What to send an adjuster

Address it to a person, on the right claim

Before writing anything, establish the destination. You want the claim number that covers the property damage — if the accident involved injuries, that may be a different number and a different handler from the injury claim. You want the name of the adjuster assigned to it. And you want a written channel: an email address, and a mailing address the claims office uses for correspondence on that claim.

Ask for all of this explicitly and note what you are told. A letter addressed to a named person on a specific claim number is considerably harder to misplace than one addressed to a department, and if you later need to escalate, being able to say exactly who you wrote to and when is the foundation of the complaint.

The structure that works

Keep the letter to one or two pages. The letter identifies, states, and asks; the attachments prove. Anything you assert in the letter without a document behind it is a soft spot, so either attach support or leave the assertion out.

1. Identification: the claim number, the date of loss, and your vehicle's year, make, model, trim, mileage, and VIN.
2. One sentence on what happened and confirmation that repairs are complete.
3. The amount you are presenting, stated plainly as a single figure.
4. The basis for that figure in two or three sentences: the documented pre-accident value, the documented repair, and what comparable vehicles in your market show.
5. A numbered list of the attachments, each with a one-line description of what it shows.
6. A specific, reasonable date by which you are asking for a written response.
7. Your name, mailing address, email, and phone number.

What to attach, and how to label it

Attachments should be self-explanatory. Assume the reader will look at each one for a few seconds and should immediately understand what it is and why it is there. Label each with a number matching your list in the letter, and give each a descriptive filename.

• Final repair invoice showing what was actually done, including supplements.
• Vehicle history report showing how the accident appears on the record.
• Documentation supporting your pre-accident value, with its date visible.
• Comparable listings, ideally both with and without disclosed accident history, as dated screenshots showing vehicle, mileage, price, and any history disclosure.
• Photographs, particularly any taken during the repair.
• Your calculation, showing how the inputs produce the figure you are presenting.

Tone: factual, professional, and specific

The adjuster reading your letter did not cause your accident and is working a queue. A letter that treats them as an opponent tends to produce a defensive, minimal response. A letter that treats them as someone who needs enough information to approve a payment tends to produce engagement.

There are also things not to do. Do not make legal threats you are not prepared to follow through on, and do not assert legal conclusions about what anyone is required to pay — you may be wrong, and an overstatement gives the response something easy to push back on instead of engaging with your evidence. Do not include an ultimatum with an unreasonably short deadline. Do not send the same letter repeatedly. State your position once, completely, and ask for an answer.

• Write about the vehicle and the evidence, not about the inconvenience.
• Avoid asserting what anyone is legally obligated to pay.
• Ask for a written response by a specific date, not immediately.
• Do not threaten action you have not decided to take.

How to send it, and what to keep

Send it in a way that produces proof of delivery, and keep a complete copy of the letter and every attachment along with the date you sent it. If you send by email, keep the sent message with its attachments intact. If you mail it, use a method that gives you a delivery record. Sending by both is not overkill for a claim worth thousands of dollars.

Then diarise the response date you asked for. If it passes, send one short written follow-up referencing the original submission date and asking again for a written response. Keep that follow-up brief and unemotional; its purpose is to extend the record, not to re-argue the claim.

What happens next, realistically

The common outcomes are a request for more information, a figure that is lower than your documentation supports, an offer close to your conservative estimate, a decline with stated reasons, or no response at all. Each of those has a different next step, and none of them means the process is over.

A request for more information is a good sign and should be answered promptly and completely. A low figure should be read for its inputs rather than its conclusion, and answered point by point. A decline with stated reasons is a list of things to address. Silence is a process problem rather than a valuation dispute, and it is the situation where a regulator complaint is most useful.