Water Damage Insurance Claims Process

A Water Damage Insurance Claim is “filed or started” by calling your Insurance Agent and telling them that you have “accidental and all of sudden” water damage in your property and would like to place an Insurance Claim. 

If you read our 3 Secrets You Should Know Before Placing a Water Damage Insurance Claim, you will know the Insurance Company will want to know the Source of the Water Damage and a Cost Estimate. 

Why?  Well, the source of water damage, will tell them if you have insurance coverage and the cost estimate will tell them if the damage cost, will be over the insurance deductible, to justify the claim. 

Important: Restorex ensures that our Water Mitigation Services and Repair Services will be covered by the Insurance Claim.  The only out of pocket expense our customers pay is the Insurance Deductible when we are working directly with an Insurance Company.

Now, that the Insurance Claim has been filed and the Insurance Company has confirmed coverage, the Property Owner Hires a Water Mitigation Company to complete the Water Mitigation Services. 

Water Mitigation Services include:

·   Water Removal and Extraction

·   Building Material Removals

·   Structural Drying and Cleaning

The emergency water mitigation services are estimated and invoiced to the Insurance Company after the fact… 

Important: Restorex will document and take pictures of all our services to justify our Invoice to the Insurance Company.  If the insurance company adjusts our Invoice, we will not pass the charges to our customer.

After the water mitigation services are completed and the property is safe and dry, the Insurance Adjuster will inspect the property.

At this point, depending on the Insurance Provider’s Policy, the Insurance Adjuster or a Water Damage Repair Contractor will write a Water Damage Repair Estimate, to return the property to its pre-loss conditions.

Important:  Our team will meet at your home or business with the Insurance Adjuster to answer any questions and to be a voice and advocate for our customer.  We help the adjuster understand the scope of the water damage and make professional recommendations for the repairs. 

The water mitigation and water damage repair estimates are submitted to the adjuster in 2 separate Xactimate Estimates. 

What is Xactimate?  Xactimate is an Estimating Software most Insurance companies use and approve.  Restorex specializes in writing Xactimate Estimates to submit to Insurance Adjusters.

The repair estimate can be written by the Insurance Adjuster or Repair Contractor. 

Important:  Restorex prefers to write the repair estimates when working with our customers because we are better at writing estimates than most Insurance Adjusters.  If the Insurance company requires the adjuster to write the initial repair estimate, we will review the estimate and submit a supplement estimate if necessary. 

After the estimates have been approved by the Insurance Adjuster, the Insurance Company will send payments to the property owner. 

The water mitigation payment can be paid directly to the water mitigation contractor, but the initial repair payment will go to the property owner. 

Important: The Initial Repair payment will be for the Actual Cash Value (ACV) of the total estimate.  This amount excludes the Insurance Deductible and Recoverable Depreciation…Recoverable deprecation will be paid when the repairs are complete.

Now, that the payments have been received from the Insurance Company the repairs can begin!

Important:  Depending on our customer’s circumstances and the repairs needed to be completed, Restorex isn’t always the best option.  We will advise our customers on the best way for them to use their funds to repair their property. 

The repairs have been completed and the final payments can be released to the contractor.  This is when the Insurance Company will release the Recoverable Depreciation to the property owner.

Important:  The recoverable depreciation can be significant on some repairs and will need to be collected from the Insurance Company before a final payment can be made to the repair contractor.