Why a Florida Contractor Will Not Read Your Insurance Policy

No, and in Florida that is not a company preference. A contractor may not read your insurance policy for you and tell you what it means. Florida Statutes 489.147(2)(d) bars a contractor from interpreting policy provisions, from advising an insured about coverages or duties under a property insurance policy, and from adjusting a claim, unless that contractor is also licensed as a public adjuster.

That is a limit on what we can do for you, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It is also the most useful thing to know when three kinds of company all offer to handle your claim.

Restoration Doctor is a restoration contractor. This post quotes Florida statutes and describes what each licensed role may do. It is not legal advice and it is not insurance advice, and nothing here describes what your own policy covers.

The section is titled "Prohibited property insurance practices; contract requirements". Subsection (2) opens on contractors generally rather than on any one trade: "A contractor may not directly or indirectly engage in any of the following practices".

Paragraph (d) governs every conversation a restoration company has about an insurance claim, and it packs several distinct prohibitions into a single sentence. The first half bars "Interpreting policy provisions or advising an insured regarding coverages or duties under the insured's property insurance policy". The second half continues, "or adjusting a property insurance claim on behalf of the insured, unless the contractor holds a license as a public adjuster pursuant to part VI of chapter 626."

The penalty sits in the same section, and it is counted per violation rather than per job. Subsection (3) reads: "A contractor who violates this section is subject to disciplinary proceedings as set forth in s. 489.129. A contractor may receive up to a $10,000 fine for each violation of this section."

Subsection (4)(a) closes the obvious gap, because a company answers for what its own people say. "The acts of any person on behalf of a contractor, including, but not limited to, the acts of a compensated employee or a nonemployee who is compensated for soliciting, shall be considered the actions of the contractor."

Because the second statute is broader than most people expect. Florida Statutes 626.854(1) defines a public adjuster as any person, except a duly licensed attorney at law, who acts for money, commission or any other thing of value. Several kinds of activity bring someone inside that definition, and two of them describe what a restoration company is most often asked to do.

The first is anyone who "directly or indirectly prepares, completes, or files an insurance claim for an insured". The second is anyone who "acts on behalf of, or aids an insured or third-party claimant in negotiating for or effecting the settlement of a claim or claims for loss or damage covered by an insurance contract".

A second sentence widens it again, naming investigation for a fee outright. The term "also includes any person who, for money, commission, or any other thing of value, directly or indirectly solicits, investigates, or adjusts such claims on behalf of a public adjuster, an insured, or a third-party claimant."

One clause closes the labeling workaround: "regardless of how that person describes or presents his or her services." Calling it claim support, claim coordination or paperwork help does not move it out of the definition.

The section says what it is for in its own first line: "The Legislature finds that it is necessary for the protection of the public to regulate public insurance adjusters and to prevent the unauthorized practice of law."

Enforcement sits elsewhere. Subsection (1)(a) of Florida Statutes 626.112 says no person may "be, act as, or advertise or hold himself or herself out to be an insurance agent, insurance adjuster, or customer representative" unless currently licensed by the department and appointed. Subsection (10) of the same section makes knowingly transacting insurance without a license, or knowingly aiding or abetting an unlicensed person in doing it, a felony of the third degree.

So there are two ceilings, not one. A contractor who interprets your policy faces a fine for each violation under chapter 489. Knowingly acting as an adjuster without a license reaches the chapter 626 offense as well, and under the same subsection so does anyone who knowingly aids or abets it.

Quite a lot, and the statute says so in the same breath as the prohibition. The public adjuster definition carries an exclusion, and the condition attached to it matters as much. The exclusion covers "a person who photographs or inventories damaged personal property or business personal property or a person performing duties under another professional license".

Then comes the condition, and the condition is the whole of the protection. The exclusion applies only "if such person does not otherwise solicit, adjust, investigate, or negotiate for or attempt to effect the settlement of a claim."

So the exclusion protects nothing if the same person also solicits, adjusts, investigates or negotiates the claim.

Inside that boundary, a restoration contractor does the work and produces the record of it. Mitigation is the emergency half of a water loss, the extraction and drying that comes before any rebuild. We measure, document, scope and price the work we perform, in the same line-item format an adjuster prices from, and we hand you the file. We do not negotiate your claim and we do not speak for you with your carrier.

The money flow follows the same logic. We invoice the property owner, you owe that invoice in full for the work performed, and you hold the claim. Any reimbursement is between you and your carrier under whatever your policy provides. Keeping the claim in your name is what keeps the drying decisions measured against your building.

One honest limit belongs here. Neither statute draws a line inside the documentation itself, and this post cites no Florida court decision construing the exclusion. Nothing in either section measures how detailed a scope, a moisture log or a photograph set may be before it stops being construction work.

It is a duty the contractor owes you, written into the same statute as the prohibitions. Paragraph 489.147(2)(e) makes it a prohibited practice to engage in "Providing an insured with an agreement authorizing repairs without providing a good faith estimate of the itemized and detailed cost of services and materials for repairs undertaken pursuant to a property insurance claim."

Read that as a floor under your expectations. If a company asks you to sign an authorization for insurance work and cannot show you an itemized and detailed estimate of services and materials, the statute has already been engaged.

The same paragraph carries a qualifier that cuts the other way, and leaving it out would be dishonest. The itemized estimate is a good-faith starting figure, not a price guarantee. The statute puts it directly: "A contractor does not violate this paragraph if, as a result of the process of the insurer adjusting a claim, the actual cost of repairs differs from the initial estimate."

So the estimate is worth asking for because of what it shows you, not because it freezes a total: which lines exist, which quantities were measured, and what changes if the scope changes. A lump sum shows none of that.

Somebody still has to read the policy, and Florida is specific about who may. The table is not a ranking, and the right answer is different for different situations.

Florida Statutes 626.854(11)(b) caps a public adjuster's compensation. The ceiling is ten percent of claim payments or settlements for claims based on events subject to a declaration of a state of emergency by the Governor, for claims made during the year after that declaration. It is twenty percent for claims that are not. Those are statutory ceilings, and an individual agreement may be lower.

Start by naming the disagreement, because the kind of disagreement decides the kind of help. A dispute about how many square feet of tile came up, how many days equipment ran, or whether a wall cavity was wet is a dispute about facts on your property, and meters, photographs and dated logs are evidence of facts.

A dispute about what the policy means is a different animal. If the conversation has moved to what a clause covers or what the policy obliges you to do, that question belongs to somebody licensed to answer it. Your policy may say things we are not permitted to characterize for you, so read your declarations page or ask your agent, a licensed public adjuster, or an attorney.

Ask your carrier for a complete copy of the estimate it priced, line by line, and for the written basis of any line it removed or reduced. Asking for a document is not adjusting a claim, and you need nobody's permission to ask.

Ask a contractor for the license category the work sits under, and a public adjuster for what the fee is calculated on, then compare that against the statutory ceiling quoted above. Both licensee searches below are public.

And if a company offers to tell you what your policy covers while also proposing to do the repairs, you now know which sentence in chapter 489 that offer runs into.

Every statute quoted above sits on the Florida Senate's own site, free to read. The citations are to the 2025 compilation, the version the Senate served on the day this post was written. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before relying on any of it.

Restoration Doctor serves South Florida, Broward County and Fort Lauderdale, and Miami-Dade and Palm Beach as well. Restoration Doctor of Miami is a water damage mitigation company, not a public adjuster. We do not prepare, file, negotiate, or settle claims, and we do not interpret policy coverage. Coverage decisions are made solely by your carrier. You are responsible for your deductible. We are not a law firm, and this post is general information about Florida licensing law, not legal or insurance advice.