A Portage Life in the Spotlight: Tina Nabhan
- By: Chuck Abraham
- Last Updated: August 13, 2025
Tina Nabhan loves to serve people. As a former first responder, she now takes a different approach to her service as a public insurance adjuster.
Nabhan served as a firefighter for 19 years. Throughout those 19 years, she was a career firefighter with the South Haven Fire Department. Like many other career firefighters, Nabhan also served as a paramedic as well. She was the assistant chief of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) at South Haven for six years prior to her retirement in 2020.
“I was actually in my first semester of nursing school at Purdue University, and I met a lady from LaPorte County EMS who was a paramedic,” Nabhan said. “I spent the day talking with her, and I literally dropped out the next week. I didn’t want to be a nurse. We have a family of nurses with my mom and sister, but it just wasn’t my thing.”
Nabhan absolutely loved her role as a firefighter-paramedic. She felt called to make a difference in someone’s life by showing up when they’re having their worst possible day. Nabhan also enjoyed the public service duties she performed on behalf of the South Haven Fire Department.
“It’s a culture,” Nabhan said. “It’s a family. It’s all the police, fire, EMS, dispatch, and the military. It’s just a different world. I was super fortunate to be a part of it for so long.”
It was in 2020 when Nabhan heard her second calling to become a public insurance adjuster.
Her side job at the time, teaching EMS classes as an instructor with the state of Indiana, was beginning to become exhausting. Nabhan was speaking with a neighbor who did roof repair and some adjusting work. It was then she decided to take the test to get licensed as a public insurance adjuster.
“This was just supposed to be a little side thing,” Nabhan said. “When I realized the injustices going on with people with insurance claims, I just absolutely fell in love with it. That was eight years ago, so I did both for three or four years.”
Nabhan explained there are three types of public insurance adjusters: staff adjusters who work for the carrier, independent adjusters who are third party vendors that work for the insurance company, and public adjusters who work for the policy holder. She is the latter of three.
”We are public insurance adjusters,” Nabhan said. “We have the same classes, same license, same everything. Our fiduciary and legal responsibility, and our financial legal responsibility, lies with our clients.”
Business has been good for Nabhan. She has now hung her shingle out not only in Porter County, but also in Fort Myers, Florida, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She has become very familiar with performing her duties in the aftermath of hurricanes. The Nabhans have actually gone to court as expert witnesses for attorneys representing those who suffered storm damage.
Nabhan is originally from Michigan City, but she grew up in Constantine, Michigan. She and her husband, Nedal, have three daughters and two granddaughters. Nabhan’s eldest daughter is following a similar path. Her daughter started out as a firefighter, then became a paramedic and finally a nurse. Nabhan’s daughter now works for Lutheran Air as a flight nurse.