A spring storm barrels through your neighborhood, shredding shingles and soaking insulation. You submit a claim, confident that the policy you’ve nurtured for years will make you whole. Weeks later, the letter arrives: “Claim closed—no payment.” Unfortunately, that terse verdict is hardly unusual. An independent review of the nation’s 14 largest homeowners insurers shows they closed 48 percent of their 3.7 million claims last year without paying a dime. In Texas, where hail and hurricanes rule the headlines, the no-pay rate crept even higher to 47 percent.
The Odds Are Tilted—and Getting Steeper
Industry insiders point to bigger deductibles, stricter exclusions, and a spike in catastrophe events. The result is a bruising claims process that drags on an average of 23.9 days—more than a week longer than just two years ago—while customer-satisfaction scores slide to a seven-year low. Yet, even as homeowners wait and worry, the property-and-casualty sector reported about $170 billion in net income for 2024, its best underwriting result in four years.
Put simply: premiums have never been higher, payouts have never been scarcer, and the companies are still doing just fine.
Why So Many Claims Die on the Vine
For most of us, a property loss is a once-in-a-decade event—only about 5.5 percent of insured homes file a claim in any given year. We’re amateurs facing professionals. The carrier’s adjuster may flag documentation gaps (“Where’s the original invoice for that sofa?”), question causation (“Was that leak really storm-related?”), or simply let the calendar wear you down. After three or four rounds of paperwork, many homeowners accept a token check—or none at all—just to move on.
Enter the Public Adjuster: Your Translator, Negotiator, and Relentless Advocate
A licensed public adjuster (PA) does everything you assume the insurer will do but often doesn’t. They visit the site with the same forensic tools company adjusters use, write detailed estimates in the carrier’s preferred software, decode dense policy language to surface hidden coverages, and haggle with desk adjusters until every allowable penny is on the table. Because PAs work on contingency—usually 10 to 15 percent of the final settlement—they only win when you do.
A Real-World Turnaround
Consider a suburban homeowner whose hail-pocked roof and soaked drywall prompted an initial carrier offer of $42,000—just enough to patch shingles and repaint a bedroom. Unsatisfied, she hired a PA. Over the next six weeks, the adjuster documented decking damage, invoked the code-upgrade clause, and navigated the appraisal process. Final settlement: $92,000. Even after the PA’s 10 percent fee, the homeowner walked away with nearly twice the money—and a roof rebuilt to current code. Cases vary, of course, but this pattern is common in the PA world.
Stacking the Deck Before Disaster Strikes
Hiring a public adjuster after the storm isn’t your only line of defense. Snap baseline photos of every room each season; upload receipts the moment you buy big-ticket items; read your policy’s wind and hail deductibles before you need them; and, if damages feel overwhelming on day one, bring a PA in early. Each habit shortens the paper chase the carrier can use to stall or shrink your payout.
Closing Thoughts
Insurance is supposed to swap today’s premiums for tomorrow’s peace of mind. Yet when a claim has a roughly fifty-fifty chance of ending in rejection, peace feels more like roulette. A public adjuster can’t promise a jackpot, but they can convert a perilous game of chance into a rules-based negotiation—one where the numbers, the policy, and the process finally tilt your way.
If you suspect a recent claim was underpaid or denied, our team offers a complimentary, no-obligation review. Because the company has professionals protecting its bottom line. Shouldn’t you? Reach out to us, The David Group, if you feel you need professional public adjusting expertise.