and contractual restrictions. The narrative will not change because the underlying issues have not been addressed.
Caeden is right. This is a battle. But it is not just a battle against external forces, it is a battle within the ranks of public adjusters themselves.
The question is whether public adjusters are willing to fight the harder fight. Will public adjusters take steps so that they can legitimately say that they are in a profession?
Thought For The Day
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
— Winston Churchill
