About SSPA
Most Homeowners and Business owners, are content with their insurance policies, paying their premiums and not thinking too much about it.
However, that often changes once it comes time to file an insurance claim. After all, the insurance company and the homeowner have two opposing goals. The insurance company, which is a for-profit business, wants to protect itself and minimize its losses. The homeowner, who has suffered a loss and has paid his insurance premiums faithfully, wants his home restored and the insurance company to pay up. According to the Insurance Information Institute, in 2008, the insurance industry paid over $25 billion in insurance losses for catastrophes such as tornados and hurricanes. In fact, this figure includes over $10 billion in losses from Hurricane Ike. Though dramatic, $25 billion in insurance losses in a single year pales in comparison to the billions of dollars in insurance premiums collected each year.
So, what happens when you’ve paid your premiums, your home or business is devastated by a covered peril, and now your insurance company is nickel and diming you, perhaps even denying your claim? That’s where Smellsmoke Public Adjusters comes in. Bob Moskowitz, CEO, is a licensed public insurance adjuster (SINCE 1996) that serves the needs of individual policyholders like you. Remember that the insurance company hires professional insurance adjusters to assess the damage from the insurance company’s point of view – with an eye for minimizing the insurance company’s losses.
To counter this, consider hiring your own professional insurance adjuster to assess the damage from your point of view – with an eye for getting you a fair insurance claim settlement.Bob Moskowitz believes that policyholders are entitled to a settlement amount that includes enough money to restore the home or business and its contents to pre-loss condition. Not only is this fair, this is what policyholders expect and deserve.While you certainly expect your insurance company to hold up their end of the bargain, hiring a public adjuster can help to make sure that this happens and that nothing is overlooked. The burden of proof is not the insurance adjuster’s job; it is yours. Therefore, you can’t expect an insurance adjuster to actively search out every single loss. That’s your job – or the job of your public insurance adjuster. If you don’t document and support your losses, your busy insurance company adjuster may come in, quickly assess the damage, and move on to the next claim. He’s not necessarily going to look for damages that you failed to discover. In addition to damage potentially being overlooked, it could also be underestimated.
The insurance adjuster may not be familiar with local building prices and codes, further contributing to lower-than-expected settlements. After major hurricanes and other catastrophes, market conditions change and it’s not unusual to see contractors double or triple their rates! If current market conditions are not accounted for, estimates may be far too low to restore your home or business to its pre-loss condition.As an insured, you might balk at the estimates, but are you prepared to negotiate with the insurance company? Worse yet, you might not realize the estimates are too low and simply agree out of ignorance. After all, how often do you shop around for repairs of this magnitude?
Bob Moskowitz has over 15 years experience as an insurance restoration contractor and public insurance adjuster. Negotiating with insurance companies is his business. He has the skills and insurance restoration knowledge that you need on your side
Tips for Filing a Homeowners Insurance Claim
Bob Moskowitz offers the following claim filing tips to maximize your insurance settlement:Inspect your property immediately and completely
- Accurately estimate your property’s damage and other losses
- Read your insurance policy and find out what unfamiliar terms mean
- Document everything! Include photos, receipts, estimates, and expert opinion reports
- Stand up for your rights!