A Video Explaining How to Deal With Catastrophes Like the Polar Vortex Part 4

How to Deal With The Polar Vortex & Other CatastrophesShow more

If your house was damaged or destroyed by the actions of the polar vortex, a wildfire, accidental fire, windstorm, flood, hurricane or earthquake, as a result of state declared catastrophes and you had a fire, homeowners, flood insurance, tenant’s homeowners or condominium policy you will be dealing with an insurance adjuster to gain indemnity for your losses. You should recognize that dealing with an insurance adjuster in a catastrophe is usually fairly easy. The adjuster and the insurer are under pressure from local, state and federal governments to quickly resolve the multitude of claims resulting from the catastrophe.

Insurers dealing with a catastrophe will usually be in a very generous mood. They will be seeking good publicity by taking care of victims of the catastrophe quickly and fairly. To make the claims process go easily the insured person must understand that both the insured and the adjuster have duties when damage-caused by fire, windstorm, flood or other insured perils are discovered.

Insurance claims require personal attention to detail by you, the insured. You and the adjuster should meet in person. If the claim is to be resolved expeditiously and fairly, both you and the adjuster should work to establish a personal relationship and to resolve, if coverage is available, the problems caused by the damage to the dwelling or business structure.

You are entitled to have the damaged property replaced with “like kind and quality.” This means that you should insist that the amount determined to be the amount of loss is sufficient to replace the property with property of like kind and quality to the damaged property. When you cannot match the remaining undamaged tile, wallpaper, carpeting, or other portions of undamaged property, you are usually entitled to have the entire “line of sight” replaced to match. For example, if a broken water pipe destroys the hardwood floor in a kitchen and does no damage to the contiguous hardwood floor in the adjoining family room, the insurer is required to replace both the damaged and undamaged floors so that they match as long as they are in a continuous line of sight.

© 2021 – Barry Zalma

Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE, now limits his practice to service as an insurance consultant specializing in insurance coverage, insurance claims handling, insurance bad faith and insurance fraud almost equally for insurers and policyholders. He also serves as an arbitrator or mediator for insurance related disputes. He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 52 years in the insurance business. He is available at http://www.zalma.com and zalma@zalma.com.

Mr. Zalma is the first recipient of the first annual Claims Magazine/ACE Legend Award.

Over the last 53 years Barry Zalma has dedicated his life to insurance, insurance claims and the need to defeat insurance fraud. He has created the following library of books and other materials to make it possible for insurers and their claims staff to become insurance claims professionals.

Go to the podcast Zalma On Insurance at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma; Follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bzalma; Go to Barry Zalma videos at Rumble.com at https://rumble.com/c/c-262921; Go to Barry Zalma on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg; Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims-library/ Read posts from Barry Zalma at https://parler.com/profile/Zalma/posts; and Read last two issues of ZIFL here.