5 things to ask BEFORE you sign a PA contract - learned the hard way after hiring a bad one first

we had a fire in november 2024 and i hired the first public adjuster who knocked on the door. lost about 4 months and had to fire him and hire a second one to finish the claim. final settlement came out fine but i would have saved months of stress and probably 15k in delays if i had asked the right questions up front. sharing the list because PAs are not regulated consistently state to state and the bad ones know that.

before you sign anything, ask these 5 questions. if a PA wont answer any of them in writing, walk away.

1. how many active claims are you currently handling, and how many of those are over 6 months old? the bad PA i hired had 80+ active files and 30 of them were stale claims from 2023 he could not get over the finish line. he was running a volume model. PAs are usually one person operations, sometimes a small team. realistic capacity for hands on work is 15-25 active files at a time. ask. if the answer is "i dont know" or they refuse to give a number, that is your answer.

2. what is your fee structure and is it negotiable? 10% is industry standard for residential claims of reasonable size. for large losses (over 250k) you can often negotiate 7-8%. some shady PAs charge 15-20% which is legal in some states but unconscionable. also ask: does the fee apply only to NEW money they recover (the difference between original offer and final settlement) or to the total settlement including what the carrier already offered. the difference is huge. ethical PAs charge on new money only or have a sliding scale. predatory ones charge on the entire payout.

3. can i talk to three references from claims similar to mine that closed in the last 12 months? note the word "closed." anyone can give you references from claims that are still going great. you need references from finished claims so you can ask how the END went, not the beginning. and similar to your loss type - hail PAs are not fire PAs are not water damage PAs. specialty matters.

4. who actually scopes the damage and writes the estimate? some PAs sub-contract their estimating to a third party. that is fine if disclosed. it is not fine if the contract says "we" provide estimating services but in practice a stranger does the work and you find out at month 4. ask who is on the roof, who runs the Xactimate, and whether they are licensed/certified for that work.

5. what is your cancellation clause and is there a buyout fee if i fire you? read the contract. some PA contracts have a "marketing fee" or "file fee" of 3-5% of estimated claim value that gets billed if you fire them, even if they did basically nothing. it is legal in many states and it traps people. you want a contract that lets you cancel within a defined window (most states require 3 day cancellation rights by law) and beyond that, a reasonable hourly or expense based settlement if you fire them for cause. not a percentage of a number that doesnt exist yet.

the second PA i hired (the one who actually got the job done) answered all 5 of these in our first phone call without me even asking. she also volunteered her state license number, three current references, and her standard contract before i asked for them. that is what a competent PA looks like. the first guy i hired could not answer any of them and i signed anyway because i was overwhelmed and the house still smelled like smoke. dont do what i did.