mcd wrote:
We recently experienced 1st hand what a blockage in the city sewer
will do a house. We had a blockage occur in the city line just below
our connection. It came spouting out two showers and two toilets and
our corner bathtub

[...]


Is it worth hiring an independent adjuster over this? Or am I over
reacting?

You've got the city between your butt and the sewer line.

Screw the adjustor. You should hire the meanest lawyer you can find. The
type with blood shooting from his eyeballs, fire from his throat, and venom
from his fangs! The kind that make grown men tremble, women faint, and cause
nightmares in children.

None of this insurance adjustor, city inspector crap. We're talking
sufficient money such that a piddly 10% differerence can have a big (say,
$10,000) impact on the result. Further, the consequences may not be manifest
for YEARS!

But here's something that even a spawn-of-Satan lawyer cannot (by law) tell
you: your pain-and-suffering damages are usually twice your actual damages.
It is in your interest to get all the medical tests reasonably consistent
with the hazards to which you've been exposed. Not to be an alarmist or
anything, but you could DIE. Painfully. Hideously. With giant, festering,
odiforous, fulminating, sealed-casket-type, sores.

Again, this may not be an act of God, such as a hurricane or flood, that is
routinely handled by insurance adjustors. This is possibly the result of
gross negligence or incompetence, or both, on the part of public servants,
entrusted with your welfare which they flagrantly ignored. You don't, and
can't, know until you get expert advice.

Go for the lawyer.