Navigating the wild world of insurance claims can feel like trying to find a unicorn in a haystack, especially when disaster strikes. In this chat, Eric G sits down with the insurance guru, Andy Gurczak from All City Adjusting, to break down the essentials of handling claims like a pro. The episode kicks off with a reality check about the importance of understanding your coverage—because nobody wants to be left high and dry after a flood or fire, right? We’ll dive into some juicy tales of homeowners who found themselves underinsured and scrambling, plus learn the tricks to ensure you’re not just another statistic when the chips are down. So, grab your favorite drink, kick back, and let’s get those insurance woes untangled with a bit of wit and wisdom!

Navigating the treacherous waters of home insurance claims can feel like sailing through a storm without a compass. In this enlightening chat, Eric G and Andy Gurczak from All City Adjusting tackle the ins and outs of dealing with insurance companies when disaster strikes. They dive into real-life scenarios that homeowners face, including the all-too-common tale of underinsurance—where a homeowner thinks they’re covered for a disaster, only to find out their policy is about as useful as a chocolate teapot when the time comes. With hurricanes and wildfires wreaking havoc across the country, understanding your coverage has never been more crucial. Eric shares his personal experience of nearly being underinsured despite having done significant renovations on his home, and Andy breaks down the importance of having a public adjuster by your side to advocate for you during these high-stakes negotiations. If you’ve ever wondered what to say (or not to say) when disaster strikes, this episode is your guide to ensuring you get the coverage you deserve, complete with witty banter and practical advice that makes the complex world of insurance a little less daunting.

Takeaways:

• Navigating insurance claims can be tricky; calling a Public Adjuster first is crucial for homeowners.
• Always review your insurance policy for adequate coverage before a disaster strikes—trust me, you don’t want to be underinsured.
• If you experience water damage, be careful about how you describe it to your insurer—specific terms matter a lot.
• Understanding your replacement cost vs. actual cash value is key to avoiding financial surprises after a claim.
• Mitigation companies can be expensive; sometimes a DIY approach can save you big bucks if you know what you're doing.
• Most homeowners are unaware that mold damage is often not covered by standard policies—don’t get caught off guard!

Links referenced in this episode:

• monumentgrills.com
• allcityadjusting.com

Mentioned in this episode:

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Foreign it's around the house on this episode of around the house.

But his replacement value on this building was $130,000.

The cleanup of them stripping down, getting the water, getting it dried out from the broken pipe from the freeze was $105,000 that they get him at the bill with.

So now he's got a house that is basically ripped down to the studs because it had eight hours of water running upst full half inch pipe.

He had no idea that the company that he was working with, the insurance company, said we'll send our guy out there.

And he got in trouble on that thing quickly because the cleanup before they started building it back was bigger than what the replacement value on the building was.

So when it comes to remodeling or renovating your home, there is a lot to know and we have gotcha covered.

This is around the House.

Welcome to the round the house show, the next generation of home improvement for joining me today.

This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grill.

If you're looking for that kickass barbecue, check it out@monument grills.com.

what's something, guys?

Taking care of our homes and our biggest investment is always a hot topic and we are doing it again today.

We've got Andy Girzak, all city adjusting brother.

Welcome back to around the House.

My friend.

Eric, thanks so much for having me back on.

Look forward to it.

It was great the first time, so.

Oh, it's always fun.

And I always call you like the designated hitter for homeowners dealing with insurance companies.

You're like the guy that comes in you and your team and helps people in their biggest time of crisis after a total loss or a major loss.

Yeah, I've never heard that.

The designated hitter.

I like that one.

That's a good one.

I like to say, I like to say Robin from the rage.

Here we go.

Whatever you want to say.

That works too.

That works too.

Budd.

Well, man, I mean, with the brutal hurricanes we had this last year to wildfires in California, I think this is the subject that is like super top of mind for everybody because even me up in the Portland, Oregon region, region.

I looked around and I'm like, man, my buddy's house burned down in Pacific Palisades and I stood on his deck and looked around.

I went, man, little chance of a wildfire here.

You got two miles of green around.

You should be good.

And I was wrong.

And so many people out there are trying to navigate insurance maybe not even being covered for something like that.

It's like the Wild west all of a sudden, 100%.

And we're getting.

We talked about this a little bit before we started recording.

We're getting clients calling us with policies.

And most all of them pretty much have called that we've spoken with.

Don't have fire insurance.

They have some kind of insurance, but not fire or they just have the California plan.

That's very limited.

That's basically.

They're going to get maxed out on coverage.

So really, no, nothing that we can help it.

Unfortunately, it stinks.

It's like Florida, but in a whole different way.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I got a buddy who just.

I'm going to be very vague, so I don't want to bring up the company on this because I don't want him to lose his coverage.

But he ended up.

His dad passed away.

He got a.

He got his California house that he grew up in from his dad when he passed.

And how he played the game is the agent who had been working with his dad for years goes, hey, I'm just going to add you as an additional insured on this, and we're going to leave the thing the same.

And then in six months we'll take him off.

And so that's how he was navigating, because the company was dealing with, wasn't putting any new plans out for new people.

And if he came in and said, hey, my dad passed, I got the house.

Now that was a new plan.

So did the Sly sneak it into the radar with the agent's expertise?

But most people are running into some severe problems out there or if they have insurance.

So many people are underinsured.

I was one of those after I talked to you about it.

And so when we get those calls when you're underinsured or, you know, they look for us for guidance, and we could tell them, like, free services or where they can call or ask for help.

But in terms of us as a pa, if you don't have coverage or if you don't have insurance or you have very limited coverage, there's not much we can help with.

We can't buy more coverage, right?

Well, if you have the right policy in place yet, we can go after all the coverages and get everything that's owed to the insured, but only if the insured actually has some kind of coverage or you have a $4 million loss with $1 million coverage on the California fair plan, they're going to pay that $1 million.

There's really no need for a PA to get involved.

No PA would take advantage and charge a client when they know it's most likely going to be a maxed out claim.

Yeah, I haven't had any claims.

But my specific problem that I had, I actually I had an insurance company that I did online.

Right.

So many people jump online.

I didn't have an agent.

I jumped online, got some quotes and signed up online and had a plan.

Didn't think much about it.

I've done a lot of work on it, put a lot of high end stuff in it and it's probably worth A little over 9, 950 right now.

Well, the problem was is I looked at my insurance coverage and went because it's a smaller house on a big lot.

And their math said, okay, they're going to spend $300,000 for total replacement.

And I went, oh my gosh.

If I flooded my bathroom in my master bathroom and it went down and took my kitchen out, there's probably $300,000 in damage right there.

I got a problem.

And I had to even working with my new agent that it took him some time to actually have to go through and almost override some stuff.

Because we were outside of their calculations.

Correct.

Because they use a system that calculates the replacement cost value.

Now that doesn't take into a lot of stuff.

Right.

Because we have a commercial building that they tried to.

That the insurance company tried to say it's a $4 million replacement cost.

I could tell you all day, even with union guys, It's.

It's a 3 million max regular.

It's a 2 million rebuild.

It's all stone, it's all bricks.

And it's only the interior if something really burnt.

But have to, maybe a hurricane goes through it.

But anyways, it's still max.

So we actually had to sign.

I had to tell the agent, hey, I'm way overinsured.

So they made my wife and I sign a document stating that we are lowering our limits and that we understand if something like that was a whole different whole thing.

Yeah, but it's crazy.

Cause I was going to be way underinsured if I lost the house because again, I put nicer stuff in.

I've got a steam shower, I've got other stuff that they just don't do in those calculations.

I look at it and said, okay, if I was to pay a contractor to do the bathroom remodel, not construct it, to do what I had in there, it was going to be one hundred and something thousand dollars.

And then it was going to be one hundred and something thousand dollars for the kitchen as well.

And I'm like, oh, 300,000 doesn't replace the structure.

And then it's got to meet 20, 25 building code as well, which is.

There's a lot that has to go on to meet current code.

From what I remember, they replaced that replacement cost tool that they use to calculate.

It basically calculates on an average built home.

Right.

Agents used to be local.

They would come to your house, Eric, and they would say, hey, I could see what you have.

This is what we need to ensure you.

Well, now it's all virtual, or you can even get your own insurance.

So if you don't tell them what you know and how would a normal.

Right.

What it would take to rebuild what's in your house.

But average person had purchased your home, and the insurance agent says, well, 350 is your replacement cost.

They're like, okay.

They have no clue what's in that house or what it would actually cost, the material and the labor.

Yeah, well, for me, it was easy because I've been filming this entire show, you know, my TV show, for the last two years, building on my house.

And so I've got all this video stuff on it.

So I sent a couple of the videos over to my agent.

He's, yeah, you're not covered for that.

And I'm like, who?

Okay, good, let's get that covered.

There's plenty of documentation on it.

And that's.

I think one of the other issues out there as well is so many people have their coverage, but if they were to have a total loss, you got to sit down and put it all together.

Yeah, that's.

That's correct.

It just.

We look at policies all day long for investors, you know, landlords and, you know, homeowners, unfortunately, they just purchase a policy with no clue what they're getting.

When they call us, first thing we're going to ask for is the policy.

Because we want to make sure that we're going to help them, that we can actually help them, that there's.

There's value we can bring.

If you.

Again, like the other ones, if you have a $2 million loss but only half a million dollars worth of insurance, what can you do?

We can't bring any more insurance to you at that point.

Yeah, and another thing I noticed during, like, Covid and stuff, you had people that were getting behind on their bills.

Maybe they didn't pay their homeowners insurance on that.

And then all of a sudden, the mortgage company probably sent them a nasty gram and said, hey, we're covering our own insurance on.

And they went, oh, cool, got my own insurance.

But that's just on the structure.

That's not covering their stuff.

So they're really not insured, if I'm correct with that.

So if you don't have your own insurance and the mortgage has to put.

It's called the first place policy.

The mortgage puts insurance on the.

Which is very expensive, by the way.

It only actually replaces it's only actual cash value policy.

And it's only on the amount that you owe.

So, you know, the replacement cost of the building is 500,000, but you only owe 50,000 of mortgage.

That's what it's covering.

And it doesn't cover the personal property.

They're only insured in what they still owe on the building.

And they're smart about it.

Yeah, they don't care.

The rest of it doesn't matter.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not their.

Yeah, they care about the money that they have into it.

Man, that is huge.

So if there's somebody out there that's listening, we got tons of people out there in the audience that are checking this out, and they're a homeowner.

Let's back it up.

How would.

What would be your best advice for people that are starting going, okay, yeah, I bought my house and I jumped online and got something.

What's their best course of action?

To start making sure that they're actually covered.

And then if they had a loss or a total loss, that they actually have enough coverage to do that.

Yeah.

And that's to reach out if they have.

If they can look up or maybe be referred to a public adjuster.

Right.

That especially one that the company that handles fire claims or large loss.

That's probably their best bet.

It takes for a homeowner's policy.

Eric.

It takes a couple of minutes for us to glance over and see what's needed because all we do is pull up the address, we pull up the home, we pull up all this information, have the policy, and then have a couple of questions.

We'll point out what needs to be done or what's not insured will make that.

Make that client aware.

With State's Farm, for example.

Right.

And this was for myself.

I actually had rentals with them.

They took off a building.

Like you said, you're home.

If they had a fire or sustained damage, the building codes would.

Now you'd have to upgrade it.

That's not covered unless you have law and ordinance coverage.

Now State Farm took that off their, as a always.

It was always included in their policies and now it's, it's additional.

And so we had rentals and we switched agents because the other agent closed down.

And so I looked at our policies and our rentals and I said, why don't we have lawn orange?

When I reach out to agent, he said, well, because they took it off their policies, it's, it's optional now.

I said, well, wouldn't you want to offer that to me?

Because it's $25 a year and it's 30, 40, $50,000 worth of more coverage.

How would you not.

Oh yeah, we'll throw it in there if you want it.

Oh yeah, of course.

Everyone should have it.

Well, yeah, yeah.

So that's.

And again, if I had a fire, for example, one of those rentals in that short time that they switch agencies and that changed, I would have now had coverage for that.

It's a lot of money.

And I know all my buildings are 20, 30 years old and I know the building codes and I know what's changed.

I know the insulation, energy codes are huge, electrical codes, plumbing codes.

So yeah, yeah, a lot of money.

So again, having a public adjuster, I think that's your best bet to look over.

Because you can look.

We look over policies every day.

That's what we do, interpret policies.

And most PAs that do large laws understand construction and have been in some kind of form of construction.

So all that knowledge, they're able to look at and be the best option for you or agents.

Like I said, agents used to make that round.

But most agents don't.

Right.

They're just selling policies.

They don't come to the house, they don't have any construction knowledge.

So it's a little bit different.

That's it.

Yeah, that's a huge deal.

And if you've got a 100 year old brick house, let's say, or you've got a commercial or just a light duty commercial building that's made out of brick and you're in an earthquake area, you go, pull that permit to build that, build it out.

The concrete or block is still, or brick is still standing, all of a sudden they can come back and go, yeah, that needs to be seismically retrofitted and you could have six figures on that rebuild cost because they got to go through and do all these changes to what was there before just to get it to meet code.

Correct.

There's a.

The code now, especially on older homes.

I mean, they change so quickly and they're adding more, especially the energy efficiency.

I don't.

With.

I don't know if the new administration, for example, that those energy codes now maybe become less or they don't go as fast.

But I felt like the last previous years, every year they were just adding more and more to energy codes, which I thought was good thing.

When we built our house, where we live, for example, the energy codes are still very behind, but we.

I took it upon myself to follow, for example, Illinois codes, because they're so high up there, because I just know I actually wanted that.

I actually like those codes.

I think they're just really good for the home and just for energy efficiency and all that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And for instance, my house built in the 70s, it was built with two by four construction.

If I had to rebuild it here, it's got to be two by six construction, which means it changes all the interior dimensions on the house by a couple of inches, which starts to make a difference.

When you're looking at stairs and things like that, you can add all of these additional rebuild challenges because now the square footage is even a little bit different.

So now you have water damage, for example.

Right.

Or damages from the upward.

They say two by six and you say, okay, well, we can add on two by six.

Now you need an architect who's going to pay for the 10, 15 grand to redesign the entire home.

Right.

All that is covered if you have the right coverages.

Yeah.

It's so smart.

And one thing I noticed, I want to pivot on this for a second because it was something that I went, here we go.

This is something that people don't ever talk about.

I was watching because I had friends in Southern California in the fire area, friends that lost their homes down there.

And I was watching the local news and so you were getting the whole.

I was watching KCAL down there and you was getting the whole story.

Well, I was watching, I think it was the mayor of Pacific Palisades and the governor talking.

And they were talking about, well, before the people got to go back to their places in there, before they can start rebuilding, we got to make sure that all of the lithium ion batteries that burned up and all this stuff, we got to make sure that hazardous materials gets cleaned up before they even go in and get the garbage out of there.

In my head, I'm going, oh, my gosh.

Hazmat cleanup on a quarter acre lot.

And to get that out of there, no Matter old house, you got asbestos.

I'm just shaking my head going, oh, there's just dollar signs ringing before they even clean up the lot.

So when we, you know, when we start getting these calls in California and start looking into all of it, we actually have commercials running on Fox.

And the influx of calls after a couple of weeks, it was easy to see that who's going to make money or in that area.

That's opportunity.

Obviously it's a huge loss, but opportunity for a lot of those hazardous removal, the debris removal companies, which is very popular because that's going to be needed.

And then contractors, developers, because for PAs like Florida, unless someone has the right insurance, which only a small percentage do, there's really going to be.

There's no need for a PA to come in.

Yeah, unfortunately.

And it's big because if you don't have fire coverage or you don't have the right coverage and you're just, you're out of luck.

You're out of luck.

Yeah, yeah.

It stinks, man.

When people are calling you saying, hey, we have a $4 million loss and you don't have fire coverage or you have a million dollars worth of coverage.

It stinks.

Yeah.

Now you're moving out of town and hopefully getting something out of the lot and trying to recover, which nobody wants to deal with.

And that's just absolutely brutal.

And.

Yeah.

And now here's the other question that I have too.

Like in great example, Southern California, you've got a whole area there that I think, in my opinion, we'll see if I'm right or wrong with that.

I don't think anybody's moving back into a house in there within two years because you've got all of the code issues.

You've got a code department that's going to be super overwhelmed.

You've got all the, everything from a coastal commission to all these different things that you.

The hoops are massive.

And do people have insurance?

Because you're still paying a mortgage many times.

Right.

If you got a small $2 million house in Pacific Palisades, okay, you're paying a huge mortgage, your house doesn't exist, and now you're paying a rental for two years.

Yeah, you just, that's gotta be just massive.

You just said it.

That's perfect.

So let's just say you do have insurance.

Right.

And they're gonna pay you the damage for the home.

Great.

So you're gonna, you're gonna get money for the home, personal property, and then you're gonna have money to relocate to live somewhere who's gonna pay for your mortgage because your insurance doesn't cover your mortgage.

And now like you said with all those hoops and dragging on with contractors, now you're talking about a year, two years of mortgage of 15, 20, especially with those houses.

What they were, I can't imagine.

And I hope people know about that and they know that that insurance doesn't cover that.

Now, I did see something on the news.

I don't know if it was Newsom or who was it that was saying that they're going to try to relieve or restore or make it easier for people to pull permits and, and that.

And I hope they do.

I hope, I hope they don't get in there and it becomes going through hoops, three, four months of getting a permit.

I hope not.

I'll be honest, I usually don't have much face faith in the system.

When the government goes, we got you.

We're gonna make it easy.

Trust us.

Yeah.

I'm like, yeah, especially when they say trust us.

That's when you're like, oh, yeah, okay, all right.

So when they say that, I go, oh, dang, revised.

It's gonna be three years instead of two, because you just know.

And then are they going to even latch some of those expensive ones that were on the other side of the highway on the beach side?

Are they going to let them build back?

Are they just going to go, nah, we're not letting you build there anymore.

And we're going to see some of that, I'm sure.

And yeah, I think it's going to be rough down there.

But I feel bad even for any homeowner out there.

And I know there's people out there going, oh, they deserve it, they're rich.

But guess what, they're out there trying to live too.

Yeah.

No, and the other thing is too is how many people, and this is for the audience out there, did you double pay your mortgage for two years?

Are you set up for that?

And the insurance company's not going to be paying the full meal deal for your rental for two years.

I don't think you've got that coverage.

Something we do with Ale coverage is we try getting that paid up front, try getting that extended as much as we can, and we try getting that Ale money to our clients pockets instead of vendors.

So then hopefully they can get a rental maybe for cheaper and still have some of that money to pay them or.

Right.

We try to be creative and those people don't know, but there's ways to be creative with coverages and get that money and help clients.

So even in that I just know our efforts and what we do and just that little thing knowing that hey, this family is going to be out of their home, not only are they going to be out spending more and, and all that.

Well now the mortgage is there and the bills, they're paying bills on both the rental that they're going to have and their old home.

So yeah, it's.

I can't imagine.

Yeah.

And even in my area here we're not talking wildfire, we're not talking hurricanes, we're not talking floods.

But we had an ice storm here and a house up the street around the corner, about 10 houses.

3 big huge 150 year old fir trees landed on the house.

But it didn't like karate chop it down the middle.

It actually hit right on the edge of the eaves and took the whole roof system and popped it up like you had opened up a can of soup and dropped it back down again.

And they had to reframe the upper floors of that house.

It took them a year before they moved in to that place and they didn't have a fire, they didn't have a flood.

It was just getting in there and getting that place built back up.

But there was so much structural damage it took them like 12 and a half months before I saw the moving truck back in there again.

And that was pretty minor compared to the mass disasters we've been seeing.

So I think it's something that really people should start asking their and really sending their policies over to somebody like you to take a look and go this is something that really could happen.

I've got a winter storm out here right now with 40 mile an hour winds and blowing snow, first one of the season.

And I was in the middle of the night last night hearing cracks going yeah, wasn't my house.

Yeah.

And I think that's a great thing for people to follow up and go hey, am I covered for this?

Actually Funny.

So just funny question.

When you, if you have a storm, raining, thunderstorm and you're at sleep at night, can you sleep or are you thinking is there a leak somewhere?

Because I, I think about, I'm trying to fall asleep, I can't sleep.

Oh, we had our winds and it sounded like somebody was outside my bedroom window taking a two by six and breaking it.

And I could hear the branches landing in the neighborhood around me and you hear the crack and then you go, wince, bunk.

Okay.

Didn't land on a car or my house or even the fence.

All right?

Landed in somebody's yard.

And that happens all night long.

And so, yeah, it's the worst sleep you can get because you're just waking up all the time going, okay, we're good.

So we had a tornado warning last year.

And I remember I'm hearing the sirens, I feel like the house is shaking.

I'm like, oh, this house.

What about the other rentals we have in that area?

And I look at my wife, I'm like, hey, maybe we should.

Maybe we should go downstairs, go to sleep.

They always do this.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

I'm sweating in bed.

Exactly.

So.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I was out in.

Funny story that I was out in North Carolina visiting somebody 20 years ago, friend of a friend, and thought, hey, I didn't.

I had never been there before.

So I popped out there.

Single story slab on grade house, and tornado sirens are going off, and we're barbecuing under their carport because it was so wet and stormy.

We're watching two blocks over the tornado.

Go.

I'm like, should we go in?

He goes, nah, I don't have a basement.

If it's gonna take us, it's gonna take us.

You wanna flip the burgers?

And I'm like, oh, this is such a bad idea.

Bad idea at a front row seat.

And I'm like, is there another one?

He goes, usually there's not two.

And I'm like, usually, yeah.

Blew my mind.

I'm like, all right.

Maybe that's why you're in the Marines and I'm not.

He wasn't sweating it.

I was.

But getting back to it's crazy policy.

Yeah.

Having us review policies.

We don't charge clients.

Right.

Like, we.

When we go on podcasts or we go on any shows, we always.

First thing I always hear any of my colleagues that go on is, hey, we interpret policies and look over deck pages and insurance for free.

Just because we know if we look over your policy or help you out and something does happen, you'll have us in mind.

If not, no big deal.

But it takes a couple of minutes for us to do it.

So we do it as free of Service, and most BAs will do it.

So people should definitely take advantage just to get a second opinion again.

You never know.

I guess no one thinks something's going to happen until it happens, right?

And then that's the call we get.

Well, we've had them for 30 years and they're saying they're not paying for it.

Doesn't matter.

These days, everyone's a number.

They don't care.

Agent's an agent.

He's a salesperson that the adjuster could care less.

He's out of state.

He wants to get home, back to his family.

He gets paid.

The quicker he gets out of your house.

So unfortunately, they want to move on.

Of course.

Now I want to pivot here into another subject that I think is big, and it's something that we're getting more and more of out there, but mold and all the different problems we have with unhealthy homes.

And maybe it's a water leak that nobody saw in the upstairs shower that came down.

And all of a sudden you're seeing claims from that takes out an upstairs bathroom, and it went in behind the wall in the kitchen.

And now you've got a.

A master bathroom remodel and a kitchen remodel in there.

And then they've got to abate all the different things.

These are getting into multiple hundreds of thousands of dollar projects.

When I see you've got mold, maybe lead paint, maybe asbestos.

This stuff's getting crazy.

And molds not covered.

So a lot of the calls we get, we just had one from.

From a lady that called.

And again, because we get this all the time, right?

Where we have, you know, water, send us all the documents and say, this is the claim we have, and we're looking like, okay, you pulled that fridge out and you saw water leaking for last 10 years, you're telling me it's not covered.

You could call it in.

But a leak, maintenance, stuff like that mold in the wall that you found, that's not a covered loss.

People have to be careful with what they're calling in, and they have to be careful with what you're saying.

Abatement, right?

Because mitigation companies and abatement companies will come and they'll mitigate the crap out of your house, right?

And then.

And they always say, we're gonna send it to your insurance, right?

And they're gonna pay for it.

What happens?

Not most of the time, the insurance company says, well, we're not paying for it.

Who do they think the bill's getting paid?

Because the lady that just called us, I have this bill for.

From this Restoration Company for 50,000.

I said, okay.

I'm like, what's happened?

She said, well, they said they were gonna have the insurance pay for it, but now they're sending it to me, and they're sending me to collection.

I'M like, okay, well, when did this happen?

Thanksgiving.

Water pipe from second floor.

I said, okay, well, yeah.

What's the insurance doing?

Well, they haven't been here and I.

They haven't answered my phone calls for since Thanksgiving.

I'm like, can I see her?

And I.

The first thing I asked, I'm like, can you send me a plumber report?

And so she sent the plumber report.

And it said there the water damage was because the toilet was old.

It was wear and tear.

The, like, the plum.

And I told her, I'm like, I'm sorry, ma'am, but most.

You're getting a denial.

There's a denial letter coming.

That's why the.

Yeah.

And again, huge.

50,000.

Not only do they just.

She has a bill for 50,000.

Half of her house is missing because they mitigated everything.

Oh, yeah.

She can't even use her home, dude.

I had great example.

So a buddy of mine who's been on the show, I'm going to keep it private because he had to go through this and I'm not going to.

Not going to put his name out there, but lived in my area, had a beautiful mountain cabin that he had and really cool wood panels that were real wood.

Gorgeous place.

Well, ice storm happened last year.

That same ice storm we're talking about in the other house.

Power went out.

Well, power went out, froze the pipes upstairs, broke in the bathroom.

He.

When the power came on, his security cameras and the cameras inside came on and he could see that there was this flicker and it was water coming out of the ceiling in the kitchen.

So he went all the way out there, drove the hour and a half out there, got the water turned off, called the insurance company.

They sent their person out.

It's.

It's 45 minutes out of town.

But his replacement value on this building was $130,000.

The cleanup of them stripping down, getting the water, getting it dried out from the broken pipe from the freeze was $105,000 that they get him at the bill with.

So now he's got a house that is basically ripped down to the studs because it had eight hours of water running upstairs, full half inch pipe.

And he had no idea that the company that he was working with, the insurance company, said, we'll send our guy out there.

And he got in trouble on that thing quickly because the cleanup before they started building it back was bigger than what the replacement value on the building was.

So that's a great scenario for, like, your listeners because they don't understand what they're doing when they're calling the claimant.

That's why we always say, what do you do when you have a claim?

You call us first and we'll handle everything.

Yeah, because I'm telling you the wrong word.

Right.

But not even getting to that.

What happened in that situation is we just had the same thing.

Nice lady, young girl.

She's in California as a home here in Illinois as well.

And.

And she has a water loss in her basement.

It's a garden unit.

She sends a policy.

I'm like.

And I see the damage.

So these 40,000 extensive damage.

And she sends me the policy.

I'm like, I call her and I say, hey, you only have $20,000 worth of coverage.

Did that mitigation company start?

She said, no, they didn't do anything yet.

I said, well, don't have them do anything, all right?

I.

And I'm like, I can't help you because you don't even.

There's nothing I can help you.

I can't get you more coverage here.

You're going to get maxed out for this.

I said, but I'll walk you through what you need to get done.

And I was in touch with her for three days, and she actually just is.

Like, a couple weeks ago, she texted me, left the review and said all this thank you and everything.

What happened was I explained to her, make sure you don't say anything with the mitigation company.

Give you a couple recommendations of contractors, but call anyone, get estimates on the damage, not just the mitigation, because mitigation company wants to come in and put fans in for five days.

That's going to eat up 20,000.

And so will the mitigation company come.

Said, they're all they're going to do is.

Is remove the wet water.

I said, okay, and how much is that?

She's like, $1,000.

I said, is, you have a garden unit, right?

She goes, yeah.

I'm like, is there a little.

A little great there for the water, the drainage?

Yeah.

I'm like, I'll come and squeegee your water for $1,000.

Because most.

By now, most of that water is already down.

Do not do anything.

Don't have him touch anything.

Call these contractors, call some other ones, have them come out, estimate the damage.

Because most likely they'll be able to fix the damage.

Water's wet's already what's damaged, and probably be right around 20,000 local guys.

And that's what happened.

She found the guy that was able to do everything for 20,000.

What was.

Why he already cut out.

They put.

It was great.

Now, if she hired a mitigation company, her mitigation bill would have been over 20.

Yeah.

And if you don't have that money to do it, it's one thing if you go, I'll spend the extra 20.

But most people don't have that extra 20.

And for pennies on the dollar, you can run down to your tool rental store, the Home Depot tool rental, or whatever you have in your neighborhood, and get some.

Get a dehumidifier and get some of those same fans that they show up with and do the same thing and make it a DIY project and get a lot of the same things done.

100%.

And again, it's just knowing your body because she.

She asked you.

So you're explaining everything to me.

Why can't you just help me?

Why can't you just take the family?

Because I'm gonna work out of that 20.

You're gonna pay us a percentage.

I'm just gonna take money that I don't need to.

I'd rather just help you over the phone, help you the next three days.

Call me, text me, and I'll advise you exactly what you need to do.

And so that's what we did.

And.

And it worked out great for it.

So thank God.

Because she was trying to.

What do I do with this?

I'm like, relax.

Everything's gonna be fine.

This is exactly how you have to handle it.

And it worked out nice.

Nice.

It's like people.

For instance, great example.

People call up their insurance company, go, maybe they had that water break or whatever.

They go, ah, had a flood in my house.

And it's, oh, wrong word.

There's words we don't use.

People always say that we had a flat.

I'm like, did you have a flood or did you have a pipe break?

Well, no, we had a pipe break.

I'm like, okay, so lose the word mold.

Lose the word flood.

Lose the word it's been sitting there.

There's words.

You got to be careful when you call on the claimant.

That's a lot of calls that we get.

People denied or their claims delayed.

When we look into it, it's because they said, not that the claim is not valid.

It's a valid claim.

Should be paid because they use the wrong words.

And now the claim is being in question.

It's the old, I have a flooded basement.

No, you have a water damage in your basement from a broken pipe on the second floor.

Big.

There's a difference.

And so that's some great advice, Andy.

That's one of those things that, you know, the first call, if you're not having to call the fire department or the utility company to do it, of course, get your stuff out of the way.

But as soon as you take a deep breath and go, okay, I've got this kind of.

I got the problem stopped.

Give you guys a call first so you can help navigate it so they don't blow through the entire insurance claim.

Just cleaning up the mess.

Yeah.

And just again, finding money in different areas to help them get back on their fee and make the most.

It's a.

No one wants to go through any kind of water loss, fire loss, anything.

But if you have, then you got to make the most out of it and make sure that you are protected, that you get the claim moving forward, that you get that money that you're owed.

And so then you can rebuild and make sure your family has the stuff that they lost.

So that's.

Yeah.

Very important.

And we're not just here.

We're not just talking about our, like our company just for any good pa.

Yeah.

Right.

Hire any good local PA that you can.

Yeah.

Another one that seems pretty hot out there, too, that I get a lot of questions on is, oh, my gosh, I have hail damage on my roof.

What do I do?

And that seems to be one of those things when the adjuster shows up and goes up, your roof was worn out anyway.

So we're going to give you $5,000, good luck.

And they give you the thumbs up.

What's your take on that kind of stuff where it's so subjective to what happened up there?

So that whole exterior.

So we don't do any residential exterior claims.

The wind, hail.

We literally, if people call us, we'll recommend local, you know, roofing company, maybe a local PA company that just specialize in the PAs.

That specialize.

Most PAs, technically specialize in wind and hay hail claims.

And so that's very.

You just said they.

They give you 5,000.

It's old.

And you say, well, no, there's hail.

They go, okay, you think it's hail?

We're going to send an engineer.

And now an engineer comes out and he's always going to write this report that they want to see that.

The damages.

Yeah, because he wants next week's job from him, too.

So the reports say it's always the same thing.

The hail is not from this hail storm.

It's from a storm five years ago.

The damages weren't like it's always the same.

They know.

And here.

Now, let's say we go to litigation, right.

And it goes in front of a judge.

Who's the judge going to believe?

A contractor, a PA or an engineer.

Insurance company knows what they're doing.

You almost have to hope that you're.

No, they're professionals at this.

And you almost hope that your cars were out in the driveway that had total losses on it from the hail.

So at least you can go.

Go take a look at the car.

With that being said, most claims and most roofs here, like in the Midwest, for example.

Right.

Those new shingles, the architectural.

The timberline, whatever I call whatever line you want to go.

Exactly.

They're so thick that when hail hits.

And we've had hail here, two, two, inch and inch.

Really minimal impact.

Really minimal.

Yeah.

And the insurance companies are paying these claims that a lot of them we see.

I don't think it's.

We don't see as it even being adjusted just being completely biased on insurance side.

I don't see that there's damage.

It's not going to harm the roof.

We can fight it all day and long.

And then that being said, when I just shingled the roof with a friend for his mom, we took it upon us.

We're like, we're so young.

We can do this.

Let's do it.

Just have fun.

As soon as I was roofing, I was taking every shingle out of the.

The box bundle, each shingle.

And I'm looking.

It's got these little holes in it right now.

It's funny because when I see a lot of these storm damage claims and they're like, oh, this is damage.

Look at.

This is damaged.

I'm like, I'm looking at this and I'm like, this is the exact stuff they're pointing out that's on these things that most of these guys have never seen that they're trying to say it's hail.

So I see where the insurance now has to be in deflats and have others because it's getting.

It's getting out of hand at that point as well.

Yeah.

So no.

And they're in the business of making money as well.

It's that risk via reward for them.

Okay.

We still have to be.

They're not a nonprofit.

Correct.

So I get that they have to show a profit every year, but at the same time, that's that kind of yin and yang that they have to balance with that.

And I've always thought the hail one was always one of those like super gray areas because it's just so subjective.

And nobody ever documented what that roof looked like two weeks beforehand.

Correct.

And so, you know, again, and in different states, different hail size, right.

You go to Colorado, you drive down the block and you could see the damage on the roof.

Right.

You go in Midwest, these guys, people are using microscopes to, to show the hail there.

So I don't know, I out of that conversation or at least I try to stick with the large fire water.

And when it comes to hail, we do storm damage, usually commercial.

So it's more flat roof a little bit different on that side.

Oh man.

Great advice though.

Great advice because yeah, that's one of those things I always see and go, oh man, that's a tough.

Yeah, that's both sides on the PA trying to help the homeowner, the contractor and then the insurance side.

Right.

So that is.

That is awesome.

Well, Andy, we're going to run out of time here soon because we're almost through the, through an hour of the show.

But I wanted to make sure and see is there something that we haven't talked about here that's a tip that somebody can get as a great takeaway from this to make sure that they're doing stuff right so they get what they paid for.

Besides having using a PA to look at their policy before they ever have a claim.

And maybe they'll never have a claim.

That's a huge advice.

And make the most out of it.

And then if they do have a claim for listeners, call a PA first.

Have one and call as soon as it happens.

Let them handle that claim.

That's what they do.

They're professionals.

But off the insurance topic, I just do want to say thank you to your podcast because there was a product you recommended that I'll be using at my house for the deck.

So I do want to tell you thank you because I got it because I went.

When I was building, I went through a lot of your podcast about materials, a lot of the stuff and I ended up doing the deck boards that were on your.

On your podcast.

Nice, nice.

Good looking stuff.

I bet, right?

Amazing stuff.

Best I looked at a lot the best.

So wouldn't have known because they're not anywhere I don't.

You got to find them.

Exactly.

And it's.

I think it's moldboard products.

You got it.

Freaking amazing.

When I saw my wife even said home, I go, this is awesome.

I'm like, I know.

So it looks real.

It doesn't look like a stamped out Plastic, Right.

It's just good looking.

When I get my deck done in the spring here somewhere, I'll send you a picture.

Ah, I love to, man.

I love to.

And we had a guest on a few months ago that's something that kind of ties into this.

And for all the listeners out there, go back and take a listen to this episode because it kind of ties in with this really well.

And it's a local company to me, but he travels across the country, virtual home inventory.

So he goes through and people pay for him, and he uses the software that real estate agents use for virtual walkthroughs.

And he goes through and does a virtual inventory of everything in your home and gets the model numbers of everything from appliances to all the different stuff will go out and get your art appraised, all that different stuff.

So if you have a total loss, you've got a document that says, as of this date, here's exactly what I owned.

And it's so accurate.

You could actually take that plan that he has from the virtual inventory and they could upload it to an architect and they could actually help redesign the house off of that.

So it really does a really cool job of that.

And it's a kind of a new.

I hear that.

I will take a listen that.

Because they use probably the same software we used to scan the homes, except we're digging through it after it's half itself.

Yeah, you're digging through the asses.

He's doing it before my guy's there for three weeks.

Yeah.

So that is brutal.

Okay, the last thing, Andy, before we go.

How do people find you if they've got their policy and they're like, I can't read this.

I have no idea.

This is Greek to me.

How do they find you to.

To help or if they're in the middle of a.

Or starting a claim, how do they get a hold of you to help you be their Robin Hood, just like last time?

For listeners, I'll leave them with my cell phone number directly.

If any of your listeners want to call, ask questions, text me.

If they want to check out our website, all city adjusting.com, or if they just Google All City Adjusting, they'll get all our locations, our reviews, all our podcasts, everything else we've put online, it's all there.

But for listeners, they have my number.

They can call anytime.

Thanks, brother.

I appreciate it.

I love our time together because it's always so informative and we can hit the topics that are front of mind for many people out there.

Yeah, I'm looking for the third one, so I'm looking forward.

Oh, we'll do it.

That will happen again.

Thanks, my friend.

I'm Eric G.

You've been listening to around the House.

Take my hand out, nowhere to go, all over the radio with.