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George

On 3/20/2013 7:42 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 08:56:37 -0400, George
wrote:

On 3/19/2013 7:18 PM, wrote:
Any experiences with how to deal with insurance adjusters for
roof damage and interior water damage repairs, eg re-taping drywall,
painting?

This is from Sandy last fall. Had the adjuster out today.
Couldn't do the roof because the roof was wet. But we did
get into it over the interior painting. Basically shingles blew off
letting water into the cathedral ceiling of my large great room and
foyer. Ceiling and walls of those rooms needs to be done. The
great room and foyer run into each other, so for simplicity you
can just visualize it as one very large 30 x 25 , two story room, with
4
walls. In addition to being a cathedral ceiling, part is also over
stairs.
A ceiling in one small bedroom also needs to be done.

They initially pegged this last Fall at $619 for the interior work,
without coming out. Which is obviously a joke. I got two painters
for estimates. One quoted $3850, the other $4000. I thought they
were on the high side.

So, today the Allstate adjuster was here. It was something else.
This woman spent an unbelievable amount of time measuring
everything to the last inch. Here's an example of the process.
The wall at the front of the house needs to be repainted. It's a
contemporary with 7 large windows that form part of that wall.
I'd say the windows and the double entry doors amount to 75%
of the wall area. So, what does the adjuster do? She calculates
the square footage of the wall, and then subtracts OUT the windows
and doors.

She says they only paint areas that need to be painted. I say
that any painter will tell you that you should ADD for all those
windows, because you have to cut in around each one and
you could just paint a wide open wall for less than you can
paint a wall with all that work. That fell on deaf ears.

After an hour and 45 mins of measuring and computing, I managed
to get another $700 out of them. $200 of that was for damage to a
sofa, unrelated to the interior drywall/painting. So, she's telling
me
that $1119 is the cost to repair the drywall, seal, paint etc a great
room and foyer that combined are 30ft x 25 ft, two stories tall. It
also includes going around 6 recessed ceiling lights, two natural
wood beams that cross the ceiling, dealing with a section that is
over stairs with a ceiling fan. And doing sealing and repainting of
one bedroom ceiling 15f tx 13ft.

I tried to point out the obvious, like going around 7 windows makes
the cost go up, not down. And that it's multiple trips for the
painter,
because you have to do 3 coats with the drywall repair. I got
nowhere.
Their whole approach is use some low ball cost per square foot to
paint, which would be fine if it was just one big wall. But they then
take an area like the front wall, full of windows, subtract out the
area
of all those windows, multiply the little that is left by their low
cost per
sq ft., and say that covers it.

So, any ideas? Even worse, Fri they are coming back to do the
roof estimate. She's already told me what to expect. They deal
with it one roof slope at a time. Only if that roof slope has such
extensive damage that it can't be repaired will they pay to replace
it. And then they will only pay to replace the one slope, ie section.
So, I ask what about the fact that 4 roof slopes face the street and
three have extensive damage? You'll only replace 3? Answer:
Yes. I said, but it's not going to match, it will look like hell.
Her answer: We only pay to repair or replace what's damaged,
not for cosmetics......

I talked to a neighbor who has State Farm. They had a roof that
had less damage and SF paid to replace the whole thing. And it's
not like I have cheap premiums. I was paying around $1400 a year
and they have just jacked it to $1800.

Any ideas on what to do? She did suggest that I could have a
roofer there to make the case for more extensive work. But I'm
thinking with the above approach to painting, she wouldn't listen
to reason about the work involved with painting a wall with a lot
of detail, why would she listen to a roofer?

Any experience with independent adjusters? I'm wondering if I should
try to find one by Fri to be here to try to reason with her?

As a matter of principle dump allstate and get a better insurance
company for the possible next time . My first rule is to discard the
ones who advertise heavily from the running (I am sure there is a
inverse proportionality between amount of advertising and quality of the
company which seems to be true for all businesses). Get referrals from
friends. We went with the hardly anyone knows Erie insurance after
dumping allstate.

One method I have used is to simply get quotes from tradesmen to do the
work and then go back to the insurance company and show them the
difference. To be fair you want to pay them for their estimation services.
Generally you are best to deal with a broker. They will handle at
least 3 different companies (at least in Canada a broker MUST
represent at least 3 markets) and they can shop you for the best deal,
and they will know which companies are best to deal with - and they
can exert pressure on the companies on your behalf much more
effectively Igenerally) than you can. They have pull because they may
have a thousand customers with that company, and if the company
doesn't pull their weight, when renewal time comes around they may not
get a chance at the business.

One feature of allstate is that they only sell through their own agents
who only represent them. We used to have allstate and I got really tired
of asking for policy reviews which resulted in them lowering the rates a
trivial amount only to receive a letter 2 months later informing about a
rate increase. allstate lost lots of business (one reason why they air a
commercial telling you how good they are every 10 minutes). My rule is
the more you spend telling me how good you are the worse you really are.

A friend mentioned Erie. Typically it is only available through agents
that handle multiple lines. The agent noted Erie is very particular
about who they insure. He said if Erie didn't accept us he would need to
use other insurers such as progressive (who also advertises every 10
minutes) and pay a lot more.

We have had Erie for 5 years and they haven't raised our rates. I
happened to get into an insurance discussion yesterday and the person
described how a toilet supply line failed on the 2nd floor while they
were away and the water caused extensive damage. They mentioned they
had Erie who quickly responded and did not chisel like allstate and
others would have.