On a recent Price of Business, Host Kevin Price visited with Jenny Lyon, a professional public adjuster for businesses.
For about five years now, property insurance carriers have a new way to deny coverage—by quietly adding exclusions to policies without clearly informing the insured. It’s buried in the policy, but not highlighted. A major example: commercial policies now often exclude hail damage to metal buildings under a “cosmetic damage only” clause.
So imagine thinking your metal roof or building is covered, when in reality, you have zero hail coverage—especially if your adjuster decides to deny the claim.
Our firm has overturned many commercial and residential denials where adjusters or independent adjusters lied or ignored field recommendations to downplay true hail damage.
Hail over 1″ can cause fissures in coatings, leading to oxidation, rust, and eventual leaks. Larger hail can damage seams, loosen fasteners, and cause water intrusion.
Do you think your insurance company will care in six months? No—they’ll blame it on something else. There is plenty of evidence that untreated hail damage causes long-term issues.
This quietly instituted exclusion takes advantage of the insured’s lack of knowledge in a two-party claim system. Hiring an experienced public adjuster can prevent or overcome unfair denials—and protect your building from hail damage risk.
Jenny Lyon, PA got her start working in the property claims industry as an “IA”, or, Independant Adjuster, over 12 years ago, working Catastrophe or “CAT” claims for major insurance carriers across the nation. She quickly advanced to the handling of commercial claims and has specialized in commercial and large loss claims ever since. This year her team will resolve over $20-30,000,000 in losses.
Jenny experienced, and thusly identified several problems within the property claims system. Including, when she realized the product she turned over to the insurance carrier(s) oftentimes would vary vastly from what the insured actually received as payment. Only if and when she got a call from these upset insured would she realize that, although her license is what backs up her work, it was too often irrelevant. She knew this unfair treatment of the insured was not what she personally, ethically stood for.
She has since split her career between helping the insured for the insurance carrier side and now helping the insured to recover, FROM the carrier side. She formed her PA Firm, Pinnacle Public Adjusting LLC, in 2020 and has been helping the insured get “Fully Paid” what they are owed, ever since.
Jenny, who is a master estimator, along with her team of professionals (including Pinnacle PA staff, specialty engineers, appraisers and attorneys) like other PA’s in Texas – work on a contigency basis primarily but also provide estimate services and professional consulting – aiding the insured by, as she says, carefully navigating the dangerous waters that make up the property claims profession. Ideally her team will take a claim from the outset of the loss – negotiating through to final and full recovery of depreciation, using their expertise and experience throughout every step of the way.
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