393 - dealing with insurance companies

Its been a really long time since Ive been here to post. Lots of things have been happening. Some worthy to be written about and others not so much.

Ive had to call my insurance company when the neighbour sent me a letter saying they had water leak into their hall closet, their closet happens to be below the deck off of my kitchen.

Not knowing what to do as far as process goes I called some friends and asked what to do in this situation, they all advised me to call my insurance company. I took their advise. I never realized what a long process it is to get them to do anything. Ive had to call them to get information after I made the claim. I have to admit though that my adjuster sounds like a dream on the phone so its no hardship to talk to him.

I'm just frustrated that the time that's gone by. It hasn't been a month but I wanted this to be taken cared of as soon as possible. The insurance company sent a general contractor to take a look at the origin of the leak and to assess the cost of repair.

It has been a week and a half since the contractor came and took pictures and measurements. I just heard from them and he told me that hes trying to get in touch with a couple of roofing companies so they can come take a look at the deck and get an estimate made. Hearing that made me frustrated and I'm sure he felt my agitation but I kept my cool and just asked him to call me as soon as he heard from those he was waiting on.

Ive had to make a statement to a liability officer from the insurance company. The leak from my deck isn't something that I could have predicted to happen and ignored. The leak came from squirrels who decided to make a nest and eat through the weak spot.

Because the leak was made by squirrels my insurance wont cover the repair on my deck. As they have informed me that I was not negligible I am also not on the hook for the damage in the unit below. Kind of a good news bad news deal but the better news is that it doesn't count as a claim against me. I am still claims free. There will be a note that there was a claim open and the case was closed it was opened to investigate and it was found that the claim didn't get carried.

Its been a little roller coaster because I'm clueless when it comes to knowing what to do or what to expect but Ive tried to get some information from friends and they've all told me to be patient and just wait to hear from my adjuster. When I cant be patient I end up making a call to my adjuster and he goes through what to expect next and its a lot of waiting to see or waiting to hear from someone else.