Negotiation with insurance after big water leak ... help me!

[Anonymous]

We had a bad water leak involving buckled wooden floors in an old house. We are in the process of drying out, and will hear from the insurance company next week on what they will cover. At a minimum, they will pay to replace the wooden floors that were obviously buckled. What is outstanding is whether they will pay to repair some of the neighboring bathrooms that are not visibly damaged, but for which the wooden subfloors are probably still wet.

Insurance is currently paying for our temporary housing. Insurance is likely to give us a specific amount as a lump sum for the repairs of X, Y, Z, which is to be determined next week. A few questions.

1. Let's say insurance say they will cover X, but not Y, but I believe they should cover Y. What is my recourse?

2. Let's insurance gives us $X amount for all the repairs. Can I take that money and just buy a new house? What are my options that point? How much time will they typically give me to make a decision? How/when do I bring that up without negatively impacting my claim?

3. Let's insurance gives us $X amount for all the repairs. Can I also do repairs of other items that insurance is NOT covering (for which I pay for myself). How does the housing work b/c they are paying for our temporary housing? How/when do I bring that up without negatively impacting my claim?

For instance, since we had one leaky pipe, part of me wants to pay out-of-pocket to replace all the old pipes. But this is a big project that involves coordination and involves additional time.

[Anonymous]

I think you are way overestimating how much insurance will give you. They lowball the cost of repairs.

[Anonymous]

I am honestly shocked they are paying for you to live in temporary housing after just a leak.

[Anonymous]

The answer to most f your questions is do you have a mortgage. If not you can do what you want. If so, the mortgage company is a co-owner of your house and has to agree on what you do. Got I’d luck with getting your mortgage holder to do anything but the repairs.

OTOH, that will protect you to a degree. If something should be done and the insurer is balking, the mortgage company will come to your defense and not allow a sign off until it’s done.

[Anonymous]

Do you have an independent insurance agent/broker (rather than one who works for your home insurance company)? If so, call and they can walk you through all this. (If not, that's why I always advise going with an independent!)

[Anonymous]

I have no advice but just want to wish you the best, OP. A friend had a 3 year fight with insurance after a tree fell on her house. They had to rebuilt the house, but the insurance payout was obviously nowhere near enough, and that was after 3 years of fighting.

[Anonymous]

I am the OP. We do have a mortgage, but it's small (we refinanced at a very low rate).

I haven't contacted an independent broker yet.

The leak was quite extensive and led to buckling of wood floors in several rooms.

[Anonymous]

I read that you had an extensive leak. Sorry about that. We had a smaller leak onto wood floors that looked fairly bad at first. I cant remember who we talked with at the time but he said to just wait until it all dries out. Sometimes the wood floors dry out ok. That exactly what happened with us. The floors dried and and you cannot tell where they were wet. Likely much different than your scenario but I suggest to wait and see how it all looks after it dries out.

Having said that, if you do have damage that you dont agree with your insurance about, can you get a couple estimates from independent contractors for repair? That may help you quantify any difference in claim amount. After that, maybe an arbitrator?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the OP. We do have a mortgage, but it's small (we refinanced at a very low rate).

I haven't contacted an independent broker yet.

The leak was quite extensive and led to buckling of wood floors in several rooms.

You can’t contact an independent broker now. I believe Pp was asking if your policy is through an independent broker? If not I’d recommend any new policies go through one bc they shop around and have your best interests in the event of an issue.
For your house you’re being unrealistic to want to replace all the pipes. That would be massive and you expensive. An easier solution would be to have a flow meter hooked to an app. It’s at your water main and would alert you to anything unusual and shut off the main in the future.

[Anonymous]

Get Goodman Gable Gould or the like. We had a very bad leak, original offer from insurance was 20k, after bringing in an independent adjuster we got 147k.

[Anonymous]

We went through this recently. Prepare to be lowballed. You can argue with the insurance company, but ultimately they control how much they will reimburse you.

We got three quotes on the repair work, including one from a company that was on the insurance company's list of contractors. Insurance gave us less than the lowest estimate -- substantially less, with us being on the hook for $10K+, depending on the estimate. They also sent out their own estimator/adjustor in addition to the three quotes we got. DH wrote an angry letter with documentation of costs of even very basic materials, and I think they ultimately adjusted the amount upwards slightly, but still not enough to cover the actual cost of repair/materials/labor in the DMV. They have their own tables of what they say everything SHOULD cost, and based on number of square feet and so on, that's what they give you--regardless of how much the actual cost is where you live.

Since the area affected by the leak was original to our mid-aughts house, none of the materials are easily replaceable, and we had the choice to do a barebones fix and a full upgrade later when we got around to it, or do the upgrade now, understanding that we're taking on a lot of additional cost OOP. We're biting the bullet and doing the repair + renovation rather than do it twice. So the insurance payout is basically helping to defray the costs somewhat, but not even the full cost of the repair work. It sucks and luckily we can afford it.

[Anonymous]

We hired a private adjuster who got us much more than we would have on our own. Our first floor (all hardwoods) were refinished and they replaced all kitchen cabinets because the damaged cabinets could not be replaced with an exact match. The insurance company is supposed to make you whole, but there are a lot of tricky parts that we couldn't navigate without help. Our insurance company was really hard to work with though--I don't think that everyone has that experience. We switched as soon as possible afterwards.

[Anonymous]

We had a burst pipe while we were away and it ruined our wood floors for the whole first floor and leaked into a basement bedroom. We needed drywall repairs and painting as well as replacement flooring. The first insurance estimate lowballed us and included sloppy errors like using incorrect measurements for square footage and wall surface area. We got several estimates of our own for the repairs, and submitted those to the adjuster, along with a line-by-line response and correction to the estimate.

It took about three iterations of increased estimates and our line-by-line responses, slowed down more than once when the adjuster would just disappear on us and we’d have to escalate to the supervisor, but they ultimately agreed to cover the full cost of the repairs. This included repainting the walls and trim on the entire open-space first floor so there wouldn’t be a visible difference between the freshly painted area and the rest of the walls. We also had the painters do some extra painting while they were here, beyond the restoration project, and just paid for the added cost ourselves.

So all that is to say that with patience, persistence, and time, you may be able to get what you need from them on your own. But if your project is bigger, an independent adjuster could take some of the pressure off of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We hired a private adjuster who got us much more than we would have on our own. Our first floor (all hardwoods) were refinished and they replaced all kitchen cabinets because the damaged cabinets could not be replaced with an exact match. The insurance company is supposed to make you whole, but there are a lot of tricky parts that we couldn't navigate without help. Our insurance company was really hard to work with though--I don't think that everyone has that experience. We switched as soon as possible afterwards.

How much does a private adjuster charge? Whom did you go with? How do you go about doing this with a private adjuster?

[Anonymous]

My spouse is a contractor. She has done work before for people who claimed on insurance for similar situations. The insurance will give u X amount. It’s then up to you what you choose to do with the money.