Insurance Support
Six People Will Call You. Only Two Work For You.
A first claim is mostly confusion about who is who and which piece of paper matters. This is the map. It is also an honest list of the things a contractor is not allowed to do for you, however helpfully it is offered.
Free inspection on restoration work · Licensed C-10 & General B · Answered 24/7
Who all these people are.
Everyone is professional and most are helpful. That is not the same as everyone representing your interests, and knowing the difference changes how you talk to each of them.
Your agent or broker
Sold you the policy
Best person to explain what your policy actually covers, what endorsements you have, and what your deductible is. They do not decide the claim.
The desk adjuster
Works for the carrier
Manages the file from an office, often in another state. Your first point of contact after the loss is reported, and the person who authorizes payments.
The field adjuster
Works for the carrier
Comes to the property, inspects, and writes the scope the carrier estimates from. Frequently an independent adjuster the carrier hired for the volume rather than an employee.
A public adjuster
Works for you
Licensed to represent the policyholder for a fee, usually a percentage. Optional, worth considering on large or contested losses, and a licensed profession you can verify.
Your contractor
Works for you
That is us. We perform the work, we document it, and we answer the adjuster’s questions about it. We do not adjust, negotiate, or interpret your policy.
The Department of Insurance
Regulates the carrier
Takes consumer complaints, publishes the fair claims regulations, and verifies adjuster and agent licenses. Free, and underused.
The Clock Runs Both Ways
Your carrier has deadlines too.
California’s Fair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations require carriers to acknowledge a claim within about 15 calendar days, to accept or deny within about 40 calendar days of receiving proof of claim, and to pay within about 30 days of an agreed settlement. Most claims never test any of that. When one does, the California Department of Insurance takes consumer complaints, and knowing the deadlines exist is usually enough to change the pace of a file.
General information, not legal advice. Your policy and your circumstances govern.
Every document, and what it is for.
We produce the middle five. The first and the last two are yours, and the last one is the one people lose money on most often.
Proof of loss
A sworn statement of what was lost and what it was worth. Carriers usually supply the form and set a deadline. Late or incomplete is a common own goal.
The scope
A room-by-room, line-by-line description of what has to be done. This is the document everything else follows from, which is why it is written while the walls are open.
The estimate
The scope with prices attached, in the line-item format carriers expect. It should be readable by you, not only by the adjuster.
Daily moisture log
Dated readings for each monitored point. Proves the equipment was necessary for as long as it was there and that the structure reached dry standard before anybody closed it.
Photo record
Before anything is touched, during removal, and at completion. On a contents claim this is most of what you have.
Supplement
A request to add scope discovered after the estimate was written. Normal on a rebuild. Documented at the moment of discovery, submitted before the work, not sprung at the end.
Certificate of completion
What releases recoverable depreciation on a replacement cost policy. It is why an undocumented cash repair costs you the holdback.
Your receipts
Hotel, meals, laundry, pet boarding, mileage. Additional living expenses is a separate limit and it goes unclaimed constantly because nobody kept the paperwork.
Five things we will not do, including the popular ones.
Each of these gets offered by somebody in this trade, and each one is either a licensed activity we are not licensed for or a crime.
We will not negotiate or adjust your claim. In California that is a licensed public adjuster’s role, and a contractor doing it is not a favour to you.
We will not discount, absorb, or rebate your deductible. That is insurance fraud in California, and a company that offers it is showing you its ethics.
We will not ask you to sign an assignment of benefits. You keep your rights under your own policy.
We will not tell you what your policy covers. We will tell you what we found, in writing, and your carrier decides coverage.
We will not inflate a scope to cover your deductible, and we will not do the reverse either.
Claim questions
24/7 Emergency Response
Documentation is not paperwork. It is the difference between a claim that pays and one that argues.
Licensed C-10 & General B · CSLB #1158693 · Bonded & Insured
