After a fire, a storm, or a water loss, the insurance company sends someone to the property. That person is an adjuster. They are not your adjuster. They work for the carrier. Their job is to protect the company’s spend.
A public insurance adjuster is licensed to represent the policyholder. CMA’s only client on your file is you. That is the entire difference, and it is why this work still matters in 2026 the same way it did when we first wrote about it.
What actually changes when you hire CMA
- Expertise. Policies are not written in plain English. Coverage, exclusions, depreciation, and matching have to be read against the damage — not against a drive-by estimate.
- Time. A real claim is a second job: photos, inventories, supplements, and calls. We take that off you so you can live in the house, or get out of it if you cannot.
- Language. Carriers speak in forms, codes, and line items. If you do not, you redo their requests and the file stalls.
- Representation. Without someone on your side, a low first offer is easy to leave on the table. A public adjuster is the signal that the number will be checked.
- The CAT trap. After a storm, many carriers do not send their own staff. They send independent catastrophe adjusters hired for volume. Details get missed. We are there to catch them.
How we get paid
CMA works on a contingency fee — a percentage of the claim settlement, subject to the fee cap in your state. There is no upfront fee. If there is no recovery, you do not owe a CMA fee. That is not a slogan. It is how the engagement is written.
We do not promise a multiple of what the carrier first offered. Every file is different. What we do is document the loss, build the estimate, and negotiate for what the policy actually owes.
When to call
Before you sign a release. Before you accept a first check as the final number. After a denial. After a storm you thought was “just shingles.” It is not too late because a claim is already open.
Rewritten from CMA’s 2016 “Benefits of Hiring a Public Adjuster.”