As anyone who has experienced water damage to their home will know, this can be devastating, expensive, and incredibly time-consuming to put right. Hopefully, to minimize the financial damage, you’ll have a solid home-insurance policy – but how do you file a claim?
We all know how complicated and daunting the small print on policies can be: you hope you never have to claim on something as major as water damage, but once you do, trying to understand what you should and shouldn’t do can only add to the stress. While it’s always recommended to call the professionals in a situation like this, we want to give you an insight into the process and ease your worries, so join us as we explore your options and offer advice if you ever need to file an insurance claim on water damage.
The first point we’ll discuss is the most obvious – to avoid having to make a claim on water damage, take all precautions necessary to prevent it in the first place! Always call in professional assistance if you spot leaking pipes, hear unusual activity in your toilet systems, and never start running a bath if you’re engaged in other activities that might cause you to forget about it!
When planning to make your claim, make a list of all the items that were damaged or ruined – if possible, provide your insurer with the specific model, proof of purchase, the price paid, and warranty-details. Take photographs or record videos of the damage as further evidence, showing the full extent of the problem. This is very important, as the better, you can support your claim, the higher the chances of getting a positive result. While you may be tempted to stat clearing damaged property and items away as soon as possible, it’s important to capture a clear image of the problem straight away.
You should research your policy to ascertain what the company offers, and ask for further clarification if still unsure: your insurer will be only too happy to make the finer details of your deal clearer. You should have your policy number/reference materials ready for that initial contact, as well as all the details of the damage’s cause itself – this will help make filing the claim easier.
It’s vital that you don’t use this opportunity to try to cheat your way to a bigger claim that you deserve – don’t report the damage to items you’ve never had, or exaggerate the value of others: you’ll be setting yourself up for bigger problems should any fraudulent activity be discovered.
Usually, when you report water damage to your insurer, emergency repairs should be made to prevent the problem from getting any worse: this will vary from one policy and company to another, so always ask for full details on this part of the process early on. Next, plans are usually made to repair and rebuild damaged areas as needed (again, schedules and specifics of this will vary from one provider to another), and a full list of all damaged items is put together – these will then be repaired, replaced, or cleaned as demanded by the extent of the damage.
At SOS Restoration, we’re dedicated to providing the most professional restoration and repair advice available – before you start to process your insurance claim for water damage, give us a call and we’ll give you the answers you need. This can be a long, tough process – so don’t do it on your own!
