Homeowners whose property has been damaged or destroyed are looking for relief from their insurers and often need insurance claim help after fire damage to navigate the process. Here are seven tips that should be kept in mind as you proceed with your insurance company and its adjusters.
Read: Everything You Need to Know About Claiming Compensation After Accidents
Top 7 Tips For Insurance Claim Help After Fire Damage
1. Ask for an Advance
Due to possible evacuation, basic living necessities may not have been on your mind as you left everything from a toothbrush to clothes suitable for work. Your homeowner’s policy covers the replacement of such items, but such a claim does not have to be made and approved before rushing to the department store to buy that suit for the office.
Request an advance from your company against your eventual claim as part of insurance claim help after fire damage: Ask the company representative to bring the check to you wherever you are staying, be it a hotel or a friend’s home. Save all your receipts, and be reasonable; if you lost khakis and a blazer, don’t make a beeline for the Armani suits (you will pay the difference).
Check your policy; even under “replacement” coverage, you may have only an “actual cash value” for your contents. A good agent will let you know this and may advise that you purchase an endorsement so that your contents are covered under a replacement policy as well.
2. Secure Your Property
All policies require you to take reasonable steps to limit damage to your property. In legalese, this is the duty to “mitigate damages,” which includes common-sense things like throwing a tarp over your leaky roof until someone can get it repaired, or turning off the water after you find a burst pipe. Maybe some things can be done after the fire goes out (and the insurance company pays for those efforts when the claim is made):
- Stop the smolder: If the structure is still burning, call the fire department to put it out.
- Board it up: To prevent vandalism, board up your property and consider setting up an inexpensive chain-link fence to keep people away.
- Be vigilant: Depending on how matters are going, you may need to keep a close eye on your property for new problems and ensure that it hasn’t been disturbed.
3. Immediately File Your Claim
All policies require homeowners to report the loss as soon as is reasonably practicable. You could do this by calling up your agent or sending an email. You will then be asked to submit a proof of loss claim, where you will list your losses with the respective value. Any delay on your part in notifying your company may see you far down the list for an adjustor to attend and settle your claim.
4. Make Sure The Insurer Starts Acting In Good Time
Insurance companies have an added incentive to settle any claims fairly promptly, especially when homeowners seek insurance claim help after fire damage. In California, insurers must send a notice of intentions within 30 days of lodging your claim. Unless there is a dispute, payment should also be issued within this same timeframe. If your company has not contacted you and the delay seems unjustified, consider sending a written notice and copying your state’s Department of Insurance (DOI). With heightened scrutiny during disaster situations, insurance companies are far less likely to drag their feet.
Read: What Does Fire Insurance Cover in Florida?
5. Maintain a Record of Your Living Expenses
Your policy will contain a “loss of use” clause, which means you will likely be reimbursed for some living expenses incurred while out of your home. However, you are entitled only to additional living expenses, that is, the difference between what it costs you to live daily at home and what it costs now. If, for example, you ate most meals at home before the fire and regularly spent $300 a week on groceries but are now spending $400 at restaurants per week, you can claim $100.
You could claim perhaps the entire motel bill, though, since even if you cannot live at home, you still have to pay the mortgage and taxes and maintain insurance.
6. Get Repair Estimates
It will enable you to rebuild or repair your home through your policy. With respect to ‘actual cash value’ coverage, you need the amount of money it costs to recreate your house or its contents to the state before the incident. If you have replacement coverage, you are entitled to receive the amount to replace the home or contents, regardless of the value of what you lost.
Get an estimate for either kind of coverage of the former market value or replacement cost for the damaged items or parts, especially when seeking insurance claim help after fire damage. Then your insurance company will provide its estimates through its adjusters. Because of the way these companies are structured, they work for the insurance company, so the company has a vested interest in quickly getting you to accept a smaller settlement. But you are under no obligation to accept these numbers.
Instead, hire an independent estimator who will work for (and be paid by) you. Choose a contractor who is experienced both with building issues and how insurance companies tend to respond to some common issues. For professional insurance claim help after fire damage, make sure that both you and the insurance company agree on the scope of work to be undertaken in the case of replacement or repair.
7. Hire a Public Adjuster
Even after employing your estimator or contractor, you cannot come to a fair settlement of your claim. Then hire a public adjustor, an independent, licensed adjustor you pay to negotiate, on your behalf, with the insurance company. You will normally pay the adjustor between nine and fifteen percent of what you recover from the insurer, but that can be well worth it if the adjustor succeeds in significantly increasing the settlement.
Final Thoughts
When fire strikes, it is overwhelming enough to go through recovery methods, even building oneself up from the ashes. Just from the article, one learns the important steps homeowners must take in protecting their rights. Requesting cash advances for immediate necessities, keeping the damaged property under reins, covering the claim as soon as possible, and seeing to it that the tasks are responded to within the required timeframes are some.
If your property has been burnt, avoid going through the insurance process on your own, or you will lose money, literally. There is no reason why you should not take charge of your recovery process by seeking professional insurance claim help after fire damage from Jenkins Law PL in St. Petersburg, which will get your claim processed fairly, accurately, and to your benefit. Such guidance could reduce stress, speed up the process, and even secure the full compensation to which you are entitled.
Read: Understanding Insurance Claims Processing
