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Bob: Today we’re here with Pat Brown from the Holt Dimondale Agency.
Pat, I know you get a lot of frequently asked questions and I know one of them is, “will I always get a new roof on my home because of hail damage–true or false?”
Pat: Both. And it’s sometimes a sticky wicket, if we want to use that term, but quite often, we use April of 2020, as an example, we had a hailstorm that came through our area. And there’s competition amongst the roofers in the area and what they’ll do is they’ll go out the next day and find a subdivision that may be 15 years old, so they know that some of those roofs might be in need of repair. They will go and check with the owners they will go up and write an estimate and find out that yep, you need a new roof.
Well, the homeowner themselves take that for the gospel, and then they turn their claim in to the insurance company and find that you know, the roofer said that we need to have a roof replaced, the neighbor next door gets one, the neighbor on the other side gets one, you might not because the insurance carrier has the obligation to inspect it. And when the adjusters come out there they’re not trying to deny it, but it’s basically, “you got some damage we’ll repair half of it,” or “we’ll give you money towards this part of it,” but you’re not always going to get the new roof itself.
And a lot of times, because there is such an abundance of claims, some carriers will do what we call “armchair adjust: and say hey you know what I’ve got so many claims coming up, just replaced the roof… so it doesn’t always happen that way and sometimes people get a little flustered, my neighbor just got a brand new roof, why don’t I get one, so it’s always in between the insurance company and the insurers. So, yeah, this bit can be difficult sometimes.
Bob: So another one that I know you get, “My mortgage company pays my homeowners insurance, but I don’t really check my policy, am I missing something here?”
Pat: Definitely. Your sample policy comes in the mail, you see that it’s from your insurance carrier you know that your mortgage company pays it, you stick it in a file never think about it again. And because insurance is a competitive market, carriers on an annual basis try to create a better mousetrap to get their customers in, you know, Farmers with their, their policy perks and Liberty Mutual with their information. So there’s always new and innovative policy additions that can be or programs that can be added. If an agent is not calling you annually, like we do at Holt Dimondale Agency, you’re going to miss out on a lot of those things that could be advantageous to you.
Bob: Good information and thanks so much for joining us.
