To the PP who used USAA, why did you open the walls? Was they damp or was there visible wall damage? Our insurance is isn’t even touching the walls

Are you over insured or under insured?
If you bought your insurance long ago then you are most likely under insured
What is your deductible?
Be careful with an insurance claim, it will go on your record and if you have too many claims an insurance company will either up your premium or refuse to insure you.

If you were under insured by let’s say 40%, then you can get cost of repairs -40%

That is after your deductible

We went through this recently and our insurance was USAA - they were amazing. We lost one floor of the house and part of another.

They came in the next day and ripped everything out and treated it with anti-mold. It was crazy. They then had the dryers in for a week.

We opted to use their contracting to make us whole and I am so happy we did. They made everything back to way it was - everything. We opted to replace pipes on our own since it would be cheaper since the walls and floors were already ripped up.

One of the subs tried to cheap out on some flooring and I got angry and so did the GC but that was about the extent of drama. We debated taking a check and going with our regular contractor but it would have not been as quick and in our case by using the insurance guy he was able to get more money out of the insurance company easier for the repairs.

I am in a similar situation as OP. But I am having issues with my insurance company: they want to keep drying things out in order to minimize the amount of flooring they need to replace. Is there an industry standard as to how long of a dry out period makes sense before you give up and then move on to replace flooring that has NOT dried out? The prolonged dryout period is annoying, and is delaying construction that would return us back to normal.

When this happened to me the insurance held back some of the payment until I sent Proof I used payments to do the work I had submitted it for. Also you do need to include the mortgage - the check goes to you and the mortgage co.

Hi! I am the OP. I know the insurance company won’t pay for a new house. The question is what if I use the money to purchase a new house after selling my house. My house is old so I would probably sell it in as-is condition to a builder who would build a big new house. I was wondering if the insurance settlement can only be used for the specific repairs in question vs. adding to my own funds to a newer home purchase. Basically I am worried about living in an older home and having continuous maintenance issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ahhhhh, no. The mortgage holder has no say in repairs one does to one's house. You're telling us everyone that painted or carepted a room violated thier mortgage?

You know, the check is made out to both the homeowner and the mortgage company and the mortgage company doesn’t just sign it over to you.

Sometimes that happens, sometimes not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ahhhhh, no. The mortgage holder has no say in repairs one does to one's house. You're telling us everyone that painted or carepted a room violated thier mortgage?

You know, the check is made out to both the homeowner and the mortgage company and the mortgage company doesn’t just sign it over to you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ahhhhh, no. The mortgage holder has no say in repairs one does to one's house. You're telling us everyone that painted or carepted a room violated thier mortgage?

OP was asking about repairing her flooring versus using the money to buy a new house. If you’ve never made a HO insurers claim then you might not know that your
Mortgage company has to approve.

This makes no sense. Who would want to buy a water damaged house at full price. Op, fix it. They will not buy you a new house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ahhhhh, no. The mortgage holder has no say in repairs one does to one's house. You're telling us everyone that painted or carepted a room violated thier mortgage?

OP was asking about repairing her flooring versus using the money to buy a new house. If you’ve never made a HO insurers claim then you might not know that your
Mortgage company has to approve.

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ahhhhh, no. The mortgage holder has no say in repairs one does to one's house. You're telling us everyone that painted or carepted a room violated thier mortgage?

Insurance will make an estimate but will also take estimates from contractors you select, they should be reputable. A company lie Servpro will come in and do all the estimates including repairs, just use that estimate. What ends up happening is the homeowner thinks they are going to make money off insurance and tries to play games like you said buying a other house. No, insurance is to cover fixing the damages to the hoke insured not a windfall to buy another house wtf.

Also when you ask other contractors to give you estimates in writing, do they provide those for free? How do you know how much supplies are?

How does the temporary housing coverage work? We are in temporary housing and does insurance just keep paying for that through the back and forth process?

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.

That is not exactly correct. The insurance company is supposed to pay what the policy you bought covers. Not everyone buys coverage that pays to replace and/or fix everything that goes wrong.