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Use your own experts to prove your claim. Provide all necessary documentation and dollar amount to Compass Adjusters. This information will be used in negotiations.

Just as a lawyer reviews a clients’ case, licensed professionals document your claim. All information is critically reviewed before submitting anything to the insurance company. Our experts represent you and will handle any and all questions from the insurance company. The amount determined for your claim is arrived in a logical and methodical process. The final amount is the result of extensive analysis.

Insurance companies will find it considerably more difficult to disagree with your claim, because your claim will be represented by Compass Adjusters and will have been prepared thoroughly and properly.

Compass Adjusters assume all burden and responsibility for your claim adjustment and the entire process. This alleviates a large amount of stress and frustration when dealing with the insurance company. It also allows time and energy to be wholly devoted your entire business operation. After adjusting thousands of claims, Compass Adjusters have specialized foresight to handle typical problem areas before they arise. Our ability to avoid these problems is due to our extensive experience in the field and will ultimately produce both a larger and speedier settlement than would otherwise be possible.
When faced with an unfortunate situation involving substantial sums of money, while also determining all damages under a legal contract, be assured that insurance companies will put their interests first. It is only fair you do the same. Insurance companies will hire the best experts available. It would be risky if you did not do the same.

Should a General Contractor Prepare My Insurance Claim Adjustment?

After suffering property loss, many consider hiring a general contractor to estimate the damage. The following outlines why this is not recommended:

* An adjuster, not a contractor, will be hired by the insurance company to represent its interests. Contractors do not have training adjusting claims and will likely not understand or be familiar with the claim adjustment process. They have little to no experience settling claims. A Contractors’ profession fulfills the duty of trade workmanship, not adjusting. If you were in need of a lawyer to represent you, hiring a paralegal would not be accurate.

It is necessary to have complete and thorough knowledge of the insurance policy before preparing an estimate on a loss to be adjusted. Policy conditions are not the language of contractors. They are not equipped or trained to provide the best claim presentation for an insurance contract.

* Contractors will estimate the costs of a building today. However, this will be not in your best interest because your claim represents the cost to repair or replace the exact building you had before your loss.

The cost of an insurance claim is based on replacing your loss with the quality at today’s labor and material costs. A general contractor will have no knowledge of whether the property can be restored with the exact material and construction techniques used from the original building in today’s market.

* Contractors are not familiar with the theories and methods of applying depreciation. A policy is either an actual cash value policy or a replacement cost. For both instances, deducting depreciation from the total repair or replacement value is necessary in order to determine an actual cash value.

* Contractors do not know your policy. They are wholly unfamiliar with what is insured or excluded under your policy.

* In order to support the extent of loss you are claiming, it is extremely important that a claim be as detailed as possible. Contractors rarely provide detailed accounts. If a claim does not provide thorough documentation, the insurance company will request further estimates, which will only serve to delay, complicate, and confuse the issue.

* While insurance company adjusters deal in unit costs, most contractors work with segregated labor and material costs. If the adjuster accepts this approach, the settlement process is usually delayed. It is not common for a contractor to efficiently convert and comply their pricing and estimating approach to the unit cost method.

Oftentimes, soft costs such as, general conditions, contingencies, profit, overhead, supervision, architectural fees, etc. are part of a general contractor’s overall estimate. However, there is a lack of intricacy the contractor has when determining an accurate amount to for the claim. This also influences the effectiveness of negotiating values that are not directly tied to these soft costs and are often overlooked or just not dealt with at all.

* Identifying and separating what should be included in your claim versus what should be in a tenants claim is necessary and vitally important. Contractors do not have the specialized training to extensively review the insurance policies and leases that affect all parties involved.

* Contractors have no background preparing a claim that must be presented and sold to the insurance company’s adjuster. Furthermore, a claim requires effective negotiating techniques that are based on thorough comprehension of the policy of insurance, the claims adjustment process, and the appraisal of loss.