Most people have never filed an insurance claim for their home. In some ways it’s similar to a car claim but in others it is very different. Here at AZTech Roofing and Restoration, we work with several adjusters a week so we have a knowledge of what goes on at your home when it is inspected and what happens behind the scenes.
The Adjuster isn’t the Enemy
Too often the adjuster is painted as the enemy in the process and in most cases it’s simply not true. Most adjusters do a great job and want to work with home owners to get their repairs done quickly and efficiently so they can close out the claim on their end. An adjuster’s job is to come and inspect the damage at your home. With roofs this usually means wind or hail damage. Most times this damage is very evident. (Although hail damage usually can’t be seen from the ground!) The adjuster simple has to examine the damage, document it with pictures and some note usually done in sidewalk chalk on the roof and determine what percentage of the roof needs to be replace. The next step is to determine secondary damage to other parts of the roof like vents, roof jacks, etc.
Once the adjuster has all this information and the exact dimensions of the roof they can create a scope of work. This scope of work consists of the parts of the home that need to be replaced, their size or amount and the price rate for the geographic area at the time of the claim. Many people think insurance companies make up this amount but 90% of all companies use 3rd part pricing software to determine what they are going to pay for the claim.
Many times they can miss certain things. This happens sometime because of oversight but mainly it happens because some damage may not be visible without further investigation. Because of this, adjusters are more than happy to work with reputable contractors. For contractors that speak their language can easily contact the insurance adjuster and have a conversation about what was missing and it can usually be taken care of when they miss something in their initial inspection. For this reason it is VERY important to use companies like ours that have 1. knowledge of how insurance companies work for claims and 2. in many cases have a working relationship with many adjusters. This helps homeowners like yourself make sure their home gets restored to pre-storm value.
If you have any questions about this or other roofing/claims matters, please feel free to reach out to us at (928) 428-6200.