Yesterday, I noticed that there was a puddle on the floor. Upon further investigation, it seemed that the puddle was caused by rain that had apparently seeped in through the wall. My husband spoke with the company that we have homeowners insurance with. Here is what happened next.
When my husband spoke with our insurance company yesterday, they asked some general questions about the puddle on the floor. The insurer said that they would be sending a claims adjuster to our home to assess the damage. Today, that claims adjuster called us, to arrange a time to come over and do that.
The claims adjuster asked my husband many questions about the puddle on the floor, and the potential damage it may have caused. He wanted to know if the floor had a padded carpet on it, and seemed pleased to hear that, no, there was no carpet at all. The floors are decorative concrete. In other words, the water did not harm the flooring one little bit.
He gave us a claim number. When dealing with insurance companies, it is extremely helpful to know what your claim number is, in case they ask for it. If you have to call them back about something, they will need to know what your claim number is before they can give you help that is specific to that claim.
The claims adjuster went ahead and found a local repair company, and he also called them on our behalf. It was nice to not have to arrange that ourselves. At this moment, we are waiting on the repairman to arrive.
When he gets here, he will check to see if there is still any moisture in the wall. If there is moisture, then he will do whatever is necessary to dry it out. There is the potential that the repairman may put a tarp on our roof, if he thinks that water is coming into the house through the roof.
Our insurance company will pay for the cost of the dry out and for any necessary repairs. We live in a mobile home, which is an older property. For mobile homes, and older homes, this insurer will pay actual cash value for the repair work.
Actual cash value is the replacement cost of the property, minus the depreciation. The other way they could have handled it would be to give us replacement cost. This would give a policyholder the amount it would cost to repair the damage with the cost of today’s materials. It doesn’t take depreciation into account. I think I would have preferred replacement cost because I fear that we are not going to get enough from actual cash value to get the repairs done.
After the repairman is done, we will contacted by a local inspector. She will come look at the damage, and assess how much it will cost to do the necessary repairs. This amount gets compared against our insurance deductible. From there, the insurer will calculate how much money we will receive to use to fix the damages, (assuming they give us anything at all).
Image by Enrique Dans on Flickr