Unicare Health Insurance Review

If you've had dealings with the insurance industry, you'll know about loss adjusters. They are the people, put in place by your insurance company, whose job is to find a way to bring down the value of your claim. Unlike you, loss adjusters deal with insurance claims everyday. Hence, they are masters of all the legal technicalities and the various interpretations and wording of insurance contracts They deploy this mastery, in as cunning a way as possible, to get your claim down to the minimum amount.

They manage this in two key ways. Firstly, by trading on client ignorance; since the technical details of insurance contracts are difficult to understand, clients are often unaware of what can be included in their claim. Second, the adjuster has numerous ways of invoking legal loopholes that allow his bosses to escape paying out on any given part of your claim. Mrs S, a landlady whose house was ripped apart by tenants who had converted it to a cannabis farm, was dismayed when her insurance company tried to 'hide behind small print to reject my claim'. They argued that the grotesque disfigurement to the property was not 'malicious in nature'.

Loss adjusters are a key part of insurance companies' drive to maximise their profits. For large claims, especially relating to business insurance, many thousands of pounds will be saved through their efforts.

The good news if you are faced with making an insurance claim is that a counterpart to the loss adjuster exists in the form of the loss assessor: an insurance professional whom you appoint to contest a claim on your behalf. In contrast to yourself, a loss assessor has legal and technical skills required to stand up to the loss adjuster, giving you the protection you need when you're in a position of (often extreme) weakness. Moreover, the assessors will often spot additional areas in which you can claim, things you would probably not have discovered. Thus, the fee the loss assessor charges is almost always absorbed by the increase in the payout he or she will secure for you.

Mrs S was shrewd enough to appoint Ray Truman of Truman Associates, a big player in the loss assessment field. Truman was able to invoke a clause in the contract that dealt with vandalism and the insurers caved in and coughed up for the full £49,000 claim. Ray Truman worked doggedly and with passion to fight on my behalf' says Mrs S. 'Thank goodness for Ray and his determination never to give up.' Though loss assessors may be sober-suited professionals, to Mrs S they are heros.