Following a speech about claims ethics and claims practice lawsuits, one of the questions I get asked is whether the insurance company’s adjuster can be sued for bad faith. The answer is that it depends on the state law. But I often ask the question—“Why do you want to sue the individual adjuster when the adjuster is already an agent of the insurance company?”
Continue Reading Can The Individual Adjuster Be Sued For Statutory Bad Faith? Can The Adjuster Be Sued In Colorado?
A public adjuster from Arizona, David Young, sent me a Florida Administrative matter for my review. He indicated it appeared that Florida was requiring parties to an appraisal to hire licensed adjusters or public adjusters.
Continue Reading The Florida Department of Financial Services Wrongly Believes Appraisers Need to Be Florida-Licensed Adjusters
Most states have ethical regulations for all adjusters to follow. Florida’s ethical regulation starts off with this preamble which is similarly found in many other states:
The work of adjusting insurance claims engages the public trust. An adjuster shall put the duty for fair and honest treatment of the claimant above the adjuster’s own interests in every instance.
Jon Held is one of the best advocates I have ever seen and heard argue about keeping the amount owed to policyholders down. He is a brilliant businessperson and has built an exceptional insurance consulting company regarding virtually every aspect of the insurance claims valuation process. I called his company a “surrogate” for claims adjusters and the insurance industry media took notice.
Continue Reading Is JS Held a Claim Surrogate? Do Not Miss Today’s Tuesday At 2 With Chip Merlin
Mississippi has an answer. On April 16, 2020, the Mississippi Supreme Court recently ruled that an adjuster’s safety was not the homeowner’s responsibility, as the homeowner exercised no control over the adjuster.1
Continue Reading Adjusters’ Safety During Inspections—Whose Responsibility is it?
Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed Senate Bill 240, which enacts new laws that regulate out of state independent adjusters. The law also addresses claim adjustment for declared emergencies. The new laws, described more fully below, became effective on October 3. 2019.
Continue Reading California Enacts New Laws that Regulate Out of State Independent Adjusters and Address Claim Adjustment Obligations for Declared Emergencies
My weekend reading found me with a recently purchased 1953 2d Edition of Property Insurance Adjusting. The reading worked pretty well for my unplanned recovery of sleep deprivation during the work week. The publication listed a bibliography with a number of General Adjustment Bureau manuals. Being the nerdy collector of insurance lore, I started a search for those manuals which lead me to an article which is the subject of this blog.
Continue Reading The Professionalism and Ethics of a Property Insurance Adjuster
While an adjuster may have contractual obligations to the insurance company that has hired them they cannot hide behind an insurer’s policies as a defense to actionable conduct. It is no defense to suit for an adjuster to argue “but I did what the insurance company told me to do.”
Continue Reading Adjusters Can Face Civil Lawsuits for Violating the Texas Insurance Code
Enservio’s director of training, Scott Petlewski, wrote an article Establishing Value on Contents Claims: 3 Bad Habits to Break, which demonstrates that proper contents adjustment is hard work. It can be time consuming, expensive from a labor standpoint, and fraught with error.
Continue Reading Contents Adjustment is Tedious Hard Work
The Honorable Governor Crist:
I respectfully request that you veto the insurance legislation recently passed in SB 2044. While there are many good provisions in this bill including some of the Public Adjusting proposed changes, other provisions will cause great harm to Florida policyholders particularly when the next big storm or other perils impact already struggling Floridians.
Continue Reading A Guest Letter Calling For a Veto of the Insurance Bill