What does a public adjuster actually do?

Here's the cleanest way to understand it: a public adjuster does for you exactly what the insurance company's adjuster does for them. Same skill set, same tools, same process, pointed in the opposite direction.

The work itself

1. Investigate and document the loss

A public adjuster inspects the property thoroughly. Not a walk-through, an investigation. At AdjustFair that means 3D scans, photographic documentation, moisture and smoke mapping, and room-by-room contents inventories. The goal is a record of the loss complete enough that nothing gets quietly left out of the claim.

2. Read the policy. All of it

Your policy is a contract, and most of its value lives in provisions nobody mentions: code upgrade coverage, additional living expenses, matching requirements, business interruption, ordinance and law. A public adjuster reads the policy line by line to find everything it owes you for your specific loss.

3. Build the estimate

The claim gets priced in Xactimate, the same estimating platform the insurance industry itself uses. That matters: when your claim arrives in the insurer's own language, line by line, it's much harder to dismiss.

4. Present, negotiate, and follow through

From there, the public adjuster handles the insurer: the calls, the letters, the inspections, the negotiation, and the supplements when more damage turns up during repairs. You stop being your own claims department.

What a public adjuster doesn't do

A public adjuster isn't a lawyer and doesn't file lawsuits, though if a claim ever needs one, a fully documented file is the best starting point an attorney can ask for. And a public adjuster never works for an insurance company. That's the defining line: licensed, regulated, and on the policyholder's side only.

How they're paid

By contingency: a percentage of what's recovered, set by contract before work begins. No recovery, no fee. The alignment is the point. Your adjuster only does well when you do.