Fort Collins property owners do not get one kind of bad year. A January freeze splits a supply line, a June storm drops hail on the same roof, and the canyon west of town burns in the fall. Every one of those is a different argument with your insurer, and the adjuster they send to your door is paid by them. We are licensed public adjusters who work only for you — reading the policy, pricing the whole loss, and staying on the carrier until the settlement matches the damage.
Licensed Colorado public adjusters serving Fort Collins, Larimer County and Northern Colorado
No upfront cost — our fee comes out of what we recover for you
Water, freeze, wildfire, smoke, hail and wind losses: new, underpaid, denied or reopened
Free claim review. No obligation.
Tell us about your Fort Collins property and what happened to it. The review costs nothing.
No upfront cost. We only get paid if you recover. Licensed Colorado public adjusters.
Hail gets the headlines here, but the claims that actually cost Fort Collins owners the most start with water — a pipe that froze, a dam of ice at the eave, a canyon fire that filled a house with smoke.
A single split line behind a wall can soak framing, insulation and flooring before anyone hears it. Carriers reach for the "reasonable care" and long-term-seepage arguments here more than anywhere else, so cause and timeline have to be documented properly.
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Snowmelt refreezes at the eave, backs up under the shingles and comes through the ceiling weeks after the storm that caused it. The damage reads like a roof defect unless someone proves the weather event behind it.
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Roof, siding, screens, soft metals and glass. Fort Collins sits far enough north that hail claims here are frequently settled as a slope repair when the whole system is compromised.
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Structure loss is only part of it. Smoke, ash and heat exposure reach properties the flames never touch, and contents, remediation and code upgrades all belong in the file.
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Retail, office, light industrial and student-housing portfolios along the Harmony and Mulberry corridors. Business interruption and code compliance are usually the biggest omissions from a carrier's estimate.
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Shared roofs, common elements, and the seam between the master policy and a unit owner's coverage. Multi-building losses have to be documented building by building or the settlement comes in short.
Learn more →You do not need to know what the claim is worth before you call. Working that out is the job.
Send the declarations page and whatever else you have — photos, a plumber's or restoration invoice, the carrier's estimate, a denial letter. We read the coverage and tell you honestly whether you need a public adjuster at all.
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We inspect, measure and price the damage at Fort Collins replacement cost, including the hidden moisture, the code requirements and the line items that carrier estimates leave out by habit.
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We deal with the carrier, the re-inspections and the appraisal process if it goes that far. Nothing is signed off until you approve the settlement.
Start your free claim review →Fort Collins sits where the plains meet the foothills, which is why one property can take hail in June, wind off the canyon in December and smoke from a fire in the Poudre in between. Each one is priced differently, and each one is underpaid differently.
Larimer County takes hail from late spring through summer, and searches for Fort Collins hail spike every June. Carriers meet those storms with cosmetic-damage language and partial-slope approvals. We document what the stones actually did — mat bruising, granule loss, spatter on vents and gutters — and price the system, not the slope.
The High Park Fire in 2012 and the Cameron Peak Fire in 2020, the largest in Colorado's recorded history, both burned in the country west of Fort Collins. Smoke and ash losses are the ones that get underpaid, because a house that never burned still needs contents cleaning, remediation and often duct and insulation replacement.
Westerly downslope wind funnels out of the Poudre Canyon and over the foothills and lifts shingles, fascia, gutters and fencing. Wind loss usually arrives attached to another peril from the same event, and separating the two correctly is what protects your deductible.
Freeze and water losses written off as long-term seepage or lack of maintenance
Ice dam damage recorded as a roof defect instead of a weather event
Smoke and ash exposure left out when the structure did not burn
Partial-slope hail approvals on a roof that no longer matches or seals
Withheld depreciation that is never actually released
The carrier's first letter is a position, not the limit of your rights. This is the part of Colorado law that matters when a Fort Collins claim is disputed. General information, not legal advice.
Adjusting a claim on your behalf in Colorado requires a public adjuster licence from the Division of Insurance. Treat that as a tool: the licence is verifiable, and it is worth verifying before anyone gets your signature. JustClaims is a licensed Colorado public adjuster.
If you and the carrier agree the loss is covered but not on what it costs, most Colorado property policies contain an appraisal clause that either side can invoke — normally quicker and far cheaper than a lawsuit. Here is how the appraisal process actually runs.
Colorado holds insurers to a duty to investigate and pay fairly and within a reasonable time. Stalling and lowballing are not just poor service; they carry consequences the carrier would prefer you never look up. More on policyholder rights.
The window to dispute a property claim is limited by state law and, usually sooner, by the "suit against us" clause in your own policy. Freeze and ice-dam losses are the ones people sit on, because the damage surfaces late. Acting early keeps the options open.
JustClaims provides public adjusting services, not legal advice. For legal questions, consult a licensed Colorado attorney.
Most people call after the carrier has already taken a position. That is still the right time to call — a decided claim is not a closed one.
Freeze, seepage and wear-and-tear exclusions are the most common way a Northern Colorado water claim gets refused. A denial is a position built on an assumption about cause, and better evidence about cause is what moves it.
Learn more →Underpayment is the normal outcome, not the exception. Partial roof approvals, remediation trimmed line by line, code requirements ignored, and depreciation that is never released all quietly reduce what you collect.
Learn more →Reassigned adjusters, unreturned calls and repeat requests for documents you already sent are how a claim slides past a whole season. Colorado requires carriers to move on a reasonable timeline, and that is enforceable.
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Free review. Colorado-licensed adjusters. No upfront cost.
We are not bidding against you. You priced the work correctly; we are the ones who get the file corrected so the work you bid is the work that gets funded.
A hail season fills the schedule and then the carrier approves two slopes and a patch. We take the supplement, the re-inspection and the appraisal so the full replacement gets funded.
Water and smoke mitigation invoices get cut line by line. We document cause of loss, drying logs and code requirements so the file actually supports what your crew did on site.
Rebuilds stall on scope disputes and on overhead and profit. We carry the carrier negotiation so your crews are not idle waiting for an adjuster to return a call.
Usually yes, but how it is written matters. Most Colorado policies cover the resulting water damage when snowmelt backs up under the roof covering, while excluding the cost of the roof's own wear. Carriers frequently record an ice dam claim as a maintenance or roof-defect problem, which converts a covered loss into an uncovered one. What settles it is evidence tying the damage to a specific freeze-and-thaw event — weather data for the date of loss, moisture readings, and photographs of the eave and the interior. Report it as soon as you see staining; late reporting is the second most common reason these get refused.
They may raise it, and it is worth knowing the actual test. Policies generally cover sudden and accidental water discharge, but most contain a freeze provision requiring you to maintain heat, or to shut off the water and drain the system, if the building is vacant or unoccupied. So the question is not whether you were home — it is whether heat was maintained or the system drained. Thermostat records, smart-home logs, a house-sitter's account, utility data and the plumber's report all speak to that. Get the mitigation started and documented regardless; delaying drying creates a second, avoidable argument about mould.
A public adjuster is normally paid a contingency fee — a percentage of what is recovered on the claim — so there is nothing to pay up front and nothing owed if there is no recovery. The percentage varies with the size and complexity of the loss and is set out in the contract you sign before any work starts. At JustClaims the first review is free and carries no obligation: we read the policy and the damage and tell you whether professional representation is worth it on your file. If it is not, we will say so.
Plenty of claims do not need one. If the loss is small, the cause is obvious, and the carrier's estimate covers what your contractor quoted, handle it yourself. It is worth a conversation when any of these are true: the offer will not fund the repair, part of the loss has been called maintenance or wear, the cause of loss is disputed, depreciation has not been released, code upgrades are missing from the estimate, or the file has stopped moving. The review is free, so the cost of finding out is a phone call.
Yes, and it is one of the most commonly underpaid losses in Larimer County. Smoke moves through soffits, ductwork and attic vents and settles into insulation, carpet, upholstery and clothing; ash is abrasive and acidic. Because there is no visible fire damage, the first inspection is often light. A proper claim covers professional contents cleaning or replacement, duct cleaning, HVAC filtration, textiles, sealing and repainting where residue has bonded, and air-quality testing where it is warranted. Get an independent assessment before you clean anything you cannot re-document.
They can argue it, and the outcome turns on evidence rather than on the label. Many policies exclude damage from continuous or repeated seepage over a period of weeks or more, which is exactly why carriers reach for that exclusion when a leak is found late. The counter-argument is technical: moisture mapping, material staining and corrosion patterns, and the plumbing failure mode itself often show a discrete event rather than months of slow leaking. Report it as soon as it is discovered, keep the failed component, and do not let a repair remove the evidence before it is documented.
Almost certainly not, and this is the distinction that catches Fort Collins owners out — the 1997 Spring Creek flood and the 2013 Front Range floods are both inside living memory here. Standard homeowners policies exclude flood, meaning rising surface water; that risk sits with a separate flood policy, generally through the National Flood Insurance Program. What your homeowners policy may still cover is different water: wind-driven rain through a storm-damaged roof, or a sewer and drain backup if you carry that endorsement. When a single event produces both, the split between flood and non-flood damage decides who pays for what, and that split is worth documenting carefully rather than accepting.
Taylor leads claims for JustClaims across Colorado. He spent eleven years living in Denver, started his public adjusting career there, and has personally worked close to 1,500 Colorado claims — residential, commercial and large loss — which is where the pattern recognition comes from. He holds a Master's in International Security with a Certificate in Homeland Security from the University of Denver. On Northern Colorado files that experience mostly shows up as knowing which arguments a carrier will make before they make them, and having the documentation ready first.
We cover Fort Collins and the surrounding Northern Colorado communities from our Colorado office. If your property took water, freeze, fire, smoke, hail or wind damage anywhere in the region, the review is free.
1776 S. Jackson St, Suite 520
Denver, CO 80210
One conversation, no cost, no obligation. If you do not need a public adjuster, we will tell you that.
Licensed in Colorado · Contingency fee, no upfront cost · AI-assisted policy analysis · Serving Fort Collins, Larimer County and Northern Colorado
