Home Insurance Claims Guide

When your home has been damaged, the last thing you want is for more damage to occur. This is why we want to mitigate any further damage. 

Call emergency services such as fire departments, plumbers, water mitigation companies, etc, if needed to stop further damage from occurring. 

Make sure any openings or damage to your home wont result in further damage. If you need to repair yourself or pay someone to do so, hold on to the receipts to turn into your claims adjuster. If your claim is covered, you'll be reimbursed for those expenses.  

Contact your insurance company as soon as possible. Most every insurance company is available 24 hours a day.

The 1st person you speak with will likely not be a claims adjuster, they are just the information gatherer. They'll take the information you have and assign a claims adjuster to your case. You can expect the claims adjuster to reach out within 24-72 hours. Unless it's an emergency type situation where time is critical. In that case, they will reach out ASAP. 

A list of claims phone #'s is listed below. You can search for your insurance company's name and phone #. 

Using photos or videos can help you remember things that you may have lost. If you don’t have an inventory, look for photos of the damaged areas. You’ll want to make a list of everything damaged inside your home. 

When making any necessary temporary repairs or living arrangements, protecting property from further damage or making temporary housing arrangements, be sure to save your receipts. Your insurance company may ask you to provide them as part of the claim process.

The claim professional typically will call you to discuss what happened, what your insurance policy may or may not cover and make arrangements to inspect the damage in person.

It's important to allow any contractors or professionals working on your home repairs to be in direct contact with your claims adjuster. Doing so will allow your claim to run quicker and more efficiently. 

Trying to play middle-man and not allowing the two parties to talk directly will only confuse and prolong the claims process. The sooner you put your contractors and insurance adjuster in contact, the sooner your claim can be resolved. 

Once the claim adjuster determines that your policy covers the loss, you can generally expect to receive a check based on an estimate of the damage, either on the spot or soon afterward.  

Once the damage is repaired, you can submit proof and recover your depreciation. 

Depreciation is a way that insurance companies make sure you use the money paid out to actually fix your home. Typically they'll hold back a certain percentage of payment until you can provide proof that all repairs have been completed. Once this proof is submitted and approved, the insurance company will release the remaining funds and you can pay the professionals that completed the work. 

Let's look at an example to illustrate whey the insurance companies do this:

Sally had a hail storm roll through her neighborhood, causing damage to her roof. She filed a claim and received a $15,000 check to repair the roof. 

Sally decided to take that money and buy a new car instead of repair her roof. 

3 months later another storm rolls through. Because the roof is damaged, water gets inside the home, causing $50,000 in damage. 

Now Sally wants to file another claim for the $50,000 in damage. This isn't fair to the insurance company. If she would have actually repaired the roof with the $15,000 then the additional $50,000 in damage would have never happened. 

This is why the insurance company holds back depreciation.