Coverage Lawyer

Your home is one of your biggest investments, so you, of course, want to protect it with insurance. However, even if you prepare for fires and other disasters, it is still shocking when it actually happens. You’re so distraught over what happens that filing an insurance claim seems like a difficult feat. Here is what you should do after something happens to your home:

Contact Your Insurance Company

It is important to call your insurance company and let them know exactly what happened to your home. This way, they can have an adjuster come out to your home and investigate the claim as soon as possible. The sooner your claim gets investigated, the sooner you can be compensated for the damage. If you wait too long to notify your insurer, your claim could get denied.

Protect Your Home from Further Damage

It may take a while for your insurance company to reimburse you for all the damage, so you should try to protect your home from further damage. If you have to make repairs to protect the integrity of your home, you should do so right away. For example, if your roof is caved in, you should call a roofing company to come to fix it as soon as possible. Remember to keep the receipts so that your insurer can reimburse you later on.

Meet With an Adjuster

After you contact your insurance company, they will have an adjuster come to your home to assess the damage. He or she will thoroughly examine your home and determine the approximate cost of the damage. Try not to clean up any of the mess so that the adjuster can accurately see all the damage that has been done. However, if you need to clean up the mess for safety reasons, you should at least take pictures of it first.

Make a List of the Damaged Items

Take some time to go around your home to determine what has been damaged. Then, make a list of the damaged items along with their value. The adjuster can see a floor or wall that needs to be repaired, but he or she might miss the smaller items that have been damaged, such as a broken leg on your dining room table or a crack in your bedroom window. If you let the adjuster know in writing everything you have lost, you will be more likely to get reimbursed for it.

Obtain an Estimate for the Total Cost of Repairs

After you and your adjuster have figured out what has been damaged, he or she will help you estimate the cost to have them repaired and meet with the contractors who will work on your home. 

If you follow these tips, the claims process should go much smoother. However, if you run into any issues, such as having your claim denied, you should consult with a coverage lawyer as soon as possible.