Q. I have a vacation home near Daytona Beach that was damaged by Hurricane Matthew. Because I am in Kentucky, do I need to physically see the damage myself before calling my insurance company or can I go from pictures of my home from my neighbors?

A. If you have photos that show damages from Hurricane Matthew to your insured property, by all means report the loss to your insurance carrier as soon as possible. I would suggest you email the photos to the claim office.....click to read the rest of the answer.  

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The following is an insurance claim question we answered for a policyholder through the United Policyholders Ask an Expert Forum

Q. I live in Florida and have had an extensive water damage/mold claim that I hired a public adjuster to handle. The insurance company invoked appraisal and the out-of-state umpire determined that mold was accountable for $15,000 of damage although our mold remediation bill totaled $9,500 (we have a mold cap of $10,000 per claim). Secondly, the bathroom tile floor was damaged during remediation and was included as part of the umpire's award. However, the insurance company is refusing to pay the $4,300 floor tile repair portion of the award stating that I must abrogate against the mold remediation company to recoup that loss. Third, my public adjuster is holding the check issued by the insurance company hostage, insisting that I pay his fee prior to endorsing it over to the mortgage company. Please help!.....click to see answer.

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This was a great day for this highly decorated Vietnam War Veteran and his wonderful wife. A recipient of a Purple Heart and 2 Bronze Stars with Valor, this couple tragically lost their home to fire 9-months ago. After receiving insufficient offers to settle their claim and months of delay, we were finally able to negotiate a 200% increase over and above the insurance company's initial offer. And to think that the insurance company adjuster discouraged them from hiring a public adjuster! 
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Periodically, we like to highlight a property claim we’ve handled based on something new we’ve learned, alert readers of important insurance claim issues or just to show the value public adjusters can bring to the claims process. This was a particularly satisfying claim. Not only for the settlement amount we were able to achieve but because it helped improve the client’s perception of the value of public adjusters as you will see by the note at the end of this article.
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Confidentiality settlement requirements are often demanded in the property insurance adjustment process. What happens when you run afoul months or years later as a result of a conflict with some disclosure requirements that overlap the prior agreement? Anybody have any thoughts or answers to this possible fatal conundrum? 

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Last week, I was interviewed by Deirdre Fernandes  who covers the insurance industry for the Boston Globe. Her story   Pricey car insurance policies test consumers     discussed how more policyholders were likely to shop around for both home and auto insurance after the brutal winter left many homeowners disillusioned with their claim settlements and the coverage increases the insurance firms are trying to push through. What’s amazing is how few homeowners shop for the best rates. We handled many winter storm claims in and around Boston and I can tell you many of our clients are now shopping for new policies due to the push back and negative experience they had with insurers some had been paying premiums to for many years. In many cases, these insurers failed their moment of truth. Instead of trying to make their policyholders whole, their adjusters instead looked for technical loopholes to minimize the payouts. The policyholder will have the last say in the matter when they walk away and look for a new carrier.

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There is nothing like being victorious, especially when you know you were right. And sometimes the victory is sweeter when the fight was long and hard as was this commercial property insurance claim from a 2014 hurricane loss in the Caribbean that we wrote about a few weeks ago.

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While most folks are enjoying the spring weather and looking forward to summer vacations with outdoor time with the family, others are still working through the insurance claim adjustment process dealing with adjusters and contractors.  Yes, as hard as it may seem, a lot of folks are still struggling with losses over the last twelve months from winter storms in the Northeast, hail and tornados in the Southwest, and Caribbean wind losses from Hurricane Gonzalo.  It’s been a busy season for Public  Adjusters and with their help, many folks are just now entering into settlement discussions with their insurance companies. So now is the time to pay attention to the details in your insurance policy.  The news media seems to move on from storm to storm with little information offered or shared about the vital information you need to know about your property policy and its terms and conditions.
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Over the past few months, we have been helping businesses and homeowners try to settle their insurance claims from the extreme Winter Storm damage that has impacted enough property owners in Massachusetts and throughout the Northeast & New England area that this storm rivals the damage done by other major storms we have worked.  As we’ve seen with past major storms with widespread damage, it is very apparent that the insurance company’s are overwhelmed and they are desperately looking for assistance to service all their policyholders who have made claims for their property damage.  Similar to hurricanes, the carriers have enlisted the help of many independent adjusters who have made the trip from as far away as Arizona to help them make inspections, write repair estimates, and make field calls before turning their files in and heading back home.  The issue with this is that most of these independent adjusters are assigned so many claims that there are simply not enough hours in the day for these adjusters to conduct a thorough inspection of the damage and then spend adequate time behind the computer to write a detailed repair estimate.
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I want to thank Florida Public Adjuster Michael Platts for penning this excellent commentary. 

By Michael W. Platts

I have recently been involved in three cases which bring up a very interesting yet disturbing trend. All three are relatively small insurance claims. In each case, the insurance carriers have chosen to deny these claims without (from my perspective) performing a fair, impartial, proper and thorough investigation.

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