The hiring math
Somewhere in every claim fight comes the hiring question. Adjusters advertise results; the fee is a percentage of money that includes dollars you'd have recovered anyway. This guide prices every door — adjuster, attorney, appraisal, letters, and your own hours with a kit — and names the cases where hiring is plainly right.
| Door | Price | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Public adjuster | 10–20% of the settlement (capped: TX 10% by law; FL 20%, 10% in the first year after a declared emergency) | A licensed professional who documents, negotiates, and settles the whole claim for you |
| Attorney | Commonly a third or more on contingency, or hourly | Representation — the only door that can sue, and the right one for coverage and bad-faith fights |
| Appraisal (your appraiser) | Your appraiser's fee + half the umpire | The policy's amount-only referee — the cost page runs it |
| Letter services | $19–$47, one letter | A single drafted dispute or appeal letter; no packet, no clocks |
| Upload-review services | ~$99 per claim at the known entrant | You upload your documents; they review and advise |
| This kit + your hours | $39 + your time | The letters, worksheets, and calendar; you stay the decision-maker; nothing uploaded anywhere |
A contingency fee is charged on the whole settlement, including money already offered to you before the adjuster arrived. On a claim where the insurer has offered $30,000 and the honest gap is $8,000 of held-back depreciation, a 15% adjuster fee is $5,700 if the settlement lands at $38,000 — nearly the size of the gap itself. Adjusters earn their fee when they create recovery: undiscovered scope, complex business interruption, a total loss with contents. They cannot create recovery out of a deadline — and a deadline is the most common failure in the holdback fight. Never sign an adjuster contract before reading its fee base, its cancellation terms, and your state's cap; and never sign one at the door in the first week. (Adjuster contracts commonly carry a short cancellation window by regulation — read yours.)
Everything short of that list is paperwork with deadlines — which is exactly what a kit is for. Compare the doors on the kit page.
Run your own numbers. The free checker takes your state, your dates, and the figures on the insurer's estimate — and returns the dollars still held back, your real deadline, and the next document to send. Run the checker →
The pages above are the map. The kit is the paperwork: the proof packet that releases the money, the letters that protect the clocks, and the complaint pack for when the stall continues.
One payment, yours to keep. We never ask you to upload your policy — you file everything yourself. See everything inside the kit →