What to Do If Your Home Got Damaged In Natural Disaster- Homeowners Claim
Natural Disasters are something we can not prevent. Sadly, so many face damages done to their home when these natural disasters occur. What can you do if that happens to you? If you have Homeowners Insurance, you could be in luck! Take some time to understand your Home Insurance policy to ensure you have the coverages you need. We can help find affordable Home Insurance, with the right coverages to protect you.
Homeowners Claim – Understanding Coverage
If you have a Home insurance policy, a lot of the natural disasters are covered. This would include wind, hail, wildfires and as not common as it is, lightning strikes. Now, before it happens its good to know that not ALL disasters are covered. Flood and earthquake damage are a whole other policy that you would need! So, if you want full coverage to cover any damage you will need to look into acquiring home, flood, and earthquake policies.
Every place you live at may require different things. I saw that if you live in a coastal place, they may require you to get a separate policy for wind (they call that hurricane coverage) You would just need to call your local insurance company and see what all is required for each incident.
Your standard homeowner’s policy includes something called “loss of use” or “additional living expense”. That is going to cover if you need other housing until your place gets fixed or until you can recover. It also will pay off your mortgage if need be. So, that will take a lot of stress off and let you focus on getting back on your feet and get things in line again.
How to File The Homeowners Claim?
Of course, to get compensated or things fixed up you are going to need to file a homeowners claim. Here are important things to do to quickly get things moving along.
- Take photos of the damage. (personally, I always thought it was a good idea to get pics or a video of your home inside and out, even BEFORE anything happens)
- Make urgent repairs- you are going to want to fix things that may look like it will cause further damage if you do not fix then.
- Call your insurance provider
- Get together all the contractors that you are planning on hiring to fix up your place for you.
How the Insurance Company pays after a Homeowners Claim?
So, depending on the kind of coverage you have, the insurance company can pay out in 3 different ways for the homeowners claim.
- Actual Cash Value
- Replacement Cost Value– This you will be paid out by your homes depreciation and they are going to subtract that amount from your final payout.
- Extended or Guaranteed Value- This is going to make sure that your FULL value of your house will be compensated to you. It also will make sure that unexpected cost of repair or it exceeds your policy’s limit, you will be compensated.
It is going to be good to ahead of time, just look over your Homeowners policy or call your insurance carrier and see what all you are covered for. Its also such a great and comforting thing to do to get Homeowners if you do not one already. I mean, we can’t predict when natural disaster occurs. So, just have peace of mind and get some today! We can help you look at the right one for you! Call us today! We are also on social media.
Last Updated on by Alexis Karapiperis