Been There, Done That

So. Mrs. Green has been missing a big chunk of her roof for weeks now. Me, the dutiful landlord has been doing everything conceivable to remedy this, short of hauling myself to Birmingham, buying some tar paper and putting this roof back on myself. Though, it did occur to me that the whole process might have been a tad bit faster if I had.

In the event you have never filed an insurance claim, let me educate you. For, I have filed many.

After the niceties have been taken care of--everyone safe? everyone's possessions out of the way? No future disasters pending, such as, but not limited to impending fire or more water damage? Ok. Good. Now then...

The first item of business is to contact the insurance company who has your policy. You will answer a few questions, giving specifics, and allowing an adjuster to view the damage for themselves. If you are unclear as to if it is worth contacting the insurance company, do it anyway. As it was explained to me BY THE INSURANCE COMPANY when I was dithering about this a few weeks ago, "Bless your heart. That's why you have insurance in the first place."

The next step (which is usually done concurrently) is to contact some person specialized in fixing the said damage. In my case, it was two roofers. The first one flaked out. The second roofer gave a quote to me that was akin to the GDP of a small third world nation. According to my doctor, I have a strong heart. According to Marty Sunshine, I need to breathe slowly into a paper bag.

After these two items are completed, the insurance adjuster will kindly issue a check, the roofer will get the work done and the tenant in question will live in a home with an intact roof happily ever after.

Except with my insurance company. For those of you who might remember back to the good old days of 2008, the insurance adjuster only worked on Tuesdays. Therefore, if I did not get in touch with the particular adjuster on a given Tuesday, I was out of luck until the following week.

Additionally, the company in question (back in August 2008) gave me pittance for the home where the tenant took everything from the carpet to the kitchen sink (not to mention the copper pipes). According to the adjuster at the time, it was "normal wear and tear."

Eventually everything was escalated, Marty Sunshine supplied me with lots of paper bags and it got worked out with considerable drama (you can read the stories in the blog archives if you are so inclined). By the way, I use this insurance company only because I have a zillion homes and there are some complications to getting home owner's insurance when one owns a zillion homes.

Fast forward to August 2012. Another house with yet a very legitimate claim. The only thing the same is the sting of rejection from years gone by.

In this case, the master bedroom doesn't have a ceiling. A representative from my insurance company told me I "needed" to file a claim, as I am paying for insurance for disasters. It stands to reason this is pretty open and shut.

Yet, the adjuster's voice mail says he only returns calls on Fridays. However, he does not return phone calls until I escalated this to Defcon 5--and only then did he do so begrudgingly, telling me I will have a quote "later in the week." When I did talk to him today he cryptically told me he was still working on my file. As I explained, my tenants were still working with a missing roof.

I am under the distinct impression that the roofer and the adjuster are worlds apart, which means the insurance company doesn't want to shell out anything they don't have to. Not that I am bitter from last time or anything. But experience really is the best teacher.