Hinch Law

A few years ago I wrote this post about public insurance adjusters and the law in Illinois, and the 2011 case of Golub and Associates v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company . Thank you to all who commented on that post (and there were many!).  Based on the level of interest and the fact that the relevant statutes have been amended since the last post, I decided to write this update.   What's a public insurance adjuster?  See here for the full definition in the statute .  Basically, a public adjuster is hired to assist someone who has suffered a catastrophe or other loss or damage to property, in negotiating with the insurance company on behalf of the insured. To do so in Illinois, the public adjuster is required to hold a license.   The rules for obtaining and maintaining a license are provided in Article XLV of the Illinois Insurance Code ; this Article is also referred to as the "Public Adjusters Law," and became effective in 2011.  Since tha...

This post has been updated, see the new post here .   Imagine that your home is destroyed in a fire overnight.  After family and friends, you would likely next call your insurance company to report the catastrophe and initiate a claim.  The person from the insurance company who investigates your claim and calculates the amount to be paid for the loss is called an "adjuster."  About this time you also attempt to read through the fine print morass that is your insurance policy, and realize the difficulty of making sense of it all.  Now imagine that after you report the claim you receive a letter from a "public adjuster," which helpfully points out to you that the insurance company's adjuster is an employee of the insurance company and therefore tied to the insurer's interests, and that the public adjuster is available to help you negotiate a better settlement with the insurance company, often for a percentage of the settlement proceeds, say for example 1...