https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Tue, 12 May 2026 08:17:40 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2713282 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 17:28:03 +0000 travellingbee 2713282@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MamaG: nice! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2713242 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 16:16:38 +0000 MamaG 2713242@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@travellingbee: We have Amica too and they have been more than reasonable as we've been navigating our hail claim as well. We actually are paying a small premium to upgrade our roof but we will fully recover the cost in THREE years with the discount we will get on our premium going forward. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2713236 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 16:09:56 +0000 MaryM 2713236@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MamaG: We're in the opposite situation. We have people ready to do the work, but we have to get the insurance in to see it first. </p> <p>Our adjuster said to go ahead and have our hardwood pulled up so the subfloor could dry...the cleaning company said they couldn't do it without a go ahead from the insurance company. And now we're stuck in this crazy circle. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2713232 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 16:05:24 +0000 MamaG 2713232@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MaryM: I feel you. We are in an active insurance claim as we had hail damage to our roof and chimney resulting in water coming through the ceiling in our bedroom/bath from the chimney (we have a double sided fireplace in the two rooms). We've got the roof and chimney done and now are trying to find people to do the "smaller" jobs that are related. It's a pain. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2713195 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 14:43:15 +0000 MaryM 2713195@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Ugh. And we've filed a claim. </p> <p>Of course DH's friend found that the subfloor under our hardwoods was wet. The floor itself hadn't buckled or anything, but it's on like 3 inches of subfloor (it's so weird how they did it) so there's moisture down under there somewhere, and we aren't going to attempt to do any of that ourselves or have people deal with real wood floor inexpensively. </p> <p>Can we take a vacation from adulting for a few days? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2711727 Thu, 16 Mar 2017 19:47:18 +0000 MaryM 2711727@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Awesome update! Dh's friend from servepro still had the tool they use to test for moisture, and he's coming this weekend to test all the lower drywall and the only subfloor left the butts up to the closet and can see if we should rip anything out. </p> <p>And I mentioned it was musty to DH and I'd help him bag up the loose parquet...he ripped it all up before I got home! (I got stuck in awful traffic). So after some cleaning, the room is ready for carpet!</p> <p>Under the subfloor in the laundry closet we're old tiles, so we don't even have to relace that (unless we want to lift it back up level with the hardwood) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709878 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 21:06:55 +0000 travellingbee 2709878@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Our roof leaked and warped some of our wood flooring. The wood flooring is throughout our whole main area of the house, including the living room, kitchen, breakfast area and hallways, but only one small area was affected. Because it was older floor that you couldn't replace just one board on, the home insurance replaced all of the hardwood floors throughout. And the roof. It cost about 30K and so far no raise of rates. But it was due to a hail storm so they said that was an act of God that doesn't affect individual rates or something like that. We have Amica and LOVE them. Like, I'd do commercials for them I love them so much. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709866 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 20:51:35 +0000 Portboston 2709866@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We filed two homeowners claims within a year of each other and our carrier ended up dropping us and we can never get home insurance with them again. That being said, I would still do it again. The first claim was a break in. The total ended up being over 7k. That included a new front door plus repair of the wall around the door and all the items that were stolen. The second claim was a flood in our basement due to a washing machine over flowing. That totaled about 9k. We're now with liberty mutual and our annual premium is actually slightly cheaper then before. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709862 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 20:32:49 +0000 MaryM 2709862@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Ginabean3: that's good to know! We have homesite too (affiliated with geico) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709737 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 16:41:22 +0000 Ginabean3 2709737@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Yup....we had a slab leak in our old house, had to replace the entire first floor hardwood (only one portion was damaged but because it was more than 5 year old engineered hardwood they couldn't match it and the adjuster said the whole floor needed to be replaced/matched.) It ended up costing $17k for us, entirely paid by insurance except for a $1000 deductible. And our rates did not go up afterwards. We had Homesite (a branch affiliated with Progressive). </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709691 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 15:41:24 +0000 Mrs. Lemon-Lime 2709691@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@PurplePumps: at the time Tower Hill, when we moved we had to switch companies. Now that damn claim has dogged us in terms of eligibility.</p> <p>@MaryM: ha ha, that's good he knew to call in the pros sooner this time! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709688 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 15:38:20 +0000 PurplePumps 2709688@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: Wow, lucky you. What insurance company do you have? Met life jacked our prices. And then I got a quote from Liberty and their prices were jacked too cause we had made a claim with Met life! So they had a 5 year waiting period for the claim to go off the record too even though I didn't even make it with them. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709660 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 14:31:33 +0000 MaryM 2709660@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: I'm just thankful he realizes where his deficiencies are now. </p> <p>He tried to install a dishwasher at our old house and I kid you not, it took 5 trips to home depot and finally a plumber the next day to finish it up. Thankfully he was willing to call the plumber to replace the valves today! He said he probably could have figured it out eventually, but I imagine it would have been an even bigger mess. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709652 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 14:27:05 +0000 Mrs. Lemon-Lime 2709652@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@PurplePumps: we were shocked our premiums didn't go up, but we were more concerned about being cancelled. Our deductible at the time was $2,500- ouch! I read my policy a little more closely after that claim.</p> <p>@MaryM: lucky you with a husband who knows what he's doing. We needed to bring in all the experts. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709383 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:53:49 +0000 Mrs. Carrot 2709383@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MaryM: That's totally fair. I think if your gut and experience tells you it's not worth it, then trust that. My husband and I are so clueless in all things home ownership that we wouldn't even know where to start with all that so my gut reaction to everything is to get insurance involved unless cost wise it's borderline. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709380 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:51:43 +0000 MaryM 2709380@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Carrot: We hate the parquet, so we plan to replace with carpet (which shouldn't be too expensive in such a small room...it would just be berber). The only reason we didn't do it when we moved in was because we pulled up a corner of the old carpet that was there, and saw decent parquet, so we thought we could save money then by just pulling up and not replacing the carpet...but then learned when we moved in that there was a reason it was carpeted over. It wasn't in great shape to begin with. </p> <p>DH worked for Servepro for a while, so he's pretty on top of the drying out process. We've already pulled up the carpet in one room (we cut out part of the padding because it was just THAT soaked) and started pulling up the parquet that was already buckled. </p> <p>If we needed to call in servepro from the beginning and were facing paying them, I'd totally consider the claim worth it. Or if a lot of "things" were damaged. But adding things up, it's just seeming so close </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709369 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:44:03 +0000 Mrs. Carrot 2709369@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MaryM: We had to replace our entire living area - living room, dining room and hallway, because there was no way to just put some hardwood down and not change out the rest. The water damage was throughout the living room and into the dining room. We have concrete subfloors (condo building) so it needed to be dried out and sanded/smoothed out before the floor could be put down. Even if you have a smaller area, I'd still be surprised if you hit less than 1K. It probably would be less than ours, because we also had to replace real hardwood, and parquet is cheaper, but unless you want to absorb a lot of cost, it probably would still be worth calling. The other piece I'd add is a lot of insurance won't cover extensive claims if you took care of something on your own and there was an issue that compounded the problem after the fact (ie, if you don't dry the floors out sufficiently and get mold, etc.) so it might be worth to file from that perspective as well. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709367 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:40:33 +0000 MaryM 2709367@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Mrs. Carrot: What did your clean up and replacing entail? How large of an area? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709364 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:39:40 +0000 MaryM 2709364@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@T.H.O.U.: When I called the first time I asked if we did make a claim, would they cover immediate fixes like the plumber coming out, and they said just to take a lot of photos so they have before/after images to work off. So I think that's my plan for now. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709360 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:38:48 +0000 Mrs. Carrot 2709360@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We had this happen a month after closing on our condo - the AC unit condensation leaked under our hardwood floors. It ended up costing over 10K to get everything cleaned up and replaced. Thankfully our premiums didn't go up, and there was no way to handle it on our own. I'd definitely call and file. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709359 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:38:00 +0000 T.H.O.U. 2709359@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>You can always ask but I think you have a year to file the claim. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709357 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:36:24 +0000 MaryM 2709357@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@T.H.O.U.: I called and they said the only way to get an adjuster out is to file the claim. </p> <p>I think we'll probably be leaning toward playing it safe, taking photos as we go (in case it ends up being more than expected), and seeing how it plays out. </p> <p>The plumber quoted $300, and it's maybe a 12 square foot room we're looking at carpeting... The biggest concern we had initially was the sub floor, but once we pulled stuff back, it looks like there's only subfloor in the laundry closet itself. In the other rooms, the flooring was installed over the slab itself (thankfully it's a one floor house so there was no falling water).</p> <p>It seems like we're going to be so close to the deductible amount when it comes to repairs, that it might not be worth it. If DH didn't have the loaner Servepro equipment for dry out I might be more inclined to make a claim, but I think we might be winging it. </p> <p>I'm usually super quick to make a claim when it comes to car insurance...but with that it's always either not been my fault, or I've been eligible for accident forgiveness. The hugeness of home claims does freak me out! (My aunt had an electrical fire and couldn't even find someone to cover her after that for the longest time) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709354 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:34:52 +0000 T.H.O.U. 2709354@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MaryM: You should get reimbursed though for market value of hte work. We got reimbursed for costs for fixing the leak and replacing the floor and drying it out. We used our own fans to dry it out and DH fixed the leak. That gave us more money to use towards floors. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709345 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:21:13 +0000 MaryM 2709345@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Thanks all.</p> <p>DH is concerned that even if the damage is just slightly over $1K...it is worth to risk our premiums going up?</p> <p>I think I'm more concerned that if we try to fix it ourselves, it will take FOREVER. Because DH has "a guy" in every field who is cheaper, but that means they usually have less availability (because they do odd jobs in between big ones). </p> <p>And because DH can only look at one issue at a time, I think I'd kind of rather have an insurance adjuster who can factor in all the fixes at once to help us get it done more quickly. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709343 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:14:15 +0000 T.H.O.U. 2709343@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@MaryM: Yes that was always my undersatnding. They woudl come out and assess the damange, Then you would decide if you want to "pay" the deductible and file or not. I mean if the damage is over $1,000 there arne't a lot of reasons not to file bc its money back for you. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709334 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:02:06 +0000 MaryM 2709334@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I called and it wouldn't be considered a flood since it happened from plumbing. </p> <p>Our deductible is $1,000. I'm guessing between just the plumber and the new carpet we'll meet that. </p> <p>So, we can have an adjuster come out for an estimate even if we don't necessarily file? That sounds promising. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709332 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 09:01:00 +0000 PurplePumps 2709332@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Depends on the damage.<br /> We made a claim and our insurance went up almost 1k for 5 years. We didn't know that would happen at the time and I would have been pissssssed if our claim was less than that (a break in) but luckily (or unluckily for us depend on how you look at it I guess) our claim was more than that so we didn't end up losing money to make a claim.<br /> Some insurance companys also never drop back as low as you had it before cause once you lose the "no claim" discount, it's gone forever. This happen to a friend of mine, that had he known, he wouldn't have made the claim! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709322 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 08:54:20 +0000 mrskansas 2709322@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I would call the insurance company first to see if it will even be covered. Unfortunately, a lot of homeowners insurance excludes flood/water damage of any kind. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709318 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 08:51:55 +0000 T.H.O.U. 2709318@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Definitely call.</p> <p>Start taking pictures and keep all receipts </p> <p>It doesn't matter if you just want them to come give you an estiamte for the claim. Then you can decide if you want to file it or not. </p> <p>We made a similar claim after the water line in our kitchen leaked on our wood floor. Because they couldn't match for replacement boards, the claim coverd replacement of all the flooring. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/homeowners-insurance-made-a-claim#post-2709314 Mon, 13 Mar 2017 08:49:27 +0000 avivoca 2709314@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I would definitely call the insurance company.</p> <p>I have made a claim. It was for my roof. We knew the roof would need replacing when we bought the house but a year later I walked out after a storm and there were shingles in my yard. All we paid was the $1k deductible. </p>