This particular owner was smart enough not to sign anything until he had a chance to think about it, consult with family members and their personal attorney.  Most importantly, they wanted to call and check references of some of the vendors that had approached them.  Smart!  In this particular case, the property owner’s son was a contractor. However, his specialty was new construction and not disaster restoration.  Initially they decided to try and settle the claim on their own. What’s the harm…. right? 

Their insurance company (one of the largest writers in the State of Florida) immediately sent out an Independent Adjuster who is contracted to represent them.  The adjuster prepared a repair estimate, which totaled $62,188.  One curious item that the adjuster called for in the estimate, was soda blasting of the plaster walls.  If you are an insurance professional who has worked even the simplest of claims, you are laughing right now!  So the owner’s son took a stab and wrote his own repair estimate, (two pages long on a legal pad) and sent it in to insurance company.  Not necessarily the proper way to do things, but he gave it a stab.  While the estimate was not written to the carrier’s format specifications, our guess is that the carrier also knew that their own adjuster had failed to accurately document the loss and damage in more ways than one.  This created a standoff which dragged on for a few months.