How Much Does A Public Adjuster Cost?

By Taylor Grant, licensed public adjuster · Published November 3, 2020 · Updated September 24, 2026

A percentage of what is recovered, paid when you are paid. The number itself matters less than three questions about what the percentage attaches to - and those are the ones nobody asks.

Public adjusters work on contingency. There is no hourly rate, no retainer on a normal claim, and no bill if nothing is recovered. The fee is a percentage of what comes in, paid out of the settlement.

Rates in this market generally sit somewhere in the ten to twenty percent range, varying with the size and complexity of the loss - a large commercial file usually carries a lower percentage than a small residential one, because the same percentage of a much larger number is a very different amount of money.

That range is the easy part. The part that actually decides what you pay is in the contract.

The three questions that matter more than the percentage

1. What does the percentage attach to - the total settlement, or the additional amount recovered?

This is the big one. If the carrier already paid you $40,000 before you hired anyone, and a public adjuster recovers another $60,000, a fee on "the total claim" and a fee on "the additional recovery" are two different amounts of money. Both structures exist and both are defensible; you simply need to know which one you are signing and price it accordingly.

2. What is excluded from the fee base?

Common carve-outs worth asking about: payments already issued before the engagement, additional living expenses, emergency mitigation paid direct to a vendor, and the deductible. Ask explicitly and get the answer in the document, not in conversation.

3. What happens if you cancel, or if the claim goes nowhere?

Ask what is owed if you terminate mid-claim, and whether there is a fee if nothing additional is recovered. The honest answer to the second is usually none.

The rest of the checklist before you sign

• Is it in writing, and is the fee stated as a number? In Colorado a public adjuster must contract in writing and disclose the fee.
• Have you got your three days? Colorado gives you a right to rescind the contract within three days of signing. Any pressure to skip that window is itself the answer about who you are dealing with.
• Is the license current? Check it yourself in two minutes, for the individual and for the firm.
• Who actually works your file? The person who signed you, or somebody you have not met.
• Are they also going to do the repairs? If so, walk. Adjusting a claim and then selling the construction on it is a conflict of interest.
• What is the scope of the engagement? One claim, or every claim on that property, or anything that happens for the next two years.

Is it worth it

Do the arithmetic honestly.

If your claim is agreed, the estimate is complete, and the number is fair, a public adjuster adds nothing and the fee is dead money. We tell people this several times a month, and that is the right answer for those claims.

Where it changes is when whole categories are missing from the estimate - code upgrades under ordinance or law, overhead and profit across multiple trades, matching, contents, business income or loss of rents on a commercial building, recoverable depreciation nobody ever invoiced for. Those are not a few percent. On a contested commercial file they are routinely a multiple of the original number, and a percentage of a much larger recovery is straightforwardly better arithmetic than all of a small one.

The claims where it is clearest:

• Denied claims where the reason does not hold up.
• Commercial, industrial, multi-family, HOA, school and municipal losses.
• Large or total losses.
• Files that have stalled with nobody returning calls.

What it should never cost you

An up-front payment, a fee on money you would have received anyway under a structure you did not understand, or a claim signed away on your doorstep the day after a storm.

We do not charge for the review. Send us the declarations page and the carrier's estimate and you will get a straight read on whether there is enough in the file to be worth anyone's percentage - including a straight "there isn't."

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