Comments on: Home Insurance Claims

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:37:29 +0000

Josh,
Discuss your concerns about the tv, stereo, and Wii with your adjuster.

By: josh

josh — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:18:35 +0000

I have extensive water damage in my house. Allstate has sent the remediation service and they have so far taken apart approx. 50% of my house.

There were personal items that were affected and some are a no-brainer destroyed. Some I am not sure. Specifically, I am concerned about electronics.

I have a tube tv that had water and dry wall on top of it. The TV may still work (dont know yet). My concern is water is inside, and corrosion could take place a year from now and it wont work then. So is the TV (or stereo, or Wii) covered or will I have to accept it isnt covered if it works now?

By: F MICHAEL CONTE

F MICHAEL CONTE — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:37:24 +0000

Sorry no claim.
Who is buying used flat screen tv’s, they are almost giving them away now.
Be thankful they work and get on with your life.
Enjoy!

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 03:54:55 +0000

Lori,
Keep up your insistence that these items are damaged due to the water incident. If remote controls were in water, that only makes sense that they would be damaged or corroded in some manner. The treadmill’s motor is at least a few inches off the floor and that seems to be the only thing that would be affected on the treadmill. The flat screen monitor, if subject to water, may interfere with it’s performance. It is hard to imagine the flat screen monitor being affected by water since most people have those at an eye level height. Perhaps the water sprayed or was dripping down the wall that the flat screen monitor was mounted. I don’t know the details with the information provided. If you sell the equipment, you don’t have to reveal water damage if they don’t have water damage. Not all things exposed to water will be damaged just by the exposure to water.

Avenues you have available to you include discussing your concerns with the claim manager of you insurance company or simply having an electronics repair person inspect the items of concern so you are at ease that they are not damaged, or so they can provide their expert opinion that the items were affected and/or damaged by water exposure.

By: Lori

Lori — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 02:50:49 +0000

we recently had a water pipe break due to a frozen pipe in our basement. Before the water main could be shut off, our treadmill, a flat screen monitor, remote controls and other electronics were soaked. They did not sit in water, but the water ran through them. Our adjuster says that as long as they still start up no claim will be made because they still work. Is this right? In our opinion, if we try to sell the equipment, we will need to reveal they have water damage, thereby reducing their value.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:53:44 +0000

Ron,
The advice about the valuation is make a list of the items stolen or broken and find out the cost of these items new. Then on the same list, determine the age of the items. Everything has a useful life. For example, if you have a television that was stolen and it was 3 years old and cost $500 when new, you would determine its value by subtracting the “used” portion to come up with a value of the television. In this example, a useful life of the television is 8 years so 3 of the 8 years are used up and there was 5 useful years of value left.

Simply take 5 and divide it by 8 to come up with 62.5% of the television’s value was left ($500 x .625 = $312.50).

This is a common approach that many adjuster’s and insurance company’s use. Of course, the television you purchased for $500 three years ago may cost $400 today so the valuation would be a little less. Good luck.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:15:35 +0000

I am preparing a homeowners claim after being broken into. Any advise on how to get the value of things missing or broken. Before I even made a claim I got a letter from Kemper Insurance saying they may drop me……. sad isn’t it?
Thanks in advance.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:29:21 +0000

Marti,
Thanks for the additional information. It seems that a criminal damage charge (or conviction) requires the “intent” of the person doing the damage. otherwise it would be called “accidental damage” and would not be a crime involving a prosecutor. The insurance contract does not cover criminal acts or intentional acts, just fortuitous and/or accidental acts. Arson is an intentional and criminal act just as criminal damage to property is a criminal act. I don’t understand how criminal damage is unintentional so this one is probably best to be handled by an attorney.

If you are concerned about losing your insurance coverage, your insurance company, State Farm, already is aware of this situation whether a claim is filed or not so you have to weight the pros and cons of submitting the claim including the amount you have to pay for settling, being reimbursed, or hoping the best happens from the entire situation.

Something gives me an idea that State Farm will pay regardless if you make your claim or not. If this was intentionally committed by your son, State Farm may seek restitution or subrogation from your son for any amount, if any, State Farm pays for the damage.

By: Marti

Marti — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:27:23 +0000

Thanks for your input. Some details I did not state:

We have State Farm as well as the victim. There was a State Farm lawyer in the restitution hearing for the victim’s damages. We negotiated on an amount. They found out that we owned a home and also had State Farm and we were told by the judge that we could submit a claim and have St. Farm pay it. We decided not to pursue this until we researched further so we told the court that we would decline to submit to our insurance for now. I called my local insurance rep and she put in a call to State Farm to get more details. She told me that because we have been good clients for over 10 yrs., that they would pay the claim without raising our rates provided the charge was criminal damage. They said if the charge was arson then they would still pay the claim but immediately cancel our insurance and we would most likely have a hard time replacing our insurance through another company. Like I mentioned, the arson charge was dropped but it still remains in the records for the attorneys to view. I don’t believe they can legally consider it and can only consider the actual charge of criminal damage. I am currently awaiting a call from my son’s attorney to see what she may know about the legal implications of this.

Thanks again for your input. It is much appreciated!

By: f. michael conte,CPIA

f. michael conte,CPIA — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:16:18 +0000

Marti,
you need an attorney as stated previously. there is wording in the contract that speaks to criminal acts, my spin is there is never coverage for a crimianl act as it would be against public policy.