Special Report
For
Southern California Fire Victims

Insurance Claims 911 is available to help you with your insurance claims.  After the fires are extinguished, insurance company representatives will be out in full force handling thousands of claims for victims all over Southern California.  Here is our checklist to help you make sure you receive everything you are entitled to:

First and foremost……have a heart and exercise common sense in the initial aftermath

•  Make sensible choices around your home and neighborhood.  Wear protective clothing and shoes.  Carry and use a face mask to minimize your exposure to particulate and residue.  Wear gloves and eye protection as you sort through your items.  If you aren’t sure about how bad your damage is or whether your home is safe to enter, call someone with some experience, such as a structural engineer or contractor.

• Be patient while the insurance companies set up their claims offices and bring disaster teams in from around the country.  It takes a few days, sometimes weeks, to get things up and running.  These folks are people too, and your home isn’t going to get fixed any sooner. 

• Be sympathetic to those who have lost their entire homes.  These claims are going to take priority and rightfully so.

• If you have smoke damage and/or light burn damage, the best thing you can do is understand and accept this will be an inconvenience for at least three months, probably longer.  Contractors will come in short supply and repairs will be slow.  If your home has more severe damage, expect your home to be in a shambles for 6 months or more.  But DO NOT RUSH “just to get it fixed.”   

In the meantime, here’s what you can and should be doing for your own personal situation, step by step: 

1. If you have damage to your home and/or personal belongings, call your insurance company to report it.  Many people see all the tragedy on television and feel lucky to have not been affected the same way, and then tend to minimize their own damages.  Don’t do this, because the only person you are hurting is yourself.  The insurance companies have money in reserve for events like these, and if you paid premiums to your company, you are entitled to collect for every penny you lost – with the exception of your deductible.  Don’t allow yourself to be a victim a second time.

2. Remember Southern California is prone to seismic activity, and building codes are becoming more stringent in order to withstand earthquakes.  Fire can compromise the structural integrity of your home and if your insurance company fails to identify potential structural elements potentially damaged by the fire, your home may not perform as well in another earthquake.  Many policies provide some form of coverage for code upgrades, so do not allow your insurance company to minimize your damages.  Consider these important factors:

   i. Any burning of lumber could potentially be a structural problem, especially if the burned lumber is a shear wall or part of the roofing.  Simply removing the damaged lumber and renailing a piece of plywood isn’t enough.  ii.      The scorching of building paper inside the stucco could present a moisture problem in the future.  Stucco doesn’t stop water from entering the home, the paper inside does.  If the fire in or near your home was hot enough to scorch or burn the paper, future moisture penetration could lead to mold.  Stop the problem now before your insurance company denies it later on.

3. Make an inventory of all damaged personal items, whether they were burned or just filled with smoke.  It’s all covered by your policy, and it is difficult to clean smoke damaged items like clothing and furniture.  Many items will need to be replaced, or professionally cleaned, which could cost you thousands.   Make sure you ask for your insurance to pay for this.

4. If you are familiar with insurance and/or construction, work with your adjuster to see what type of estimate they will come up with to clean, paint, deodorize, de-ash, etc. Again, your house has a lot of surface area and the job always is much bigger than it seems.   And much more expensive.  Do not minimize your damages.  Just because your house is still standing doesn’t mean it didn’t receive significant damage.

5. Your policy will likely provide coverage for Loss of Use as well.  If your home is uninhabitable from the fires, smoke, etc. your insurance company owes for you to stay in a hotel or other alternate temporary residence until the house is safe to live in again.  If anyone in your family has respiratory problems and the smoke was heavy in your area, your home might be deemed uninhabitable even without other damages.

6. If you are not sure about what to do, how to file your claim, how to go about getting the proper repairs covered by your policy, or just too overwhelmed by it all, call or email us for some advice and assistance.  We usually answer all email within 24 hours.

7. If your company outright denies your claim or gives you less money than you believe your damages reflect, definitely call us to discuss your claim. 

8. Remember, sometimes the insurance company gets it right and pays appropriately.  If that happens and all you lost were a few items and some personal inconvenience, you are fortunate.  But sometimes insurance companies dig in their heels and don’t want to pay.  If this happens to you……then call or email: