SOme negotiation advice from the guys/gals...

[dogface]

Alright some of you have read about this in another thread, and now I got some movement going in this process and would like some advice on dealing with Insurance agents on settling a claim.

Here is a brief synopsis:

I purchase a home and and moved into it on November 1st, 2003. On the first day of accupation I already had an appointment setup with the cable company to come out and install cable throughout the house.

Saturday night I took a shower, (two-story home) in the second floor shower. Later that night I went into the finished basement to grab some cleaning supplies out of the laundry room. There was quite a bit of water on the floor, and I noticed water dripping down the wall. So I called my fahter over to take a look to see what is happening, etc., we look at the first floor installation of pipes from the kitchen sink, over ot the dishwasher, making our way to the upstairs shower and sink area. That is the only places that had water running through the pipes. He then mentions ot mkae sure and get a plumber out to see where it is at, because it is dry the places that we could get to and see.

Plumber is stumped as well, and then has to start cutting into the back of my cupboards, then through the sheetrock in the kitchen etc. Bottom line, we finally found the leak, the installer drilled through the drainage pipe from the upstairs shower. So when water came down and hit the cable water splashed out of the pipe and down the inside of the wall.... Total damages to repair the holes in wall, paint the walls, replace entire kitchen cabinets because they are custom cabinets, and a not just patch them! Asa that is unacceptable! (Also was told from the cabinet maker that he could replace the ones with holes in them, but they may not look exactly the same as the others in terms of finish etc., but I will not go for that.)

So finally the cable company has decided that this is expensive enough to refer it over to the insurance company, and that indiciduals comes out on Friday.

How do I deal with him. (I understand his job is to settle for the smallest amount possible, while I try to get the largest amount possible.)

What if we come to a stalemate? How do alter that to make this process efficient, so that we may quickly get the funds for repair. It's only been since November!

If you have advice or have dealt with a situation like this please dispense advice here! Thanks for the help!

TSI

 

[Penguinfan]

Dogface

Dogface

You have to know before going in what all the costs are, and I mean ALL the costs are to REPLACE EVERYTHING AS IT WAS, not just fix it up, you have the right for it to be exactly as it was before. If you know what all this will cost by a professional repairman then this is what you should get, give or take a small percentage pending on how expensive the guy you would hire is, obviously they are not gonna pay Bob Villa to do the job, but you can't settle for somebodys son-in-law who is going to tech school right now

As far as dealing with the insurance rep, you just have to be determined to get what is yours, we all like to be friendly and be nice, but the fact is that will cost you money in this situation, be firm, polite, but let them know where you stand and don't settle for having to pay anything out of your pocket. It is likely this will not come to a stalemate if you are reasonable in your estimates, have them handy if you can.

Penguinfan

 

[marine]

Well, if I were beantownjim I would say to hire a hooker to give him a lil action while he reviews your claim...


But I would try to dig up some pictures of the stuff that was damaged BEFORE it was damaged. Otherwise they are going to claim normal wear and tear on the items and offer to pay like 80% of the damages.

If he refuses to budge offer to have an independant come in and make an estimate on the damages and you can deal through small claims court.

 

[MadJack]

Otherwise they are going to claim normal wear and tear on the items and offer to pay like 80% of the damages.

nope! not if you have "replacement cost" in your policy.

 

[marine]

PS. an often overlooked subtle item to do.

Ensure that the rest of your house is SPOTLESS! If he walks in and sees laundry and shit lying around he can argue that you dont take care of your stuff properly and get that "wear and tear" taken off of the final bill and you pay it.


Keep in mind like penguinman said, you want FULL REPLACEMENT COST, not repair cost.

 

[MadJack]

and you can't get "full replacement cost" if you don't have it included in your policy.

everybody should have it because it's cheap and well worth it.

 

[dogface]

I will clear this up a bit, and thanks for the replies.

The insurance guy coming out, is the insurance guy for the cable company that did the damage to my house.

I already have two estimates in my hand from 2 different General Contractors:

one quote has the estimate at around $9000.00 That is with him doing the cabinet replacement.

the second quote for $16000.00 is a general contractor, but he only uses a custome cabinet make to do his cabinets, so the cabinet maker came out and did thourough measurements for full replacements then forwarded the bid over to the general contractor. the GC then added it into the total cost of repairs with paingint etc.

**I also forgot the dmage to my gutters that need replacement due to the installer's weigh on the ladder. He could have out the ladder against the house!

Does this change some of your thoughts since it is not MY insurance company. He is working on behalf of te cable company. He mentioned he would check the damage, and then see if the estimates where in line. I just think he is going to try and say patch the back of the cabinets (which is the most costly item) but to me that is not an option. I don't want questions coming to me down th road on what happened here form a prospective buyer!

Looking forward to more replies! Thanks!


TSI


Marine- how are things, never got an updated version from you to look at? Did you get it taken care of...

 

[Mjolnir]

i had flood problems when i moved into my first house that i bought last october. mine wasn't the fault of a cable installer.
you might want to get a lawyer to advise you for your meeting with the cable company. i wouldn't pay him to handle the meeting just to give you key words for your initial meeting to set the tone and to let them know you are more than capable of making a stink of this if needed. in retrospect i didn't bcome aggressive enough and i am still dealing with small problems, whereas if i took the bull by the horn's my house would have probably been done by now. the bottom line is they hired an incompetent installer who has created major stress and economic and emotional discomfort. you have to be at home to deal with all of these schmucks when you can be out producing a living. not to mention that homes are condemned sometimes because of mold problems. thay need to tear out walls, treat the wood with chemicals, put high speed fans on the wood. it is a painful process if there are mold problems. if it becomes bad enough the house becomes what is called a sick house. you could sue the chit out of them if you wanted to be an a-hole, so it is really in their best interest to treat you accordingly.
i hope this might help, i saw your problem and having to deal with it recently brought back all of the bad felings.
good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[MadJack]

tell ya how i know.

we had a new phone line brought in from the road. the phone company left the wire laying on the ground until their sub-contrator came to bury the line. they came and while using their little digger thing, they cut the neutral wire to the power line coming into the house. when that line was cut, the power distribution was all fouled up and surges of overloads hit certain parts of my house. i lost tv's, computers, vcr's, stereo's, microwave over, etc, etc, etc.

i opted to have THEIR insurance pay the bills to replace, so they sent their man out to have a look at things. although he was an asshole, he was reasonable but i guess he had to be because the stuff was ruined and i had replacement cost. he got an appliance/electronics company to come in and get all my stuff to take to their shop to see if things were, in fact, burnt up and to determine the replacement cost of the items.

they determined about $8000 in damages/replacement costs and i wound up getting all the new stuff and MORE for about $1500 less

dog, i'm sure things will work out for the best.

 

[marine]

nope! not if you have "replacement cost" in your policy.

Precisley, but this isn't his policy is it? I thought it was the cable company's insurance. So they are going to push the repair cost, not the replacement cost on him... most areas have laws stating that insurance companies must do the replacement cost, but they just dont advertise it.

 

[AR182]

i used to be an insurance broker in my past life.


jack is right if you don't have replacement cost on your personal property, you will then get cost minus depreciaiton.


dogface,

i'm a little confused when you say that the cable company referred it to the insurance company. is it his ins. co. or your homeowners insurance company ?

either way, the first thing i would do is cut of all communication to that ins. co. immediately. then hire yourself an ins. appraiser to represent you. make sure that they work on a commission, & not you pay out of your pocket. the % that they get is well worth it because they could usually get much more than you would get by dealing with the co. by your self.

good luck & let us know what happens. because there are 2ndary things that ccould be done.

 

[Penguinfan]

Since you are dealing with THEIR insurance company it is critical that you have those estimates available. I am sure they know ABOUT what the costs should be so once they see the estimates there will not be much negotiation to take place, getting the estimates was the best thing you could do, many times people think the insurance adjuster knows the repair costs and is fair, HAHA. Let them know you are worried about any potential long term effects like Mjolnir mentioned, shows you know what is going on and aren't just some johnny homeowner looking for a big check.

 

[marine]

dogface-

Yea, I got it all squared away top notch looking. Thought I sent you a clean version about a week or two ago, maybe I misposted it somewhere.


Just shot it to you again so you can see how your advice helped me out.
Landed a job already and had 4 offers sitting on the table together... the resume definitely helped me get my face in front of them for an interview!
Took the best one I had and will be moving to DC shortly to start my new life.

 

[Penguinfan]

And with all the replies in this thread I would let him know that if he fuggs with you the membership may have to deal with him MadJack style

 

[dogface]

Marine; Great and congratulations. You'll have to e-mail me where you got the new career! I will look it over later tonight!

To answer the question, the insurance guy is representing the Cable Company and not me.

A while back the cable company had a contractor call me out of the blue to schedule a time to come fix my wall as he stated it! I
menitoned you could certainly come and give a quote but you will not be working on anything in my house. It took me 1/2-1 hour
on the phone with him before he finally got the message. it was at that point I got pissed off.

I then had these quotes done by companies in the local area.

SHould I only show him the 1 quote, or show both.

When he called to set up hte time for a visit, I asked him what is the normal protocol, he mentioned that if everything went smoothly and we agreed on the value that I would then be signing a paper stating I would not go after the cable company again seeking damages. I assume this is normal, but it also raises red flags that I better get the most out of it now, am I correct in that assumption!


TSI

 

[marine]

I would try and make sure there is a clause in there that if additional structural damage is discovered directly caused by their error they must cover that too.

Depending on how they do it of course. They could cut you the check and have you do it yourself, or they could receive the bill for the costs and pay the repairman directly and keep you out of it.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Just now reading

I think where some are confused is this is a liabilty claim on cable company and not homeowners so replacement clause is mute.
However you are really in better situation this way. You are over biggest hurdle from what I gather, since they are sending adjuster they are admitting fault. You should be entitiled to have all damaged repaired. I don't think you will have problem on getting all new cabinets since it is difficult(impossible) to match aged wood. I can't see the adjuster having objection as that is quite common with wooden fences in wind damage. The prob I see in adjusters standpoint is hude discrempency in two quotes.
No answer needed but could the higher priced ones be better quality than prior ones?
Anyway most adjusters do not want to make second trip and you both know the answers to the questions he will ask to determine value and I would wager you come to mutual agreement on 1st visit. If you are not satisfied with offer DO NOT sign release also make DARN sure you have inspected all possible areas that could have been damaged that may have been overlooked in initial inspection.
While P&C is not my cup of tea I have several associates very familiar in this area and if you run into any prob you question, give me a yell and I'll have someone look into it for you. I will need name and phone # of adjuster, however I am quite sure things will go smoothly for you.

 

[dogface]

Claimds adjuster just left and said that we cannot agree on replacement of cabinets, he will patch the holes in the wall, and paint. But the sticking point is he only wants to pay to get the cabinets patched and not replaced.

He instructed that if this is not acceptable, down the line I would tell the cable company that I will not accept the insurance companies offer, and that it would be up to me to sue them for the damages. Where I must then prove my amount.

I knew in the back of my mind that would happen!!

Pisses me off, you know!