Assessing your property:
Regardless of the type of catastrophic event you may suffer, such as fire, flood, wind, burglary etc., a pre-event inventory
along with a videotape of all your property could prove to be a valuable record when making an insurance claim.
When adjusting your fire loss, you will have to deal with various viewpoints on the value of your property. Some terms used are
as follows;
- Your personal value is your attachment to and personal value of your property lost in a fire.
Personal items have a certain sentimental value. This term is not meant to belittle their value to you but is used to
separate feelings about the value from objective measures of value. It will be objective measure of value which you and the
insurer will use as common ground.
- The cost when purchased is an important element in establishing and item's final value. Receipts
will help verify the cost price.
- Fair market value before the fire also is expressed as actual cash value. This is what you could
have gotten for the item if you had sold it the day before the fire. Its price would reflect its cost at purchase and the
wear it had sustained since then. Depreciation is the formal term to express the amount of value an item loses over a period of time.
- Value after the fire is sometimes called the item's salvage value.
- The cost to replace the item with a like, but not necessarily identical item is the replacement cost.
Adjusting the Loss:
Loss adjustment is the process of establishing the value of the damaged property. This is the result
of a joint effort among a number of parties. Basic parties to the process are the owner or occupant and the insurance company
and its representatives.
The owner or occupant is required by the insurance contract to prepare an inventory and cooperate in the loss valuation process.
An insurance agent may act as the adjuster if the loss is small. The insurer may send an adjuster who is a permanent member of
the insurer's staff, or the company may hire an independent adjuster to act in its behalf. It is the insurance adjuster's job,
as a representative of the insurance company, to monitor and assist in the loss valuation process and to bring the loss to a
just and equitable settlement.
Either you or the insurer may hire the services of a fire damage restoration firm or fire damage service company. These firms
provide a range of services that may include some or all of the following:
- Securing the site against further damage
- Estimating structural damage
- Repairing structural damage
- Estimating the cost to repair or renew items of personal property.
- Packing, transportation, and storage of household items
- Securing appropriate cleaning or repair subcontractors
- Storing repaired items until needed
It is important to coordinate with the insurance adjuster before contracting for any services. If you invade the insurer's
responsibility area by contracting without its knowledge or consent, you may be left with bills to pay that otherwise would have
been covered by the insurer.
