Appraisers and Adjusters: The Differences
These individuals are mainly associated with the business of Insurance. An appraiser can be found associated with the business of Real Estate, but this article will have it focused upon the field of Insurance and how they differ from their counterparts, the Adjuster.
Insurance is the business of transferring risk from the individual or customer known as the policyholder and the insurance company by an instrument known as a contract or in this case a policy. We are paying a premium (dollars) for insurance (policy) in the event of a personal or business loss. That is to say that the customer (policyholder) is paying a known yearly loss(dollars spent) versus a unknown yearly loss (chance of a claim or claims).
Insurance claims are the normally written report to the insurance company of a loss that has occurred and that is insured under the contract or policy that is in force at the time (that period of time that is designated by premium payment made in a timely manner).Claims can be presented to both the property casualty field of insurance as well as to the field of health and life insurance. Our article at this time is directed toward the property and casualty insurance industry and is better known to the public as a car accident.
A car accident is any physical damage to a customer or policyholder vehicle as it might be addressed under their contract or policy.
Collision: Car to Car or Car to Physical Object.
Comprehensive: Car damaged as result of Fire, Theft, Vandalism or Fallen object.
Once reported it is assigned by the insurance company either in house or outside to an independent individual adjuster and/or appraiser. Either method requires that the individual be Licensed, if applicable to the State Department of Insurance, a College Degree or extensive years of experience normal 3 to 4 years for every year of college and/or specialized industry training through the company or one of several insurance designated programs such as the Insurance Institute.
Appraisers are generally categories as General, Home or Automobile.
General appraisers are able to handle Commercial losses such as large business losses, Heavy Equipment losses and water-crafts.
Home appraisers deal with existing homes, under construction homes and mobile homes.
Automobile appraisers deal with the physical damages on your car or motorcycle and work closely with automobile repair shops or motorcycle dealerships.
These individual’s work with automobile software programs to write repair damage estimates that concise with automobile repair shops in obtaining an agreed repair cost to your car, less any contractual deductible that the customer or policyholder had chosen upon its inception or starting date.
The adjuster is the individual responsible for the interpretation of the policy coverages, investigation into the tort law of negligence as to the fault of the accident, settlement of any physical damages to the car or car’s as well as monitoring the individual injury aspect of the claim whether it is the medical expenses of the “first party” the customer or policyholder and any “third parties” passenger’s, other car damages, their driver’s and passenger’s as well as medical provider’s and attorney’s who may represent the injured person.
This adjuster person is known as the Claim Representative, Claim Adjuster or Claim Examiner.
The individual other than the automobile appraiser that settles the physical damage portion of any claim, if He or She is not one of the designated aforementioned person’s, is a Automobile Adjuster.
Once an individual has chosen his or her pathway in the insurance claims area of employment they can specialize in Appraisal or Adjusting losses as well as deciding to work in house or become an independent vendor to the insurance industry.