Homeowners Insurance Claim: The 5 Simple Steps
Hey this is Jeremy from Shine Insurance and today we're going to make real
simple work of homeowner's claims. We're going to break it down into five steps that you can easily understand so you have a sense of how homeowners claims work whether you are involved in one right now or you just want to be prepared for one in the future. We're going to use this infographic I'm going to explain it and go through it. If you want to download a PDF i have that right below the video as well as a link right here in the video that you can click and
keep the PDF for the future. So it starts out with something bad happening to your home. Maybe that's your water heater pipe bursts and floods your kitchen floor. Maybe that's a fire that started because you are deep frying turkey and it overflowed and had a fire. Whatever the claim situation is you have damage to your house. The first thing you want to do is call emergency services and stop the damage.
So maybe thats 911. If your house is on fire obviously you want to call 911. You want to get the fire department out there as quickly as possible. If it's not emergency services like 911 then you may just need to turn the main water valve off on your house. Think right now if you know where that is and if you don't you definitely need to find it because when you turn that main water valve off the water stops pouring out of whatever the
situation is and no more damage happens. You may also want to call a remediation specialist. These are people who come out They'll usually come out 24 hours a day and they are going to immediately begin to assess and deal with the damage that has happened to your house. If that's water damage, they're gonna start putting fans and dehumidifiers and things like that in your home.
So once the imminent danger is past, you want to stop the damage and it may be time to call a remediation specialist who will come in and start to fix the damage. The next step is that you want to start an insurance claim. You want to tell your insurance company that this has happened. That means calling your insurance company or calling your insurance agent and explaining the
situation to them. They're going to ask you some questions, give you a claim number, and get the process started on their side of of dealing with the claim. So step 2 - start an insurance claim. Step 3 is you need to start fixing the damage. So you're going to hire contractors to fix this damage. Now oftentimes the remediation specialist that you called at the very beginning is also a general contractor who can
continue through the process and fix all of the damage from beginning to end. For this reason, you may decide to continue working with your remediation folks through the process. Or, you may decide that you have roof damage and you want to call a roofing specialists or you have plumbing damage and you want to call plumbers or you want to call just a general contractor who is going to come in and help you to fix the house.
Obviously, if your house is completely destroyed then you're going to hire a general contractor for sure who's going to go through the process of rebuilding this house for you. So the contractors are really the biggest part of the process because they're the ones that are going to be fixing your home. You know I think the key point in this video is that your insurance company is
not going to fix your house. They're not going to come in and nail nails and put down floors and and put a new roof on and paint the walls. Those are contractors that are local to your area. The insurance company supplies the money. They're going to be paying for whats covered. So step 3 is you're going to need to hire the contractors to fix the damage.
To review, Step 1 - you stopped everything, Step 2 - call your insurance company, Step 3 - you hired contractors. Now to Step 4: You got to pay those contractors right? So that's where the insurance company comes in. Since you started the claim hopefully the folks from the insurance company have come out, told you exactly how the process works, began communicating with your contractors. That's super important that both sides are communicating with each
other and eventually come to terms on what the cost of fixing your home will be. Oftentimes the insurance company is going to write you a check. They're not going to write the check directly to the contractor. They'll write that check minus the deductible. So if you have a thousand-dollar deductible which is super common on home owners policies then they're going to write a check for the cost of fixing your house
minus your deductible. Now there's all sorts of other variables that come in here and i'm really really simplifying it but the basic concept is the insurance company is going to pay. They're going to write you a check. Then you in turn are going to pay the contractors for fixing the damage. At that point you can move on with your life. the damage has been fixed, the issue is resolved, and everybody moves
on with their lives. So that is step 5 move on with your life! Notice in the middle there I have you there and obviously you're in the middle of the situation. But if you're with an insurance company that is one of these big insurance companies than you really are the one navigating it. You're going to have to be communicating with the insurance company, you're going to
have to be communicating with the contractors, and this is the point where I really point out one of the most important reasons to consider having an independent insurance agent because through this process when you call your independent insurance agent they're going to help make sure that the damage is stopped at the very beginning. They can help you make sure that you've turned in your claim to your insurance company. They can recommend some contractors in town.
They work with tons of them so they're going to know who the best contractors are to work with. They're going to make sure that you get the most money from your insurance company and the money you deserve. Ultimately and finally they can help you to make sure that the work is done. So they can help you with all the stuff going on. With other insurance companies
when you go directly to the insurance company you don't have an advocate, a person who's working for you through the claims process. To me that's the most important thing because in the end they are going to help you to make sure that you end up satisfied with the process. Look no one likes claims. No one likes to experience bad things happening to their house but when you're done with it when you're through
it you certainly want to feel like it went well. Having an independent insurance agent who is helping you walk through it is is a super big deal in my opinion. Alright so let's just go through the five steps real quickly again. You're going to call emergency services and stop damage. You're going to start the insurance claim. You're going to hire contractors
to fix the damage. Ultimately, you will pay those contractors and finally you're going to move on with your life having completed the experience and succeeded in making it as good of an experience as it possibly can be for having a a bad thing happened to your house. Ok, that was it. If you're interested in some other Shine videos we've got a
great New Home Buyers Guide. If you're going out and buying a new house for the first time or if it's just been a little bit since the last time you bought a house, we really walk you through the process. If you've never really understand term life insurance we've got a really simple explanation. It's very similar to this one just really quick, surface explanation. Finally if you're just looking for funny
check out our Riding Lawnmower Fails video. People not doing very smart things with their riding lawn mowers. As always, the last step in this video is to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We try and put out great content for you. Information that's easy to understand and quick. Not bogging you down into many of the details of the situation but really giving you a simple overview of
how things work. Finally, if you enjoyed this video please do share it in your social world. Good information is only great if it's shared with others. If you got something from this video and felt like you walked away a little bit smarter go ahead and pop it out on your Facebook page or your Instagram feed. Whatever it is that you do to let other people know about this video. So I hope you learned a
little bit. i certainly enjoyed sharing this information with you. Have a wonderful day!
simple work of homeowner's claims. We're going to break it down into five steps that you can easily understand so you have a sense of how homeowners claims work whether you are involved in one right now or you just want to be prepared for one in the future. We're going to use this infographic I'm going to explain it and go through it. If you want to download a PDF i have that right below the video as well as a link right here in the video that you can click and
keep the PDF for the future. So it starts out with something bad happening to your home. Maybe that's your water heater pipe bursts and floods your kitchen floor. Maybe that's a fire that started because you are deep frying turkey and it overflowed and had a fire. Whatever the claim situation is you have damage to your house. The first thing you want to do is call emergency services and stop the damage.
 |
| Homeowners Insurance Claim: The 5 Simple Steps |
So maybe thats 911. If your house is on fire obviously you want to call 911. You want to get the fire department out there as quickly as possible. If it's not emergency services like 911 then you may just need to turn the main water valve off on your house. Think right now if you know where that is and if you don't you definitely need to find it because when you turn that main water valve off the water stops pouring out of whatever the
situation is and no more damage happens. You may also want to call a remediation specialist. These are people who come out They'll usually come out 24 hours a day and they are going to immediately begin to assess and deal with the damage that has happened to your house. If that's water damage, they're gonna start putting fans and dehumidifiers and things like that in your home.
So once the imminent danger is past, you want to stop the damage and it may be time to call a remediation specialist who will come in and start to fix the damage. The next step is that you want to start an insurance claim. You want to tell your insurance company that this has happened. That means calling your insurance company or calling your insurance agent and explaining the
situation to them. They're going to ask you some questions, give you a claim number, and get the process started on their side of of dealing with the claim. So step 2 - start an insurance claim. Step 3 is you need to start fixing the damage. So you're going to hire contractors to fix this damage. Now oftentimes the remediation specialist that you called at the very beginning is also a general contractor who can
continue through the process and fix all of the damage from beginning to end. For this reason, you may decide to continue working with your remediation folks through the process. Or, you may decide that you have roof damage and you want to call a roofing specialists or you have plumbing damage and you want to call plumbers or you want to call just a general contractor who is going to come in and help you to fix the house.
 |
| Homeowners Insurance Claim: The 5 Simple Steps |
Obviously, if your house is completely destroyed then you're going to hire a general contractor for sure who's going to go through the process of rebuilding this house for you. So the contractors are really the biggest part of the process because they're the ones that are going to be fixing your home. You know I think the key point in this video is that your insurance company is
not going to fix your house. They're not going to come in and nail nails and put down floors and and put a new roof on and paint the walls. Those are contractors that are local to your area. The insurance company supplies the money. They're going to be paying for whats covered. So step 3 is you're going to need to hire the contractors to fix the damage.
To review, Step 1 - you stopped everything, Step 2 - call your insurance company, Step 3 - you hired contractors. Now to Step 4: You got to pay those contractors right? So that's where the insurance company comes in. Since you started the claim hopefully the folks from the insurance company have come out, told you exactly how the process works, began communicating with your contractors. That's super important that both sides are communicating with each
other and eventually come to terms on what the cost of fixing your home will be. Oftentimes the insurance company is going to write you a check. They're not going to write the check directly to the contractor. They'll write that check minus the deductible. So if you have a thousand-dollar deductible which is super common on home owners policies then they're going to write a check for the cost of fixing your house
minus your deductible. Now there's all sorts of other variables that come in here and i'm really really simplifying it but the basic concept is the insurance company is going to pay. They're going to write you a check. Then you in turn are going to pay the contractors for fixing the damage. At that point you can move on with your life. the damage has been fixed, the issue is resolved, and everybody moves
on with their lives. So that is step 5 move on with your life! Notice in the middle there I have you there and obviously you're in the middle of the situation. But if you're with an insurance company that is one of these big insurance companies than you really are the one navigating it. You're going to have to be communicating with the insurance company, you're going to
have to be communicating with the contractors, and this is the point where I really point out one of the most important reasons to consider having an independent insurance agent because through this process when you call your independent insurance agent they're going to help make sure that the damage is stopped at the very beginning. They can help you make sure that you've turned in your claim to your insurance company. They can recommend some contractors in town.
They work with tons of them so they're going to know who the best contractors are to work with. They're going to make sure that you get the most money from your insurance company and the money you deserve. Ultimately and finally they can help you to make sure that the work is done. So they can help you with all the stuff going on. With other insurance companies
when you go directly to the insurance company you don't have an advocate, a person who's working for you through the claims process. To me that's the most important thing because in the end they are going to help you to make sure that you end up satisfied with the process. Look no one likes claims. No one likes to experience bad things happening to their house but when you're done with it when you're through
it you certainly want to feel like it went well. Having an independent insurance agent who is helping you walk through it is is a super big deal in my opinion. Alright so let's just go through the five steps real quickly again. You're going to call emergency services and stop damage. You're going to start the insurance claim. You're going to hire contractors
to fix the damage. Ultimately, you will pay those contractors and finally you're going to move on with your life having completed the experience and succeeded in making it as good of an experience as it possibly can be for having a a bad thing happened to your house. Ok, that was it. If you're interested in some other Shine videos we've got a
great New Home Buyers Guide. If you're going out and buying a new house for the first time or if it's just been a little bit since the last time you bought a house, we really walk you through the process. If you've never really understand term life insurance we've got a really simple explanation. It's very similar to this one just really quick, surface explanation. Finally if you're just looking for funny
check out our Riding Lawnmower Fails video. People not doing very smart things with their riding lawn mowers. As always, the last step in this video is to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We try and put out great content for you. Information that's easy to understand and quick. Not bogging you down into many of the details of the situation but really giving you a simple overview of
how things work. Finally, if you enjoyed this video please do share it in your social world. Good information is only great if it's shared with others. If you got something from this video and felt like you walked away a little bit smarter go ahead and pop it out on your Facebook page or your Instagram feed. Whatever it is that you do to let other people know about this video. So I hope you learned a
little bit. i certainly enjoyed sharing this information with you. Have a wonderful day!
Homeowners Insurance Claim: The 5 Simple Steps
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