Excellent lessons learned there, CD. Thanks for sharing all that.
I’ve learned on virtually EVERY transaction with a company to immediately start a telecon log file where I document everything said, name of who was on the call, date and time. I use a telephone headset so I have both hands to type the information directly into a Word document for every conversation. I name the individual files with the company, subject, and date of conversation. Companies these days hand you off to so many different people and they may or may not have been brought up to speed by the notes that they keep.
I had not heard about a “Public Adjustor” before. What is that? Was your policy capped at the $100k that the insurance company offered you? I’m astonished you got a settlement over 5X their initial offer. Also astonished at the difference in cut to the Public Adjustor vs. a lawyer.
Your recommendation for a scanner is spot-on. I bought an Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner probably 7 or 8 years ago and we use it all the time for scanning legal and business documents as well as family photos. I’m amazed how much we use it and the quality scans it puts out. The Epson scanning software is really poor; instead get the VueScan software from Hamrick Software. I think the company is run by the lone guy who wrote it and he is updating it all the time. I made a one-time $90 payment and have been getting his upgrades forever. It is rock solid. It also allows you to create single- or multi-page pdf documents straight from the scanning software. The files will be big, but you can use something like Apple Preview to shrink them 90%
Very interesting remarks about the mold issue and the issues of dumping moldy debris.
I like your idea of putting unique page numbers onto every single document. That’s brilliant.
A Public Adjustor is an insurance professional, recognized by the law, who has passed an examination and is state licensed. Usually they are former insurance company adjustors, who have struck out on their own. You hire one to represent you to your insurance company and help you in presenting your claim.
Because they know the ins and outs of insurance from personal experience and exactly how to make a claim, they can frequently get you a much larger settlement than you can on your own. They are not attorneys, but have some of the same rights. After you retain one, the insurance company can no longer contact you directly, they must deal through the Public Adjustor.
The policy limits were (from memory) around $540k when all of the "guaranteed replacement cost", building code upgrade, inflation protection, etc. was added in.
The company offered about $100k to start, and their representative acted surprised when I wouldn't let her "help me". When I heard the offer, and the shoddy way they wanted to make "repairs", I hired the Public Adjustor. A night and day difference.
It took months, but they ended up paying me the policy limits. I was convinced that the entire structure was a total loss, but they wanted to repair it. They explained the mold issue to me and wanted me to clean out all of the "wet debris", water damaged sheet rock, charred material inside, burned cabinets, carpets, etc.
I objected to this because if it was a total loss, it would be much less costly and more efficient to just demolish and remove everything at one time. They wouldn't budge, but the PA and I got them to agree that if it was a total loss, they would reimburse me for the separate wet debris removal.
Well, eventually we fought them to a standstill, and had a meeting with the Town building official. He told them that they could re-use lightly charred wood members, but could not salvage any engineered wood.
We met out at the house and their engineer explained to us how he was going to salvage almost everything, and I pointed out to him that the plywood shear panels and siding he was planning to save were engineered wood products. I watched his face fall as he realized the truth of that statement and the next day they settled for the policy limit plus an extra $15k for the wet debris removal.