Claims Handling Process / Getting Paid On A Homeowners Policy Claim

Everyone in Grand Prairie, Arlington, Fort Worth, Dallas, Irving, Mesquite, Garland, Carrollton, Duncanville, De Soto, and other places through out Texas need to know how to make sure they get paid properly and fully when making a homeowners claim.
One way is to see an experienced Insurance Law Attorney early in the claim. Another way is to make sure you have good records of your possessions.
The Wall Street Journal published an article on October 13, 2011, authored by Lori Bennett. The title is “Accounting for Disaster: Itemizing Your Home.”
The article tells us that while fire and theft are always concerns for homeowners, that Mother Nature has been the challenge this past year. Mother Nature has delivered blizzards, tornadoes, floods, a hurricane and even an East Coast earthquake. Can you remember?
The Insurance Information Institute statistics report that insured catastrophe losses for 2011 already exceeded $13.6 billion reported in 2010.
What one needs to know is the best way to be prepared for natural disasters when it comes to re-couping those losses, is to keep careful records of belongings. Keeping those records somewhere besides the home is better than keeping them in the home.
The article is informative in listing several web-sites that assist in keeping these records. When these records are kept on a web-site or “in the cloud” they are there when and if you need them.
An experienced Insurance Law Attorney will tell you to take photographs of everything of value in your home. To also have a video. The video should start outside your front door showing a picture of the front of the house. This captures those items that are in front of the house such as any lawn furniture, wreaths on the door, little welcome signs and such. Then enter the house, going room to room. Open closet doors, open cabinets, drawers, and anything and everything that may be closed or shut. Don’t forget the basement and attic. Then go into the backyard and capture on the video everything that is outside. Also, do not forget the garage, storage buildings, and anything you may have on the side of the house.
What seems like small items that add up when making a claim for a total loss are items in the kitchen cabinets and pantries and under the kitchen sink and such. Think how much that little container of a special spice costs in the store. Think about the price of all those containers of spice that need to be replaced!
Then the bathroom. What do all those cosmetics cost?
As can be seen, there are lots of everyday items that you will loss in a fire or other catastrophic loss that you would have a hard time thinking about if a loss occurred.
But thinking of all the items that can be lost is only part of the consideration if you find yourself having to do this. The other part is placing a value on these items and proving the value to the insurance company. That is where keeping receipts and good records comes into play. An examination of credit cards and business records helps but having that receipt is great.
Lots of items you will not have receipts for. So what do you do? Well, get on the internet and start looking up the prices on those items at the stores where you buy them.
Before a loss ever occurs, your insurance agent should be able to sit down with you and evaluate the amount of insurance coverage you need. There are always going to be items that require special coverage, such as antiques, jewelry, firearms, etc., otherwise you may not get full reimbursement for these items even though you have proof or their existence and value.
A few of the web-sites listed in the article are lockboxer.com, knowyourstuff.org, stuffsafe.com and Quicken Home Inventory Manager. These are either free or relatively cheap.