James Swain heard his two giant ficus trees fall on his Oakland Park home as Hurricane Wilma tore through South Florida last October.

One tree smashed the carport. The other hit the front of the house, damaging windows, the roof and several walls, as Swain, his wife and 11-month-old son huddled in a back bedroom until the storm passed.

And that was just the start of his problems. Now Swain has seen three insurance adjusters, each giving him different guidance, and has received a ``final'' settlement he says is too low. He's had to call his state senator for assistance and filed a complaint with regulators.

None of the adjusters Swain saw actually worked for Citizens Property Insurance, his insurer. They were part of a platoon of thousands of emergency adjusters hired by insurers to handle the more than 500,000 claims from Wilma. The adjusters are licensed, but that carries no guarantee of experience.

Some of those adjusters - many from out of state - are leaving South Florida homeowners such as Swain frustrated by negotiation hassles and low settlement offers. From Hurricane Wilma alone, more than 3,000 consumer complaints about adjusters have poured into Tallahassee.

Insurance officials say these emergency adjusters are crucial to respond to homeowners quickly after a major hurricane. ``We use outside adjusters to supplement company adjusters in catastrophe situations,'' said Ryan Priest, an Allstate spokesman. ``. . . For economic reasons, we simply can't have a full team of adjusters on staff year-round.''

State records show that nearly 12,000 six-month emergency licenses were issued last year. In 2004, 17,128 were issued. Compare that to 2003, a much calmer hurricane season: 0.

Yet, while the state licenses the emergency adjusters and the firms that hired them, there are no minimum experience or training requirements set by regulators. The Department of Financial Services, which issues the six-month licenses, doesn't even do a criminal background check.

``Insurance companies have to take responsibility for hiring qualified people. Homeowners want to have their homes rebuilt and their lives restored,'' said Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, who is sponsoring insurance legislation this year that includes several consumer protection provisions.

Many of these outside adjusters are employed by independent adjusting firms. For instance, Pilot Catastrophe Service of Mobile, Ala., has had nearly 2,000 licensed emergency adjusters working in Florida since Wilma hit. Pilot declined to comment about its adjusting services in Florida.

For their part, several insurers say they run outside adjusters through their own training to make sure they are well versed on company procedures, policy coverage and state insurance laws.

Citizens, created by the state Legislature in 2002, relies totally on outside contractors to provide claims adjusting and customer service. Last year, the company contracted with 35 adjusting firms. They provided more than 400 adjusters to work in Citizens' catastrophe center in Tallahassee and more than 1,800 field adjusters to visit policyholders after Wilma.

After the 2004 storms, Citizens was widely criticized because it had no internal supervision over the outside firms, hence no way of tracking progress on claims. Last year, it put in place a computerized system to track claims, and Citizens' staff now oversees the outside adjusting firms.

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