Dynamic range question
 

I have a Panasonic DMC FZ18.
I'm noticing that quite often the range between over & under exposed parts of a photo is far narrower than I would expect.
I've taken many photos where highlights are burned out but the rest of the photo is correctly exposed. It's not that I'm shooting extreme scenes (in terms of brightness/darkness).
Problem is that now I tend to expose for the highlights and then adjust the result with PS to compensate for the darker areas.
Could this be a problem with the camera or are such measures commonplace?

Thats relatively normal

The FZ-18 has the capacity to shoot in RAW mode. Do you shoot JPEG or RAW?