10/22/2026
AS THE CLAIM TURNS: Starring Noble Public Adjusting Group
First, let me be clear. I work with a lot of good public adjusters across the Panhandle. Many of them are my friends. They use lawful contracts and they take care of homeowners. This post is not about them. This post is about one company, Noble Public Adjusting Group, LLC of Panama City Beach, and how it treats the families who hire it. Companies like this give good public adjusters a bad name.
I never expected to narrate a soap opera. I played offensive line in college. Linemen don’t get stories, and we certainly don’t get the spotlight. Yet here I am. I didn’t audition for this role. Noble Public Adjusting Group keeps writing the scripts.
PREVIOUSLY ON AS THE CLAIM TURNS
This isn’t my first episode with Noble. In Noble Public Adjusting Group, LLC v. Bowman, Noble sued a former employee to enforce its non-compete. The court asked what “secret sauce” Noble was protecting, and the answer came down to its business structure. The court found Noble had no legitimate business interest to protect. It held the non-compete “unlawful and is void and unenforceable” and entered final judgment against Noble. Noble took nothing. It’s public record: Bay County Case No. 23-CA-842, final judgment entered February 6, 2025. Look it up.
Since then, Noble’s owner has made attacking me his mission. He dared me to bring this next lawsuit. So here it is. If you do this to my client, you can bet I’m going to sue you.
TODAY’S EPISODE
Here is what the lawsuit we filed today alleges.
In 2020, a Panhandle family had wind damage to their home and signed Noble’s contract. Noble’s fee was 20 percent of the recovery, “including the deductible amount.” In 2020, Florida law already said a public adjuster’s fee may not be based on the deductible. On top of the 20 percent, the contract gave Noble:
Its collection costs and attorney fees
18 percent interest
A requirement that the family hire Noble on any future property claim
A 20 percent “assignment” of the family’s claim
A veto over whether the family could sue or settle
The claim settled in 2022 for $24,250. The check was made payable to the homeowner, Noble, and the mortgage company. Noble’s own contract let it deposit the check and pay out the balance. Instead, the complaint alleges, Noble refused to endorse unless the homeowner first paid Noble $4,850 out of his own pocket. He didn’t have it. That is why he needed the insurance check.
The checks expired and were reissued. Noble held one in its office from September 2024 until it expired again.
Then came the invoice:
The $4,850 fee
$574.73 in interest, more than Noble’s own 18 percent rate produces. By our math, the most it could be is $449.65.
A $1,356.18 “collections cost,” which works out to a flat 25 percent
Total: $6,780.91. Then Noble sent the family to a collection agency.
Last month the collector demanded $6,062.50, and Noble told the homeowner’s lawyer it “will not endorse the insurance check as a condition of receiving the outstanding fee.”
Four years after the settlement, this family has not received one dollar of it. The repairs are still not done. In my opinion, that is reprehensible.
Plot twist: Noble’s newer contract form, used by 2022, leaves the deductible out of its fee. And in another lawsuit this year, Noble told a court that a public adjuster contract is judged by the law in effect when it was signed. So Noble knew the rules.
Florida has rules for public adjusters. A public adjuster may not “charge, agree to, or accept from any source” anything of value over the cap. It may not base its fee on the deductible.
In Gables Insurance Recovery, Inc. v. Citizens Property Insurance Corp., 261 So. 3d 613 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018), the court held that a public adjuster violates the cap just by agreeing to a percentage plus attorney fees and costs. In Monarch Claims Consultants, Inc. v. Fleming, No. 1D22-601 (Fla. 1st DCA Sept. 6, 2023), the court said that kind of violation “rendered the entire Service Agreement unenforceable.”
Our lawsuit says it plainly: Noble had rules, Noble didn’t follow them, and a family went four years without their insurance money because of it.
Today we asked the court to:
Declare Noble’s contract unenforceable
Order Noble to endorse the check
Award damages for breach of fiduciary duty and under the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act
And the collection agency? We sent it a letter on Tuesday. On Wednesday, it closed its file and handed the account back to Noble.
If Noble is your public adjuster and it is holding your insurance check hostage, or has sent you to collections over a fee, don’t pay anything until someone reviews your contract. We will review it for free: https://matter-intake.com/create/f5e51411-74c4-406f-88df-4bbdacaa203d
Stay tuned. Noble keeps writing the scripts, and there is more to come.
Law Office of Dennis Green
Dennis D. Green, Jr., Attorney
15 W. La Rua Street
Pensacola, Florida 32501
(850) 436-3559
[email protected]
This post is general information about Florida law, not legal advice about your situation.
