Both people who show up after a property loss are called adjusters, but they do not work for the same person. One is hired by your insurance company. The other is hired by you. Understanding that difference is usually worth more than anything else you do in the first week of a claim.
What an insurance company adjuster does
When you report a loss, your carrier assigns either a staff adjuster (an employee) or an independent adjuster (a contractor paid per file). Either way, the carrier is the client. Their job is to inspect the damage, apply the policy, write a scope of loss, and set the amount the company reserves for your claim.
Most are professional and many are genuinely helpful. But their estimate is written with the carrier's pricing software, their time on your file is limited, and their reading of the policy starts from what is excluded. After a regional storm, one adjuster may be carrying dozens of open files across several Pennsylvania counties at once.
What a public adjuster does
A public adjuster is licensed by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department to represent the policyholder, and only the policyholder. We are paid a percentage of what is recovered, so we have no reason to shrink the number. Our work is the mirror image of the carrier's process: document every affected area, build an independent line-item scope, price it at local replacement cost, and negotiate the difference.
Legacy Public Adjusters holds Pennsylvania public adjuster license #726839 and works only for property owners. We never represent an insurance company.
Side by side
| Insurance company adjuster | Public adjuster | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays them | The insurance company, as staff salary or per-file fee. | The policyholder, as a percentage of the settlement recovered. |
| Whose interests they represent | The carrier that hired them. | You, the property owner, only. |
| Who writes the estimate | They build the scope of loss and set the reserve. | We build a competing line-item scope and defend it. |
| How much time they give your file | One file among dozens open at the same time, more after a storm. | A limited caseload, so your loss gets documented in full. |
| What they look for | Policy language that limits or excludes part of the loss. | Coverage, code upgrades, and loss of use that were missed. |
| Licensing in Pennsylvania | Licensed to adjust on behalf of insurers. | Separately licensed by the PA Insurance Department to represent you. |
What about an independent adjuster or an appraiser?
Two titles cause most of the confusion. An independent adjuster is not neutral, despite the name: they are contracted by the carrier and paid by the carrier. An appraiser is a role inside the policy's appraisal clause, used to resolve a disagreement over the amount of loss after coverage is already accepted. Only a public adjuster is licensed to advocate for you across the whole claim, from first notice to final payment.
Where the gap shows up in the counties we serve
The difference between the two estimates is rarely about honesty. It is about local building reality that a fast inspection misses. Here is what we see most often across our Pennsylvania service area.
- Chester County: Older farmhouses and stone homes around West Chester and Phoenixville often need matching materials and code upgrades that a carrier scope leaves out.
- Delaware County: Dense rowhome blocks in Chester and Upper Darby mean shared walls and party-wall water travel that a quick inspection rarely traces.
- Montgomery County: Finished basements in Norristown and Pottstown are frequently written as drying only, with no allowance to rebuild what was actually torn out.
- Berks County: Reading and Wyomissing roofs take repeated hail and wind hits, so carriers argue prior damage and wear instead of covered loss.
- Lancaster County: Farm outbuildings and metal roofing around Lancaster and Manheim get valued as generic structures instead of what they cost to replace.
- Lehigh County: Allentown and Whitehall storm claims often turn on whether the roof is repairable, which is exactly where a competing scope matters.
We handle claims in Chester County, Delaware County, Montgomery County, Berks County, Lancaster County, and Lehigh County. Every one of those county pages lists the towns and townships we cover.
How the money works
The carrier's adjuster costs you nothing because the carrier employs them. A public adjuster works on contingency: a percentage of the settlement, agreed in writing before any work starts, with no recovery meaning no fee. In practice, the question is not whether representation is free. It is whether the documented settlement, minus the fee, beats the first offer. On underdocumented losses, it usually does.
When you probably do not need a public adjuster
Straight answer: a small, clean, single-trade loss that the carrier paid in full and you agree with does not need us. Call before the first inspection when the loss is large, involves more than one trade, made part of the property unusable, or when the offer looks low and you cannot tell why.
What to do in the first 72 hours
- Stop the ongoing damage and keep every receipt for emergency work.
- Photograph and video everything before anything is thrown away or torn out.
- Request a full copy of your policy, including all endorsements.
- Write down dates, names, and what each person told you.
- Get an independent read on the number before you sign anything or accept a payment as final.
If you want a second set of eyes, our free Pennsylvania claim estimator gives you a documented range in a few minutes, and our public adjuster claim process shows exactly what we do at each stage.