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House fire - experience with ins adjusters?


zeitgeist57

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Over the weekend, we had a basement candle fire that lit some plastic shelving. Everyone is OK and hardly any water/structural damage, but the SMOKE/SOOT got into everything throughout our entire house, up to the attic: estimates are shocking to me just in cleanup, let alone the clothes/electronics/appliances that are already being written off.

 

I've had a great relationship with All-Ohio Insurance and my provider is Cincinnati Insurance, but the adjuster is a wierd bird who even the ServiceMaster and construction guys thought had never done a fire case before. I'm worried since she is my "gatekeeper" to our insurance claim, that she might muck stuff up; slow down the process, or not properly cover insured losses.

 

Looking for anyone with insurance experience - or who has gone through a fire in their home - who can advise me on what I should be wary of to protect my interests in this process. Given sensitivity of details, please feel free to PM me also. Any help is appreciated. Thanks! :thumbup:

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Call my buddy Tom Romero, he specializes in this stuff 432-2100

 

Left VM, dude already called me back. :) Sending him an email...

 

Did the FD come out? Is that why there is water damage?

 

Yep. FD found the fire and put it out with a watering can. Not a big fire/heat, but tons of black, oily petrochemical smoke.

 

Is the adjuster the tall blond lady?

 

Not tall, not blonde.

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Clay,

 

I had an issue at my rental property and used servicemaster and they did a good job. Our old oil furnace had an issue and got black oily smoke all over all. I worked with James Fedor at ServiceMaster, he can be reached at 800 599 9198.

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Got burned out of an apartment when I was 20.

 

Renters insurance suuucked. For your damage they will have a company come in and "clean" any furniture and carpets. Pretty standard stuff.

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I train property insurance adjusters.

 

Is your furnace in the basement? If so and it kicked on at all they should be cleaning all the ductwork. I wouldn't be too worried about the damage to the house/cleaning as the adjuster will probably work off service master's estimate. The damage to contents is usually where you get screwed over. Get a good inventory of all the nonsalvagable contents regardless if you plan to replace them. You are still owed the actual cash value of every single item.

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If Tom Romero doesn't take care of all of your issues, I work at SEA Ltd. We do a lot of fire investigation and deal with insurance people on a daily basis. I don't actually deal with any of that, I do safety testing on candles (should have trimmed your wick and not left it unattended :p ), but I can get in touch with people that might be able to answer questions for you.
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With my property damage claim last summer between the contractor I hired to fix the house and myself we were able to push through everything we needed to. I just kept after them and submitted bills for damage repairs. They put up some fight when I wanted the attached garaged re-roofed with the house. In the end they paid out on all but about $500 of the total. Just keep pestering them, they'll probably end up doing it your way.

 

BTW, I used Puroclean for my water damage cleanup. They were great. You might call them out and get a second estimate. Assuming they come in at a similar number it will be harder for your insurance company to balk at two independent estimates.

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