Talk:Public adjuster

COI
Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines include strong recommendations against editing articles in which the editor has a financial interest. This certainly applies to public adjusters editing this article. To avoid conflict of interest, I suggest public adjusters use this Discussion Page for their input and leave it for editors without a financial interest to make changes to the article itself. This will not only ensure we follow Wikipedia guidelines but it will also protect public adjusters from violating or appearing to violate their jurisdictions' laws governing the behavior of PA's, e.g in Florida, a PA may "not advise a claimant to refrain from seeking legal advice, nor advise against the retention of counsel to protect the claimant’s interest." Sreed888 (talk) 04:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I edited the entire article to attempt to make it more factual and easier to read. I removed as much of the self-serving previously posted content as I could Georgiaclass (talk) 18:04, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

NPOV
This article is not a platform for promoting the use of public adjusters. We need to maintain Wikipedia's neutral point of view (NPOV) and present both the benefits and the drawbacks of using a public adjuster. If you are a public adjuster, your input is valuable and welcome but please save the advocacy for your own promotional materials. {Sreed888 (talk) 17:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)}

Examples of POV violations: "Their technical knowledge or expertise and ability to interpret sometimes ambiguous insurance policies allow property owners to recover the best possible indemnification" = opinion stated as fact Jallis (talk) 11:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Example "...public adjusters are generally more competent than insurance companies'/Carriers' claims representatives and/or adjusters and do (almost always) substantially increase the settlement value of the loss due to insurance company/Carrier incompetence or unethical low-balling causing an unfair settlement." Personal opinion stated as fact, provides empirical-like data with no sources that is promotional and personal opinion. Jallis (talk) 11:38, 19 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I attempted to remove as much of the hyperbole and bias as possible Georgiaclass (talk) 18:05, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

This article seems to be authored and edited by one person who clearly is a conflict of interest and in violation of wikipedia guidelines Jallis (talk) 11:39, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Variations Between Juridictions
It appears to me that many edits are due to legal variations from one jurisdiction to another with one editor adding something that is true in their locale and another coming along and changing it so it's correct for their situation. The WikiProject_Law attempts to deal with such jurisdictional issues but I don't see any policy or suggestions there on how to do handle this. I suggest we keep the main part very general (as it mostly is now) and leave specific details for separate sections for the jurisdiction(s) they apply to. If someone knows of a specific variation from something in the main part they can add a footnote or generalize the language in the main part (if necessary) and add the variation details in a separate section.(Sreed888 (talk) 16:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC))


 * True. Because state law varies so widely, I have attempted to provide neutral content that can be then further confirmed with the specific state a Wiki user is located in. Georgiaclass (talk) 18:07, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Title of Article
Shouldn't the title be Public Adjuster with a capital 'A'?Sreed888 (talk) 21:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * That's not how Wikipedia works. See the Manual of Style. The only unproper nouns capitalized are those at the beginning of sentences. II  | (t - c) 08:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm ok with that. (But what is the style guide principal that allows "Manual of Style" to capitalize the S in Style?) :-) Sreed888 (talk) 21:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The Manual of Style is considered a formal document, and as such Style is part of a proper noun. II  | (t - c) 21:11, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: Restored this section. I think this is a reasonable question that often comes up and it's worth leaving it. No offense intended; I had the same questions when I started. II | (t - c) 05:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Problems with section on public adjusters and attorneys
Every week or two an anonymous editor deletes all or parts of the section that discusses the difference between a public adjuster and an attorney. Often no edit summary is offered but here is a list of the summaries over the last year or so: "irelevant information removed", "Removed information about attorneys", "REMOVED MISLEADING INFORMATION", "Delited information concerning attorneys.", "removed useless text" From my perspective this section needs work but I am finding it hard to assume good faith on the part of these editors since they make no attempt to discuss their edits. I suspect they are public adjusters who see this article as an opportunity to promote their profession and naturally resist criticisms and discussion of alternatives such as lawyers. Perhaps those of you with more Wikipedia experience can help me understand how this should be handled or if any of these editors read this page they could participate in this discussion to help us get this article up to snuff. Sreed888 (talk) 03:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Good work on keeping this article relatively free of advertising! :) Open a Requests for Protection if you want to cut down on the anonymous vandalism. II  | (t - c) 05:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Resources
Opening a section here for placing links to documents which could be used:
 * Antitrust and the Public Adjuster. Don't really understand the paper, but might have background material. II  | (t - c) 01:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Manipulation
I'm pretty sure businesses that want money from you in order to train you to be a "Public Adjuster," like Metro Public Adjusters, are a pyramid scheme. If that's the case, then this article would be highly problematic, as certain anonymous editors can manipulate the data according to their interests. For example, nothing in this article has any citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.137.134.26 (talk) 03:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree we need more citations (there are a few at least, eh?). If you could provide any citations for training pyramid schemes, it would be a very significant contribution to the article. Please try to follow up on that. Sreed888 (talk) 03:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I just added links to a couple magazines to help in the citation field. I noticed that some of the references link to other wikipages, is that something that should be deleted or are they dissimilar enough to warrant their presence? BrianSfinasSSI (talk) 17:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Citation Proposed
Hi all, the sentence, "However, there is a clear distinction between a loss adjuster, who works on behalf of an insurance company, and a loss assessor who works on behalf of a policy holder" is marked as needing a citation. I added this as I feel this is an important clarification to make. I learned this on this site http://www.allkarebuildingcontractor.co.uk/loss-assessors.html - I am not in any way connected with this company; I feel my citation is appropriate and useful. I am looking for some feedback to see if anyone has any issues with me adding the above citation. Stuartwalker65 (talk) 06:52, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This is not a "citation" that meets our criteria for reliable sources in any way. Indeed, it is blatantly promotional.  Please stop adding it.  If there is no other acceptable source, then the material should be removed.  Kuru   (talk)  10:56, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Broken Article Refrences
In reading this article, I have noticed a few links that no longer lead to articles, or the PDF downloads that were originally available.

^ Mockenhaupt, B.D. (1998). For public adjusters, disaster means business. << Article no loner there

^ Community Assisting Recovery, Inc (2006). A Public Adjuster may NOT be your best choice << I have been able to find this article online, but not from the reference provided.

I mistakenly deleted them - thinking that would help, but then found out it would be best to come to the talk page and point these things out...

(Wagnerg123 (talk) 15:29, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

^ Community Assisting Recovery, Inc (2006). A Public Adjuster may NOT be your best choice << I found the article referenced on the same carehelp.org website but it appeared to have been moved. I tried to edit the link being referenced but am not sure I did it correctly, since the Wikipedia webbot had determined it was dead. Information I found on how to edit references on Wikipedia was very limited.RGEarley (talk) 23:14, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Number of States
The licensing section starts off with "44 states have..." followed by "the 5 that don't are...". We've lost a state somewhere. Tsanders2753 (talk) 21:19, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I removed that verbiage Georgiaclass (talk) 18:09, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Copyvio
This article reeks of copyvio. I suspect it was pulled wholesale from elsewhere. A search for the string "This is not accurate and cannot work. Such limitations can cause public adjusters to avoid helping consumers" (selected randomly) found a couple of sites. I'm at work, and can't pursue this now, but this article probably needs to be rewritten wholesale (unless those sites copied from here, of course, which does happen) and more citations added.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 14:21, 30 March 2022 (UTC)


 * The edits that I made are generally my own. I removed much of the text that may have been plagiarized from other sources. Georgiaclass (talk) 18:10, 24 October 2022 (UTC)