5 COMMON WAYS HOMEOWNERS MAKE THEIR WATER DAMAGE WORSE - WITHOUT REALIZING IT
DON’T MAKE YOUR WATER DAMAGE WORSE
Unexpected water damage to your property can be extremely stressful. Finding the right company to help cleanup can be even more stressful. Sometimes this stress causes homeowners to act in ways they think are helpful or will reduce costs, but often end up causing far more stress and cost them far more in the long run. Here’s the top 5 things we encounter where property owners hurt themselves more than they help:
1. I want to wait for my adjuster to come and see what happened.
We hear this often, and it is rarely a good idea. Most insurance policies have provisions that protect the carrier against covering damage for “Failure to Mitigate”. If you experience a loss, acting quickly is the most important thing to do. You do not need to file a claim right away or have an adjuster on-site, but you should hire a restoration professional as soon as possible after a loss. Most adjusters will tell their insureds NOT to wait for them to assess the situation on-site and to immediately take steps to begin mitigation. In some cases, it may be weeks or months before the adjuster can even schedule a site visit.
If coverage concerns are an issue, we can also place limited amounts of equipment to stabilize the environment to prevent a situation from getting while questions are resolved with the adjuster. Ultimately, even if your loss claim is covered or not, your property still needs to be mitigated properly. American Restoration Solutions captures 360-degree panoramic photographs throughout the process to substantiate your claim and document the condition of your property following a loss. We follow IICRC guidelines to perform professional mitigation the right way.
2. I want to get a “best price estimate” before I choose a contractor.
Interviewing and vetting multiple restoration contractors is never a bad idea. Trust us, we’ve heard plenty of horror stories from people who have hired bad contractors. However, due to the nature of emergency services, accurate estimating prior to performing work can be difficult to impossible. Unscrupulous contractors will often underquote to “win” a job, but by the time the final invoice is completed, the price has doubled or tripled. In other instances, they only partially perform mitigation work leading to health and structural issues down the road.
A defensible insurance estimate takes significant time to write and includes building sketches, progress photos, and details down to the square foot. The only way to do this is to document as the job progresses. This includes how much and for how long water was extracted, how many walls were wet, the moisture content of the wet walls, and any hidden issues found once walls, ceilings, or floors are removed. We use the industry standard program Xactimate to write our estimates, using price lists approved by insurance carriers. A single-page “back of the napkin” estimate will often be denied by insurance.
Waiting days or weeks to get and compare estimates can cause the situation to deteriorate, possibly even leading to a complete denial for failure to mitigate. We suggest contacting 1-3 reputable restoration professionals and beginning work ASAP with the one you feel most comfortable with, after they’ve presented you with a good faith estimate and scope of work. When paying out of pocket for a non-covered loss, we do our best to provide the same detailed breakdown and scope of work prior to beginning, but make sure the job is done the right way. There’s nothing worse than paying out of pocket for mitigation twice because the “best price” contractor wasn’t certified and didn’t do the job correctly.
3. The machines were too loud…so I turned them off so I could sleep or watch TV.
This may seem obvious, but turning off restoration and drying equipment is a very bad idea. Very, very bad. Turning equipment on and off will extend the amount of time it takes to properly dry a space, and the extra equipment run time may or may not be covered by the insurance carrier. Turning off the equipment also creates more favorable conditions for microbial growth (aka mold). We know the machines can be loud, but a $3.00 set of earplugs is much more preferable than an additional $3,000 bill for equipment and remediation costs that are not covered by the carrier.
Depending on your policy and the scale of your loss, your insurance company may also pay for a hotel while demolition is underway and drying equipment is running. Depending on the scope of the repair, an extended stay away may be necessary. Always ask your adjuster about alternative housing if there’s a reason the property cannot be comfortably lived in.
4. I’ll just move that out of the way myself.
Sometimes homeowners want to help, want to lower costs, or just aren’t comfortable with strangers moving their belongings. It’s great when property owners want to get involved, but our crews are professionals who know how to move contents quickly and safely from affected areas, while wearing the proper protective gear. Structural mitigation cannot begin until most or all of the contents have been cleared out of an area.
It is also important to stage wet or damaged items so they can be categorized as salvageable vs unsalvageable with your adjuster at a later date. When trying to move and sort contents at the same time, the whole process slows down, giving water more time to damage the structure and microbial growth the time it needs to bloom. American Restoration Solutions provides content manipulation, sorting, packing, storage (on and off-site), and pack-back services so your mitigation project flows as smoothly as possible – without anyone else lifting a finger.
5. I’ll just rent equipment and do it myself.
When a loss is not covered by the policy or denied by the carrier, the costs to mitigate fall completely on the property owner. Professional mitigation can be costly, and many owners are tempted to do it themselves in this situation. American Restoration Solutions employees are well-versed in IICRC standards for water mitigation. No two water losses are alike, and the amount of material that can be dried vs should be removed is different. We’ll happily provide guidance and rent equipment, but we strongly caution against this route. There’s a perception that just pulling up a corner of carpet with a fan blowing under it and a dehumidifier in the room will sufficiently dry a space.
Proper mitigation includes some or all of the following steps: setting up containment or drying chambers; measuring moisture content throughout impacted areas; identifying areas with trapped moisture; wet material & debris removal; drying through the use of pumps, fans, & dehumidifiers; removing odors and airborne contaminants using air scrubbers, clo2, and/or hydroxyl generators; surface cleaning and/or antimicrobial application…just to name a few.
Failing to remove enough wet materials can increase the amount of time (and daily equipment rental rate) needed to dry a space or create a mold condition if equipment is pulled out too soon and the area is not fully dried. Removing too much material will unnecessarily increase the repair and reconstruction costs, eliminating potential savings. The initial allure of cost savings by DIY can quickly cascade into a more costly situation. Our advice: Always hire a pro!
6. BONUS: I’m not filing a claim, because “If I file a claim, I’ll get dropped from my insurance”.
This isn’t so much a mistake, but a common misconception. It’s true that filing a claim with your insurance carrier can impact your rates or renewal eligibility, but there are many factors that go into determining if you’ll be subject to a rate increase or denied renewal. Filing a small claim for $3,000-$5,000 might not be the best route to take, but the costs for an average water loss mitigation, content storage and associated repairs can often exceed $10,000.
Depending on the carrier, once a claim starts to exceed a threshold around $50,000 it is transferred to a large loss adjuster. Filing more than one large loss claim may increase your chances of getting dropped or filing multiple small claims may equally increase the possibility of your carrier dropping coverage. Filing an emergency water mitigation and repair claim between $10,000-$40,000 is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario insurance is designed to cover and what you’ve been dutifully paying your premiums for. If you’re concerned about being dropped, speak with your agent about potential impacts and your carrier’s guidelines for rate increases/renewals.
Need PROFESSIONAL Help DEALING With the IMPACT OF WATER DAMAGE?
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