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In this episode, we talk to general contractors McMaster + Hill about what a homeowner should expect when an insurance company is involved in rebuilding your home after unforeseen damage. Topics covered include insurance coverage, the negotiating process, adjusters, how funds are received, and more.
McMaster + Hill Construction started as a water & fire restoration contractor in 2017. Don McMaster & Jonathan Hill have now grown McMaster + Hill Construction into a full fledged company specializing in high end remodels, home additions, kitchen & bath remodels and complete fire rebuilds. With over 40 years of combined experience, Don and Jon have the skill set to fit any client’s needs. You can see their work at www.mcmasterhill.com.
Transcript
Jana: I want to welcome back my guests, Don McMaster and Jon Hill of McMaster and Hill Construction. Last week we had a great discussion about the beginning of the design and planning process of building a new home from the ground up or rebuilding after a fire or flood. If you missed it, please go back and catch episode number one.
My goal for Dream It, Design It, Build It is to be an interior design podcast featuring the client experience of building a new home, renovating an older home, or rebuilding after a disaster. On my website, rebuildingafterdisaster.com, we have posted a 12-month timeline where you can see the process of what you will need to do monthly in order to stay ahead of your contractors when building a new home.
I want to remind our audience that Jon and Don began McMaster and Hill Construction in 2017, specializing in water and fire restoration. Over the past four years, they have grown the company into a leading full-service remodeling and design firm.
McMaster and Hill now specialize in high-end remodels, home additions, kitchen and bath remodels, and complete fire rebuilds. With over 40 years of combined experience, Don and Jon have the skill set to fit any client’s needs.
We’ve been working together for the past 12 months on two homes that were devastated by the Woolsey Fires in Southern California. What I want to talk about today is the process of working with insurance companies. First question, guys: when you meet the client, do they already understand the extent of their total rebuild coverage?
Don McMaster: No way. I think some of them might have a fairly decent idea–it kind of depends on how much you’ve really delved into it–but I would generally say, on the whole, that people really don’t know what they’re getting into. So, it’s really our job to inform them, along with their insurance company, but really for us to explain to them how this process is going to work.
Jana: Do they actually bring you their policy at any point? I mean, how do you know what they have on paper?
Don McMaster: Well, that’s one of the first things we do is ask them, “Hey, you know what? Let’s see your cover sheet. Let’s see what coverages you have so we can start taking a look at it.” That’s something that Jon does a really good job on.
Jana: Do you, as a builder, have a specific role in the process with the insurance companies?
Jon Hill: No, the role as far as the policy is already set when they renewed or established their policy, but what we work with the insurance to do is capitalize the funds that they’re getting from the total loss or insurance claim, and we also assist with code upgrade coverage because most policies have anywhere from 10 to 20% of code upgrades, and so we assist with the cost of those items with the insurance company.
Jana: So, there’s some flexibility in figuring things out. It’s not just cut and dry, like “this is what’s on the piece of paper and it’s going to stop there.” It has to be brought up to code.
Jon Hill: Correct, yes. Exactly how you said it. There’s different coverages. You have your personal property, you have other structures (which is everything not attached to the house), and you have your dwelling policy, and some insurances also kick in like a booster of 10 or 15%. So, we kind of assist them with the insurance to go over what their maximum coverage is or is if they’re getting close to that amount.
Jana: Okay.
Don McMaster: Yeah, so we’d recommend everybody to sit down with their agent, before a disaster strikes, and if their agent doesn’t know, they need to find out what you are buying.
It’s like anything. I’m buying a car, and I want to know what’s in the trunk. I can see what the car is. But in these insurance policies, there’s something in the trunk there for them to… You can’t see it on the surface, but a lot of us know where that is, sometimes there’s some extra money. It may not be really easy to find.
Before you need to use your insurance, you need to sit down with your agent and get to the bottom of it, what are you actually paying for. When you need to use, you need to re-examin the coverage to find everything you can apply to the loss.
Jana: Okay, that’s cool. So, it’s the kind of thing that most mere mortals wouldn’t be able to identify in reading their policies, but you superhumans know where to look.
Don McMaster: Yeah, it’s pretty much exactly it, and like I say, it’s hidden in the trunk, and you got to know, got to go open the trunk.
Jana: Yeah, that’s a good analogy for me. When someone is not covered or is under-covered, what’s led them to that outcome? Is it that the property is in an area deemed uninsurable or that they’re caught unaware of what they ultimately would need to rebuild their homes?
Don McMaster: So, my first answer to that is time, and time being the time that’s gone past since you bought that insurance policy.
Let’s say, you bought this policy 20 years ago and ten years ago and you’re not updating it or staying on top of it. There is a rollover every year, 3% maybe or something like that that they roll over, but it may not always be keeping up with the cost of construction.
A lot of people are going to be surprised by construction prices and certain things, let’s say the cost of copper goes through the roof or wood, and so now it’s a lot more than what you might have had in your coverage. So, the answer to your question is it could just be that their policy hasn’t been updated. You really have to stay on top of that.
The other part of the question was, how does someone find themselves undercovered? Maybe they didn’t get enough coverage at the very beginning. So, you’ve got to ask the right questions, can somebody actually rebuild a house with this coverage, am I covered, and what does that all mean?
Jana: I imagine that a total loss is not the kind of thing people really think is going to happen to them, so they might be happy with the amount of their premiums and not want to know the real truth of it.
Do you think that checking your policy every year or every other year is a wise idea?
Jon Hill: I’d say every couple of years it’s a good idea to check your policy and just have the conversation with your agent, “Hey, I’m covered for this, right?”. And then call a contractor and ask “Hey, I live in this area. Here’s my square footage of my house. What’s a safe policy limit?” That way, we give you a general idea, and you go to your agent and get that coverage.
Don McMaster: Yeah, and I’d say one other thing we’ve found a lot is that people have worked on their house over time.
So, let’s say my house is an average house, and that’s what it’s covered for.. So, they went, added the sauna, the steam room, did a remodel and bumped out the kitchen, or let’s say they just remodeled the kitchen, so they spent $80,000 on their kitchen without upgrading the policy.
So, when that kitchen is destroyed, and you say, “I want $80,000,” they say, thats not what your kitchen is insured for.
When people do add on to their house or remodel, and it’s a significant remodel or add up, you want to make sure that you’re going to get covered for that in case you lose it.
Be kind of like buying a car, you have a Honda car, and you go out and youtrade it in for a big fancy Mercedes or something, and you still have the insurance for that Honda car, you’re going to be under insured, for sure.
Jana: Yeah, another good analogy. So, even though it’s going to increase your premiums, if you did that kind of work to your house, it is on you to upgrade your insurance to cover what it is you lost.
Jon Hill: Absolutely. Correct, yeah.
Don McMaster: Yeah, I think Jon can tell us about an example. We just did a guy’s house during the summer, and he didn’t want anybody knowing he had done this work, and then his house burned, and so he had his old policy,…
Jon Hill: Well, yeah, he had added some work, didn’t want anyone to know, so he was very under-covered. So, the insurance company only had a policy limit well short of what it was going to cost to do the addition that he put on the house.
Jana: And he’s stuck. I mean, that’s not their job to…
Jon Hill: It’s not.
Jana: That’s actually not the insurance company’s fault. They have faults, but that’s not one of them.
Jon Hill: Exactly.
Jana All right. So, I mentioned before that in 2017, a very large tree fell on my rather small house, causing considerable damage. Because the process of negotiating with the insurance company took several months, we were out of our house for more than a year.
My personal experience with negotiating with my insurance company was overwhelmingly adversarial. We were assigned an insurance adjuster who represented the company in evaluating our loss and ultimately determining our settlement.
When it’s from a clear total loss like a fire where it has to be completely taken down, is the process of working with the insurance adjusters still so painful or is it a little more straightforward?
Jon Hill: It’s a little more straightforward with a clear total loss because they’re going to end up easily getting you to your policy limit, and once they get you your policy limit, that’s all they’re paying you.
So, when you’re not at policy limit, that’s when it’s a little more back and forth trying to fight for every penny. But once you’re at a total loss, they’re going to write you for your policy limit, and there’s no room for negotiation. Your policy limit’s your policy limit.
Jana: And is there any responsibility on the insurance agents, to contact their clients every certain amount of time, or if you haven’t talked to your insurance agent in 10 years, it’s on you?
Jon Hill: It’s on the homeowner. I don’t think they can keep up with everybody. It’d be on the homeowner. I would put the ball in my court in that situation and always reach out to your agent, just follow up that your policy is up to date with the current value of your neighborhood and your house.
Jana: I think you’ve actually answered the next question, but there’s another part of it. To the extent that the value of the property is stated in the policy and they’re not going to go above that, is there any room for negotiation in any way?
Maybe it’s not negotiating, but interpretation, reading between the lines, to be able to add to the settlement total, maybe with the household goods, things like that. Is there anything you can do?
Jon Hill: Yeah. So, the insurance adjuster who’s assigned to your claim will go over all your coverages, and he will make it very clear on what your policy limit is, what additional coverages you have in your policy. He’ll sit down with you and go over each item on where you’re maxing out.
So, they do a good job of explaining the policy once you have a loss like that. There’s room for increased percentages that they build in most policies, and he’ll explain that to you and show you where the policy limit is, plus the kicker, and what that value ends up being.
Jana: And they do have to bring it up for code purposes. That will be additional.
Jon Hill: Yeah. That’s up to the contractor once the new plans are drawn to explain to the insurance company where are the code upgrades being spent, whether it’s a new electrical panel with arc fault breakers, whether it’s bigger, larger footings, two-by-six walls, insulation, all the code upgrades, dual-pane windows, that’s up to the contractor to list out and price as incurred.
Jana: That’s also why it’s imperative to work with not only licensed and bonded contractors but people who have experience in doing these insurance projects because if you don’t know, that’s money on the table.
Jon Hill: Exactly, exactly.
Don McMaster: Yeah. You made a statement a little earlier about the value of your house. The full value of your house is not in your policy.
Let’s say I have a three-bedroom, two-bath house, 1,500 square feet, and it’s out in the middle of the desert, and it may be worth, just being crazy, let’s say it’s worth $100,000, and you have the exact same piece of property, you picked up that house, and you put it on the cliff over at La Jolla, and you said, “My house is worth $3.5 million and the other house is worth 100,000.”
So, to the insurance company, it’s the same thing to rebuild. It’s the same two-by-fours. It’s the same. So, the value of the house is not commensurate with the policy.
Jana: Got it, yeah.
Don McMaster: The number that’s on your policy should be a replacement value. So, some people say, “Well, I had a $2 million house, and I want them to write me a $2 million check.” And you go, “Yeah, but I can rebuild the house for 300,000,” and they know they can rebuild it for 300,000; that’s all they’re going to pay. That’s why you have to know and be really sharp about what your value is.
The value of the house versus the policy is not always the same thing.
Jana: So, can you trust when you establish your policy or when you check it every couple of years that the agent is going to have the statistics of what it will cost to rebuild a home equal to what you have?
Don McMaster: In my experience the agents don’t know. I think they have an idea. And so, we do get a lot of calls from agents that say, “Hey, you know what? I’m insuring this four bedroom, four-bath house and here’s the area it’s in. If this were to burn down to the ground, what would it take to rebuild it?”
So, we kind of go through, okay, first you have to tear it off the property, and then you have to rebuild it. So, we can kind of give them some guidance, say, “If you were to call me tomorrow and that place burned down, here’s what I’m going to be charging you to put it back together.”
Jana: Right. And then there’s the factoring in of the $80,000 kitchen upgrade that you did, which doesn’t show in terms of square footage of your house, but if you chose the Cadillac of all options, and you want to replace everything at that level, then it’s up to you to make sure that’s known.
Don McMaster: Exactly. I’m going to tell you one story. I had a lady that lived in a condo in downtown LA and the condo burned, and this lady had done everything perfectly. I could not believe it.
So, there are two kinds of insurance. There’s the insurance for your building, the sticks and stones, the cabinets, and all that kind of stuff, and the other thing is the contents, your furniture, art, etc. As we would say, When you turn your house upside down, whatever falls out, that’s yours in contents.
They do advise people to take a picture of every room, or a video and put it somewhere, now on the cloud or someplace safe. But this lady had them in a three-ring binder. She had three of them with pictures of everything she owned, her contents, and every room from every angle.
When the insurance company came out, she handed them these books and said, “Here it is,” and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen at doing this-
Jana: I actually have a similar thing for my own home. That’s the kind of thing I do, and I have actually done it for clients, too, when we finished a project. Especially people who have valuable art that we take pictures, we inventory, and there are services that will help you do that if it’s difficult for someone.
But it’s really worth it because if you have a stereo system that you got at Best Buy on a budget, it’s one thing. If you’ve invested heavily in your stereo system, it’s not going to show, and if your receipts burn up, you’re done.
Don McMaster: Yeah. And you can do it now with your iPhone. You can walk through your house in five minutes and pretty much have all the proof that you would need to show the insurance company.
Jana: Yup, and then store it somewhere safe.
So, in our case, the final settlement amount was given directly to the mortgage holder from the insurance company. Then the budget dollars were paid to me and the contractor together, requiring a double signature to cash checks.
People may not know that the insured is not simply going to be handed the budget total in a lump sum to dole out at will or go to Europe instead of rebuilding their house. How does it work when there’s a total loss?
Jon Hill: With the total loss, the mortgage company can only hold the balance that you owe on your mortgage.
So, for instance, if you have a policy limit of $500,000, but you owe $100,000 on your house, the mortgage company will keep $100,000, and they’re responsible to give you 400,000, and how the remaining hundred that the mortgage company keeps in a escrow fund is issued on a progress payment schedule.
So, they may make four to five payments depending on the progress to help fund that project. It’s important to know that they can only keep what the balance of your mortgage is. The difference gets cut directly to the homeowner.
Jana: Yeah, well, that’s definitely different than in my situation because it wasn’t a total loss even though we were not able to live in it. And the bank still owned a large amount of the house.
We have been speaking about the rebuilding and replacement funds, there is also the coverage that keeps a roof over your head during rebuilding.
Jon Hill: Yes, those are all separate coverages. Temporary housing, personal property; those are all separate coverages outside what they call dwelling coverages, what the cost of your house is.
I suggest everyone talk to their agent, understand their policy. How long do I get for temporary housing? Is it one year, two years, three years? What’s the amount? What’s my personal property coverage, and what’s my house insured for?
And they will go over all those things, and they’ll give you a cost on the premium if you want to bump them up. It’s always safer than sorry.
Don McMaster: Yeah. Just a real quick, going back to the insurance company, when they write a check to the mortgage company, they don’t call the mortgage company and ask them, “Oh by the way, how much does Mr. Joe owe on the house?” That’s up to the owner.
Let’s say you have a million-dollar house, a policy for a million dollars, and a million dollars worth of damage, but you only owe the bank 200,000; they will send the mortgage company the $1 million. So, it’s up to you to call the mortgage company and say, “Hey, I only owe you 200. I want my check for 800 sent to me.”
Jana: So, you really have to be your own advocate in that regard.
Don McMaster: Yeah, you have to know that because a lot of people don’t. They just think, “Okay, they got the money,” but really, they can’t keep more money than the collateral, the collateral amount being what they’re owed.
Jana: So, are you usually the person that has let the client know that that’s the case? I imagine there’s a lot more flexibility if you’ve got a portion of the money to be able to work with. It won’t tie you up as much as waiting for the mortgage company to cut checks.
Don McMaster: Yes. Yeah, we do tell them, we let them know, “Hey, what do you owe on this thing? Because these guys now have double of what you owe them. They are holding to your money.
Jana: Right. And they’re, of course, earning interest.
Don McMaster: Yeah, and that money’s yours. You need it in your bank account, not theirs.
Jana: For us, the mortgage holder had the money from the insurance carrier. They doled out in seemingly arbitrary sums of money that were scheduled, based on the amount of work done. They had inspectors come who were representatives of the mortgage holder to qualify that certain amounts of the work had been accomplished. The next amount would not be sent to the bank until they implemented an inspection. The inspections took a long time to schedule and sometimes we had to simply stop and wait.
If we needed half of the budget to keep the work going, but they thought we had only done a third of the work, everything stopped. There was a real discrepancy there. It was very hard to work with.
Is that the same for you and a rebuilding?
Jon Hill: It’s exactly the same way, exactly the same way. They’ll fund the project based on a percentage of the work that’s completed, and they use a third-party inspector to come see what’s been done, and that turns into a percentage of the balance that is owed, and then they’ll issue a payment.
Jana : Do you actually understand how those percentages are calculated?
Jon Hill: I do. It can be a little confusing, but basically, they take the summary off the back of your insurance estimate, and they’ll add up the total of the items complete and divide it against the total cost of the project, and that’s the percentage. It can be a little confusing.
Jana: It can be torture. The cash flow process, in our case, caused some unnecessary delays. Does the process of working on insurance projects cause specific delays on a total rebuild, and how do you work around them?
Don McMaster: That’s a tough question because you do have to work with the insurance companies. So, we like to get ahead of the game before starting. We do try to push the insurance companies to say, “Hey, we’re going to start this.”
Say we’re at the beginning, and they’re going to make it simple, they’re going to give you five payments, which is pretty typical, at 20%. Before you start working, you have to go to them and say, “Look, I’m not funding this myself. You’re going to give me the 20% upfront.”
We haven’t had a problem with them working with us and giving that money upfront. We say, “Here’s what we need to have to get going because you’re holding the money. Now we’re in a big stalemate. So I’m not funding this. I’m not funding this guy’s house. You guys are.” And so, usually, we can work something out so everyone’s happy.
Jana: The insurance company has given the money to the mortgage holder. You’ve trained the client to get the percentage they’ve already paid on their mortgage into their bank account.
Who’s harder to get money out of, the mortgage holder or your client?
Don McMaster: I guess it depends on the client.
Jana: Uh-huh.
Don McMaster: Yeah, that’s what I’d say about that one.
Jana: Yeah. Well, I know we have just gone through this process pretty intimately with these two families, and that’s why that question is relevant. It can be hard to get the cash to flow. In some ways, it may be easier to access the funds that the mortgage company is holding.
Don McMaster: Yes, sometimes it is because then they get that check and when it’s made out, a lot of times it’s made out to us as contractors and the homeowners.
Jana: That’s right.
Don McMaster: So, the homeowner can’t cash it.
Jana: Right.
Don McMaster: The homeowner wants me to sign it, and I’m not signing it until he writes me a check and hands it to me.
Jana: So, that’s the protective process. Ours was the same. The check was made out to both of us and so we both had to sign it and I would just hand it over.
Don McMaster: Right,
Jana: So, hopefully, their clients are forthcoming in that way.
Don McMaster: Yeah.
Jana: Does it matter who the insurance company is? Do different companies make the process of accessing the funds harder or easier?
Don McMaster: I’m going to let Jon answer some of that. My quick answer is Chubb, which is a more expensive, high-end insurance company. I don’t think we really have problems collecting from them. State Farm is always great, and Farmers is always great, I think those are like the top three.
Jon Hill: It makes a huge difference on a total loss and on a small insurance claim, who your insurance company is makes a really big difference.
Now, I’m not going to sit here and throw insurance companies under the bus, but what I would do is do some research on the insurance. There’s plenty online that will review how their insurance process went with all these insurance companies because it makes a giant difference.
I deal with insurance companies every day. Some are pulling tooth and nail to get a dollar. Some understand the cost of rebuilding and don’t mind writing a check. So, it’s very important.
If I were a customer, I would do some heavy research on what companies are easier to deal with.
Jana: And there, too, it’s about what you’re willing to pay, you have to choose. If you do the research, you understand the value of paying more for the coverage. God bless if you don’t need it, but a lot of times, people need it, and it’s important to have it in place.
Jon Hill: Exactly. Even for something like your refrigerator leaking and damaging all the floors in your house, something as simple as that can be a real nightmare if you’re dealing with the wrong insurance company. If your insurance company’s taking care of you, it could be a really simple process that you’re very happy with and goes smoothly.
Don McMaster: Yeah, I would say we had these big fires, and so we had whole houses that burned down, which is highly unusual.
Most of the time, in the past 20 years that I’ve been doing just insurance work, they don’t burn to the ground. They burn, a quarter of the house burns or half the house burns or an eighth of the house burns. And so, I don’t think people understand how many times a day houses burn. I think, I’m not going to quote the national average, it was some ridiculous thing, like every 15 minutes a house is burning somewhere in the country, yeah.
So, it’s a crazy amount, but when you count up all the times houses flood, that’s just like endless, and there’s all the other things that go along with that, bad things that can happen to you. As you know, a tree hit your house.
Jana: I know. What were the odds?
Don McMaster: Yeah.
Jana: I will say that when I first moved into my house, within a few months, a tree fell down the street onto another house- one of these large eucalyptus trees. There was a woman in the front of the house, and she was very badly hurt. The house was a total loss. I immediately went to my insurance company and said, “If a tree falls on my house, am I covered?”
I made sure I was covered, and thank God because I have a new house and one less tree. Actually, now there are three fewer trees because the city stopped wanting to pay out. So, they’ve cut a lot of them down, sadly, but properly.
Does this cumbersome process of dealing with the cash flow affect your insurance-based rebuilds? Is it a lot smoother if you’re building a house from the ground up by choice? Does it take a lot longer because of this process?
Jon Hill: I can’t speak for everyone, but if the insurance and mortgage companies are involved, it’s an easier process.
Jana: Oh.
Jon Hill: For us, we put it in a contract. It’s based on progress payments as work’s completed. There’s no third party that’s having to do inspections and send checks to multiple parties. So, that’s always going to go a little faster.
Dealing with insurance companies can take time to get the money. And so it just depends on the contractor. We trust the insurance companies. We’ve been doing it long enough that eventually, the money will come. So, rather than stopping and throwing a whole fit about where the funds are, we keep moving on knowing the money’s coming.
You can’t speak to every contractor like that. They may need smaller payments, but we just carry on. We work with the insurance company and the mortgage company the best we can, knowing when the project’s finished, all the dollars are going to be there.
Jana: Yeah, that does certainly take experience, and that’s where experience with a company like you guys is really imperative because a smaller company simply can’t afford it. It would be devastating for them if the funds were not regular.
So, were the two clients in the Oak Park projects insured by the same company, or were they different companies?
Jon Hill: Yeah, both of them were insured by the same company.
Jana: Oh, that’s interesting.
Jon Hill: Yeah, two different insurance adjusters, which makes it interesting. You’re dealing with two completely different people but the same exact insurance company, which was nice because we got to know them and understood the process. They’re easy to talk to, easy to call. It was actually a pretty painless process in this case.
Jana: Wow. I’m thrilled to hear the word painless applied to any conversation with insurance companies in the headline. That is very heartening to me. I feel like there’s hope.
Jon Hill: There’s good insurance companies out there. You need to make sure that you have one!
Jana: Yeah, I’m hearing you. I’m going to change mine right after this call.
Don McMaster: Yeah. I mean, we hear this all the time, how hard the insurance company is. It may be because we know how the game’s played and the questions to ask and the process, so it’s not that painful because we know, okay, this is the next step, then, this is the next step, then, this is the next step.
So, we already know that, and so for us, it’s just a daily thing here. Here’s the next step, so there’s no stress related to it. We know how it’s going to go, and that helps.
Jana: Yeah, that helps a lot, yeah. I mean, as a client, we are all dealing with a huge amount of mystery and misunderstanding, and it just seems so huge and inhumane, but I guess if you’ve got the confidence to know that they’re just people and you know how to deal with them, that helps a lot.
Don McMaster: Yeah, I do. I’ll tell you a story. I had a guy whose house had, down in LA, and I was going on vacation, and I got a call his house had burned down, and I’m going down the 405, so I pulled off, drove over to his house because the insurance company had called me, they said, “Go see this guy.”
He’s sitting in front of his house on the steps, what remained of his house, with his head down, and I got out of the car and walked around the whole house, which was just burned to the ground, and I just looked at him, and I go, “Yeah, not bad.” I go, “Trust me, I’m going to rebuild your house. It’s going to be fantastic. You’re going to love it.”
I said, “So, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. You got a good insurance company. Everything’s going to be great. You’re going to be great.” I think six months later, he had basically a brand new house rebuilt, and things went well.
Jana: That’s amazing.
Don McMaster: For him, it was a nightmare, as it is when your house does burn, but then for others looking at it and going, “You know what? It’s not so bad. You can fix it.”
Jana: It’s an opportunity.
Don McMaster: Yeah.
Jana: Is there anything else that you can tell us about the insurance process that we might not know or that I forgot to ask?
Jon Hill: No, I would say if you have an insurance claim of any size, the saying the squeaky wheel gets the grease couldn’t be more true. You need to stay on top of it.
You need to always be in communication with them and fight for what you think you deserve because the quiet people who stand behind the scenes are just going to write them a check and say, “Here you go.” So, you want to be on top of it, be assertive, and be in communication with them.
The biggest thing with these insurance claims is to communicate with them, explain why you think you’re not being paid the right amount, et cetera, and they’ll work with you.
Don McMaster: And I think having a company like us that knows how to do that so that you don’t have to do it because really this is your first go-round and maybe your only go-round with this.
Jana: That’s right, hopefully. Yeah.
Don McMaster: I’m sure, I don’t know how many we got going right now, 5, 6, 7, so this is something we’re doing every day, so it’s easy for us to call them up and say, “Hey guys, you missed the boat here and we’ll tell you why you missed the boat and let’s get that fixed.”
So, otherwise, it takes the stress off the homeowner trying to figure this one-off opportunity here for them to have somebody like us that knows exactly the language to speak, the questions to ask.
Jana: Well, you guys definitely inspire confidence, and thank you so much for your insights. Navigating the building process when the insurance companies are involved can be truly painful and daunting, but obviously, you’re the guys to call.
I’m hoping that this valuable information will help people who are going through a traumatic event and inform people who may have a future incident so they are more aware of what will be ahead for them.
Announcer:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of From Disaster to Dream Home, the podcast that takes you inside the home-building and rebuilding process.
Each week we bring you time-tested practices and the latest trends through conversations with top professionals in the building industry. You can find other episodes of From Disaster to Dream Home at ewnpodcastnetwork.com, as well as Spotify, Apple Podcast, Audible, and most other major podcast-streaming services.
Need design help? You can contact us or find out more about our guests at fromdisastertodreamhome.com. Until next time, let us guide and inspire you as you create the home of your dreams.