Anita roofing company agrees to consent order

The Iowa Insurance Division entered into a consent order with Darren Reeves Roofing LLC on Wednesday following the issuance of a cease-and-desist order this past June related to unlicensed public adjusting.

By signing the consent order, the Anita-based company has agreed to make the necessary changes to stop holding themselves out as public adjusters or providing any public adjuster services on its websites, social media pages and advertisements, according to a news release.

Reeves and his company have also agreed to instruct its agents and employees from taking any direct or indirect role in effecting the settlements of insurance claims in the state of Iowa.

A public adjuster is any person who, for compensation, acts on behalf of an insured, during the investigation, negotiation, or settlement of a first-party claim for loss or damage to real or personal property of the insured. Iowa law requires public adjusters to be licensed. Neither Reeves or Darren Reeves Roofing has ever been licensed as public adjusters in the state of Iowa.

"Iowa's laws regarding public adjusters are in place to help protect Iowans," Chance McElhaney, chief operations officer of the Iowa Department of Insurance and Financial Services, said in a news release. "Unlicensed public adjusters or contractors acting as public adjusters in violation of Iowa Code, can create potentially unreasonable expectations on settlement values or scope of repairs that do not align with the language of the insurance policy which can then cause delays in the claim resolution and add unnecessary expenses to consumers."