Field notes
Settlement benchmarks, the workflows that survive carrier review, and the state deadlines that close files early. No SaaS filler. Every number cites its source.
Latest · State legal
Cutler v. Guardian Mutual, No. 25-1434 (Iowa Ct. App., Oct. 21, 2026): the appraisal clause added $248,845.66 to a West Des Moines fire claim while the bad-faith count was dismissed on summary judgment.
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The library
Trend analysis
The Eleventh Circuit held Zurich waived a $2.5 million flood deductible on the three rain events it paid unconditionally, and sent the two unpaid events to a jury.
4 min read
Trend analysis
SB 876 is Chapter 656, Statutes of 2026. It replaces California's three-adjusters-in-six-months status report trigger with a written report due 15 calendar days after any subsequent adjuster takes primary responsibility, and specifies the contents down to the dollar amount paid to date per coverage portion. Operative January 1, 2028.
9 min read
Trend analysis
The Idaho Supreme Court corrected the district court on whether Grant Espinosa received his public adjuster's May 4, 2023 email, then excluded Exhibit D anyway because no one identified who prepared the attachments.
4 min read
State legal
The Florida Supreme Court held on October 22, 2026 that section 627.70152's notice of intent to initiate litigation does not reach a policy issued before July 1, 2021. The controlling date is on the declarations page, and Cole was expressly disapproved.
8 min read
Trend analysis
Linsao v. First American came down unpublished on August 27. The insurer asked the Second District to publish it, and on September 23 the court did.
2 min read
Trend analysis
HB 1972 passed the Pennsylvania Senate 50-0 and cleared House concurrence 203-0 with a 20% fee ceiling, not the 15% in the introduced bill. What the three printer's numbers show, where 20% ranks against the other capping states, and the catastrophe definition that moves files to 10%.
7 min read
Trend analysis
Eleven days into Hurricane Isaias, 70.3% of the Florida claims carriers had closed were closed without payment, and 75.5% of those carry a reason code new in 2026.
2 min read
State legal
WAC 284-30-340(2) gives a Washington insured the first-party claim file within 15 business days of a request. RCW 48.30.015(5) does not name that section, so the same refusal belongs in the record under WAC 284-30-330(14), which it does name.
9 min read
State legal
Virginia's new § 38.2-1845.24 puts unlicensed-practice exposure on the licensed public adjuster, while the only Bureau of Insurance guidance on where the line falls predates the amendment by two years.
4 min read
State legal
La. R.S. 22:1274 bans anti-public-adjuster policy clauses and then exempts commercial surplus lines policies. Texas and Massachusetts name non-admitted carriers; New York names nothing, and a federal court enforced the clause to judgment.
9 min read
State legal
Illinois Bulletin 2026-02 reads 215 ILCS 5/1510 to capture roofer lead generators, and 5/1515(e) voids the public adjuster contract that follows.
4 min read
State legal
Massachusetts Chapter 187 voids anti-public-adjuster endorsements reaching six verbs, but only "hiring" becomes an unfair claim settlement practice that opens the c.93A damages door.
7 min read
State legal
Florida's Second District held that a negotiated attorney's fee line is not within the coverage, and so not a covered claim after an insolvency. A same-day Third District remand shows what happens to a public adjuster's commission bundled into the attorney's check.
2 min read
State legal
Arizona's claim-handling rule sets clocks for everything except payment. The payment clock is statutory, and its interest penalty accrues from the date of receipt rather than from day thirty-one.
8 min read
State legal
Two subpoenas duces tecum command Oklahoma's insurance commissioner and his custodian of records to produce the department's State Farm roof-claim examination file. 36 O.S. § 309.4(F) says those working papers are not subject to subpoena.
4 min read
State legal
Commissioner Crawford's September 14 memo carries a dozen legislative considerations. Abbott's press release names five of them as statutory options. The missing one says many insurers never affirmatively accept or reject a claim, and Section 542.056 explains why that works.
8 min read
State legal
AB 1795's enrolled text dropped the urgency clause earlier drafts carried and made the act operative only if AB 1642 is effective by January 1, 2027. What that leaves on a California smoke file: a ZIP-code presumption, three 30-day clocks, section 2057 interest, and a certification duty that lands on the public adjuster too.
4 min read
State legal
Ohio Adm.Code 3901-1-54 puts real 15, 21, 45 and 10-day duties on carriers and attaches no remedy to any of them. The levers that still work are policy construction, suit-limitation waiver, an R.C. 3901.22(A) hearing demand, and bad faith proved on the investigation.
9 min read
State legal
TDI proposed 28 TAC §§5.9800–5.9806 in April 2026 and never filed an adoption, so the September 1, 2026 compliance date written into the rules has already passed. What actually governs a Texas appraisal demand right now is the policy clause, ch. 1813, and existing case law.
4 min read
State legal
Transportation Consultants affirms that Louisiana law blocks arbitration against domestic insurers, but leaves the stay of that litigation to be decided on the Waste Management factors and a factual record.
2 min read
Trend analysis
County Counsel's Sept. 9 investigation letter to Farmers repeats the State Farm bullet list but drops the authorities that letter cited inline. What each bullet maps to, and the documents to pull before Sept. 21.
4 min read
Trend analysis
The Eighth Circuit held that an appraisal panel's dollar figure already decides whether replacement shingles are of like kind and quality, and Minnesota has no matching statute standing behind it.
10 min read
Trend analysis
A federal RICO complaint over Hurricane Beryl estimates names the Xactimate audit records TWIA policyholders can request under the Texas Public Information Act.
6 min read
State legal
How Peloso tolling, the N.J.A.C. 11:2-17 clocks, and the absence of a private right of action set the real deadlines on a New Jersey property claim.
10 min read
State legal
Illinois Company Bulletin 2026-01 quotes 215 ILCS 5/1575(f)(4) without its assignment exception, and your executed contract decides the co-payee question.
2 min read
Trend analysis
Los Angeles County's August 2026 complaint against State Farm is a publicly filed, regulator-documented account of how one carrier handled California smoke claims. This is how an adjuster reads it by paragraph number and uses it on an open file.
9 min read
State legal
Hawaii County sat under a Hurricane Warning 42 hours before Lala was classified a hurricane. Memo 2026-7A tells carriers to name the express policy language.
4 min read
State legal
Colorado's new resilient-roof law buries a standing annual per-carrier wind and hail loss exhibit inside the one rate-filing section homeowners insurers are excepted from, and whether a public adjuster can read it is still open.
8 min read
State legal
TWIA's committee forwarded repeal of the multidistrict-litigation judge requirement and Florida-style tort reform to the Board on September 1, 2026. Seven newsrooms covered the meeting. Two named the litigation items. None explained either.
5 min read
State legal
Chapter 187 makes anti-public-adjuster endorsements unenforceable in Massachusetts. The search-and-log procedure for your open surplus-lines files.
3 min read
Workflow
Carriers cut commercial BI claims at F.3.b, C.3.a.(2), C.3.d and Coinsurance D. A provision-by-provision documentation map for public adjusters working ISO CP 00 30 10 12.
9 min read
State legal
South Carolina's Court of Appeals enforced a protective safeguards endorsement against a $2.85M Myrtle Beach fire loss, then held the agent E&O recovery to $15,000 after the jury put 60% of the fault on the insured who signed the application.
4 min read
Trend analysis
Across the 21 Indiana counties FEMA designated for Individual Assistance under DR-4933, only 0.53% of residential structures carry an NFIP policy, which pushes almost every claim onto the wind side of an HO-3.
3 min read
State legal
Eight newsrooms covered the 31 unsealed State Farm documents in Oklahoma. Who reported the $78.8M figure, who printed the trial dates, and where the accounts diverge — with the broadcast segments embedded.
10 min read
State legal
Chapter 176D § 3(9) sets no day counts. The only fixed period in the Massachusetts scheme is the thirty days that follow a c. 93A § 9(3) demand letter, and a business insured suing under § 11 never gets it.
4 min read
State legal
A Comanche County judge unsealed 31 internal State Farm documents on August 20, 2026. What they say about roof-approval targets, and what Oklahoma homeowners with denied claims should check first.
9 min read
Trend analysis
SPC logged 616 wind reports to 19 tornado reports across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky on August 11, 2026. The official federal record of the storm will not exist until late this year, which puts the causation record back on the claim file.
8 min read
State legal
SB 495 raised California's emergency contents advance to 60 percent of the personal property limit. Because the base moved from Coverage A to Coverage C, the advance is smaller wherever contents coverage is under half the dwelling limit.
4 min read
Comparison
ClaimWizard's cheapest plan is off-limits the moment a solo PA hires staff, and its native mobile app needs a separately paid license. Here's what claimOS does differently, and what it costs to do it.
4 min read
State legal
Colorado runs six overlapping property-claim deadlines, from Regulation 5-1-14's 60-day carrier clock to the 2024 Gregory/Runkel notice ruling. A public adjuster's field guide to all six.
9 min read
Industry data
Verisk's 2026 roof data shows hail states hold the youngest roof stock in the country, which moves the real fight to endorsement text and reporting windows.
2 min read
Industry data
A Delaware court ordered Verisk to pursue its $2.35B AccuLynx acquisition after finding that Verisk's own cancelled Xactimate pricing integration caused the FTC delay it tried to exit on.
8 min read
Industry data
Florida's insurance regulator reports a 66-day mean and a 30-day median for property claim closing time, on the same 456,200 claims closed in 2025. The gap is a long tail, not carrier size.
3 min read
Reference
Florida's hurricane date-of-loss window opens at an NHC hurricane warning and closes 72 hours after the last watch or warning ends, not at landfall. Here is the record that proves it, and the certified copy that survives a coverage fight.
4 min read
Industry data
NAIC's own MCAS data shows the real state-by-state claims-closed-without-payment ratio, and the viral “denial rate” rankings circulating in 2026 are measuring insurer domicile, not claims.
9 min read
State legal
North Carolina gives Helene policyholders three years from the date of loss to sue, not the shorter period printed in the policy, and no carrier reopen resets it.
4 min read
Workflow
Six late-notice causation affidavits have been graded in published Florida appellate opinions. Wild Oak Bay is the first one a court walked element by element and held sufficient. Three survived summary judgment, three did not, and the split is not where most reports assume.
9 min read
Trend analysis
On July 22, 2026 the Second DCA held in Wild Oak Bay that American Coastal's own policy wording removed the presumption of prejudice, putting the burden to prove prejudice on the insurer in six counties. The court certified conflict with the Third DCA's Arce.
2 min read
Reference
Three states use a one-year notice window and produce three different outcomes. The first branch of an FNOL decision tree is not geography, it is who drafted the deadline: a legislature or an underwriter.
9 min read
Industry data
Most states set no statutory cap on public adjuster fees at all. Where caps exist they vary — Florida’s everyday ceiling is 20%, New York’s is 12.5%, Texas is a flat 10% — and the famous “10%” is often a declared-emergency rate. What the statutes actually say.
3 min read
State legal
A field guide to Georgia's property-claim deadlines: what the state makes carriers do, when a bad-faith demand unlocks penalties under O.C.G.A. § 33-4-6, and the policy suit-limit that quietly bars claims.
7 min read
Workflow
The line item a carrier left off an Xactimate estimate is rarely one argument. It is a quantity question, a code question, or a coverage question, and each is won with a different attachment to the supplement.
3 min read
Comparison
A buyer's guide for public adjusters: judge AI claim software by whether it can prove a licensed human reviewed and approved every consequential decision, grounded in the June 2026 Texas TDI bulletin, the NAIC's insurer-only scope, and a federal discovery order.
9 min read
Industry data
The trade-count rule public adjusters argue at the desk appears in neither of the appellate decisions that control overhead and profit on an ACV payment. What the courts asked instead, and the clause that decides it.
3 min read
Trend analysis
Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal held in Healthy Food Experts v. AmGuard that paying a coverage judgment does not bar a first-party bad-faith claim for extra-contractual damages. What it means for how you document carrier delay.
2 min read
Trend analysis
Texas's May 2026 In re Ace American ruling forces appraisal but leaves bad-faith and §542 prompt-pay claims intact — so the appraisal award becomes the evidence for the claim that survives it.
9 min read
State legal
Florida gives supplemental claims 18 months and reopened claims only 12, and the split turns on whether the carrier's file was open. With every 2024 storm window now shut, what is left is the five-year contract clock and a new Fourth DCA ruling on carrier delay.
9 min read
Trend analysis
Roughly 900 Oklahoma lawsuits accuse State Farm of a 'functional damage' hail standard its policies never mention. Here is what the litigation — and 36 O.S. § 3629 plus Christian bad-faith law — means for working an Oklahoma roof claim.
5 min read
Data journalism
A primary-source investigation into a profession the data barely counts: public-adjuster licensing, catastrophe frequency, litigation, and the measurement gap, 2018-2026.
19 min read
State legal
Since July 1, 2024, Louisiana hurricane claims run on R.S. 22:1892.2, not the 30-day track most deadline guides still publish. The clocks, the mandatory cure period notice, and the clause that suspends prescription.
8 min read
Reference
The proof of loss is the one page a policyholder signs under oath, and the fastest place on a claim to lose money. A line-by-line reference for public adjusters.
8 min read
Comparison
Carrier-side assignment platforms grade adjusters on price-list deviation, overhead-and-profit rates, and reinspection variance. Every metric that earns a green score is a metric a public adjuster is paid to violate. A look at the scoreboard, the statute, and the billing engine.
8 min read
Workflow
Two identical supply-line failures, an $9,400 gap and a $61,000 settlement. A public adjuster's workflow for measuring the affected area, sampling with an outdoor control, and building a mold file that survives a sworn proof of loss.
8 min read
Industry data
150,000 pages of internal slides show how insurers turned claims into a profit center. What the Allstate–McKinsey documents mean for every claim you work.
7 min read
Industry data
A breakdown of photo counts, page totals, document categories, and settlement timelines drawn from public adjuster field practice.
8 min read
Trend analysis
Property reinsurance rates dropped double digits at the January 2026 renewals, but reinsurers held their attachment points. Here is why the softening never reaches the claims a public adjuster works.
6 min read
State legal
In New York the deadline that ends a property claim is not a prompt-pay statute — it is the standard fire policy's 24-month suit limit, running from the date of loss.
7 min read
Reference
How public adjusters structure a first-party property demand that carriers actually answer — the anatomy, the Texas and Florida statutory clocks behind the number, and an annotated sample.
6 min read
Comparison
Snapsheet and claimOS both call it mobile-first claim handling. One serves the carrier settling the loss, the other the public adjuster recovering it. A sourced look at how the two actually differ.
5 min read
Workflow
How public adjusters document a water dry-out — category and class calls, daily psychrometric drying logs, and Xactimate WTR equipment — so the mitigation invoice survives carrier review.
7 min read
Industry data
Closure rate isn't cycle time. What the public catastrophe data hides about how long carriers take to actually pay after a hurricane — and the statutory clocks that give adjusters leverage.
8 min read
Trend analysis
What public adjusters really earn in 2026 — contingency math, state fee caps, the OPPAGA settlement data, and why two adjusters under identical contracts can clear $58,000 or $190,000.
6 min read
State legal
Three 2025 appellate decisions reshaped California bad-faith exposure for carriers — and the evidence standard for public adjusters working smoke, fire, and title claims. Here's what changed and when your SOL clock runs out.
7 min read
Reference
An EUO notice doesn't mean a claim is dying — but walking in without a clean file and a prepared client can end it. Here's what public adjusters need to know before the court reporter arrives.
7 min read
Comparison
Guidewire ClaimCenter powers 550+ carriers worldwide. Here's what that means for public adjusters — and why having your own purpose-built system matters more when the carrier's stack is sophisticated.
7 min read
Workflow
Two roofs, one hailstorm, an $18,000 gap in the payout. What separates a paid hail replacement from a cosmetic denial is the test square, the storm record, and the policy language — here is how to put each in the file.
5 min read
Industry data
There is no clean average-days-to-settle figure by peril. What there is: a predictable map of where hail, wind, water, and fire each hide their delay — and a statutory clock that runs the same for all of them.
6 min read
Trend analysis
Carriers now triage, score, and assemble property estimates with AI before a human opens the file. Where that automation is accurate, where it underpays, and how a public adjuster pushes back.
5 min read
State legal
A working calendar for Florida property losses after SB 2-A and HB 837: the one-year notice rule, the 7/30/60 carrier deadlines, § 627.70152 pre-suit notice, and how the bad-faith landscape changed.
8 min read
Reference
The LOR is the smallest document on a property claim file and one of the most consequential. What goes in it, how state law treats it, where it breaks down, and a working template a firm can adapt the same day.
7 min read
Comparison
Symbility (now Cotality) prices the scope. For a public adjusting firm that leaves intake, evidence, drafting, supplements, and the client file unmanaged. A field comparison of where each tool fits.
7 min read
Workflow
How a public adjuster works a fire file in sequence — the site walk, the five-layer scope, the contents inventory, and the sworn proof of loss that becomes the number you can't walk back.
7 min read
Industry data
Where 2026's hail claim volume is concentrating, read off State Farm's $5.6B payout map, and what the state-by-state movement means for a public adjusting firm's calendar.
6 min read
Trend analysis
How Florida's SB 2-A and HB 837 reshaped property-claim carrier behavior — denial rates, DOAH arbitration, the 90-day bad-faith safe harbor, and what the 2026 file looks like for public adjusters.
6 min read
One field guide per state: the statutory clocks, prompt-payment penalties, bad-faith posture, and suit limitations that govern a first-party property claim. More states are in the research queue.
