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5 Steps To Help Your Homeowners Claim Be Stress-Free
Today we talk with Kristen, from Gateway Restoration, a disaster relief company. We use them for a lot of our clients and they do an awesome job. She’s going to give us some great tips.
She is going to give us five tips to make sure that your home insurance claim runs smoothly. And that’s huge because there’s always lots of frustration with home insurance claims. So after reading and watching this video, your life is going to be so much easier the next time you have a claim.
Stop The Damage From Getting Worse & Clean Up What You Can
Once you’ve noticed that damage or identified that there has been loss to your home or loss to your property, you’re going to want to try and stop the source of whatever is creating that damage. Whether that be water or anything else. You want to document what part of your property, as well as your personal belongings have been damaged. Documentation is key.
Contact Your Insurance Broker
Then you want to immediately contact your agent and report what is happening. Please remember you want to stay calm in this situation. For example, if you’ve had say an overflow of a toilet and you’ve been able to clean up that water, but you just want to make sure that there was no additional damage, I wouldn’t recommend calling your agent saying my bathroom flooded. Because key terms such as flood or mold or items like that are going to create maybe potentially some issues or limit to policies of what can be covered.
Contact A Licensed, Bonded & Insured Water Damage Contractor
Contact a licensed, bonded and insured contractor. They’ve taken the time to become a specialty within their field as well as ensure their business and your home while they are performing work there. So that is a key. Then working with somebody who specializes in water damage or whatever type of damage has been caused to your home is going to help that process run so much smoother. They specialize in documenting and repairing those types of items.
Let me ask you a question on inventory. You mentioned that. Is it wise if homeowners make an inventory prior to having a claim, just so they have it on file and have it ready?
Absolutely. Even walking through your home maybe every three months, maybe twice a year, and documenting even with video footage of the items that are in your home. Because if a disaster does happen, whether that be a flood, or a fire or some type of accident, being able to try and allocate that after the fact is very difficult. So the best thing you can do to secure your property and your future is to document that in the best way possible.
Contact & Work With Your Adjuster
You’re going to want to then get in contact with the adjuster that has been assigned to the claim. They’re going to be able to come out, back up everything that the licensed, bonded and insured contractor has suggested, and then be able to get that work started as smoothly as possible. Then those two, the adjuster as well as the company can work together to get you back to whole.
Let’s say someone has a claim and they’re just not sure where to start, they can always contact you guys and you can walk them through the process, correct?
Absolutely. We actually provide free assessments because the last thing we want you to do is file an unnecessary claim. So we will come out, assess that damage, provide our opinion as well as all the documentation of images of what we are seeing. We want to create transparency when you’ve potentially had a loss. That way you can make an educated decision for your future.
Gateway Restoration – https://gatewayrestoration.com/ Phone # 480-338-2331