We had damage to 3 sides of our house and our roof so we needed new siding and a new roof (among some other minor items). I'd never had experience with home insurance before and so we had no idea of the process involved in making a claim. Hopefully this post will help others when and if the time comes (and I hope, after all this stress, that we never have to deal with this again).
- Check
- Report
- Inspection/Loss Report
- Quotes
- Repair
- Finalize
2. Once you've determined the damage, call your insurance company and report it. If you have a mortgage, call your mortgage company as well and ask what the process is. Any insurance payments will be made payable to the insured and your mortgage company. Depending on your Lender (Bank) they might not need to do anything yet, or they might need to open a claim.
3. Your insurance company will send out an Inspector to assess the damage and they will generate a "Loss Report". This report shows where they think the damage is and how much you're entitled to in terms of Actual Cash Value (ACV) and Replacement Cost Value (RCV). They will usually send the ACV amount (typically much smaller than RCV) pretty close to the Loss Report being sent or at the same time.
4. I cannot stress enough that you should get multiple quotes, especially if you're getting a lot of work done, before settling on any one company or signing any contracts. Your insurance company/lender typically don't care what company you use so pick someone you're happy with and the cheapest isn't necessarily the best! Check their credentials, look them up online and make sure they're insured.
5. Once you've selected someone, get repairs started. My suggestion is to keep an eye on the work they're doing, take photos before, during and after the process. This probably isn't necessary but you'll be happy you did :) IF something comes up during the repair process that wasn't mentioned in the Loss Report your insurance provided, get a quote for that to be repaired and contact your insurance company to ask them to include this amount in your claims (as a supplement).
6. Once the work is complete, submit the invoice to insurance so that they can release your final check/cheque and finalize the claim. Pay your contractor and go on your merry way!
Unfortunately, because most everyone in our town was affected by this storm, I also had my first experience with storm chasers (unsavory companies that will sometimes come from states away to try and take advantage of the situation).
We had so many people and their vans emblazoned with their logos driving around town. They promise to help get your home fixed quickly, and make sure insurance paid for all of it (and then some) because they know how. They offered discounts for putting signs in your yard, discounts for referring other people and also offered to negotiate with insurance directly and work only for your insurance settlement, some in violation of Iowa Code 103A.71 (not that they seemed to care).
The standard scam is that they will offer to do the repairs for the insurance payout. While this in itself isn't necessarily a scam on you, they will often try and inflate claim amounts by charging for things they didn't do, charging a higher price than normal, or claiming more material was needed than actually was... all with the aim of getting your insurance company to pay more than they initially quoted in their Loss Report. They "chase storms" because the large volume of claims that a storm like this generates has the chance that the insurance companies aren't paying as close attention as they normally would and they instead just want to get claims processed and finalized and thus the contractors make a pretty penny!
Unfortunately for us we didn't totally escape unscathed. The actual contractors were never supervising the work, they covered over our dryer vent (located it later when I pointed it out), they broke our crawl space door (I fixed it), trapped what was left of that door under siding (and later released it - messily). They forgot to remount some things, didn't connect our front light correctly and needed to come out again (luckily my husband was home in time to stop them mounting a completely different light), split a wire in the doorbell (it's wired in and we had to get it fixed by an electrician), didn't clean up all the nails so we got a puncture in a tire... and the financial side of things was just absolutely ridiculous. We're lucky we had a great insurance adjuster to work with. The positive is that our house looks great, but as it took almost 4 months to get things "done", I'm definitely not wanting to get anything else done for a really REALLY long time!!
I hope none of you need to go through this, but if you do, I hope this helps you navigate things a little bit easier :)
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