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What I've learned today
So, I talked to the other private insurance adjuster. He's not interested in taking our case -- it's too small for his firm -- but he was willing to chat and give free advice. He thinks it might be a good job to give to the first insurance adjuster we talked to: Ray Ball is a small, independent adjuster, and, since he's working for himself, he has lower overhead and can make a modest profit on smaller jobs. Even so, Winnick thought that the situation looked simple enough that we could probably do an okay job representing ourselves.
The impression I'm getting is that insurance adjusters like going up against stingy, nasty insurance companies. Because they're usually paid based on two things: the amount of the final settlement, and the amount that that final settlement is MORE than the settlement the insurance company offered in the first place. And you can negotiate with them on precisely how they're paid.
But clearly, they get more money if 1) it's a big job, which our fire isn't, and 2) the insurance company's initial offer is VERY low. The offer we got is . . . low, but not VERY low. It's within spitting distance of the bottom end of something that might be considered vaguely close to getting near to almost being possible.
Ray Ball thinks he could probably squeeze a few more thousand dollars out of the insurance company, and can also do a lot of the annoying grunt work of itemizing the OBJECTS that were smoke-damaged, besides just the house itself. But this is pretty late in the process to be bringing in a private insurance adjuster -- it's a lot easier to influence the insurance claim BEFORE the insurance company gets numbers for themselves. Just human nature -- it's easier to influence people before they're looking at something in particular.
As I've said before, though, it's not really the damage to the house, or even the damage to our stuff, that's really worrying me. It's my chemical sensitivity.
I would like to walk through the house at some point, maybe tonight, and document exactly what happens to me, so we can maybe figure out what happened and how. And how to clean it up. Would anyone local like to accompany Lis and me, to be an additional observer and help us track this down? We'd appriciate it.
The impression I'm getting is that insurance adjusters like going up against stingy, nasty insurance companies. Because they're usually paid based on two things: the amount of the final settlement, and the amount that that final settlement is MORE than the settlement the insurance company offered in the first place. And you can negotiate with them on precisely how they're paid.
But clearly, they get more money if 1) it's a big job, which our fire isn't, and 2) the insurance company's initial offer is VERY low. The offer we got is . . . low, but not VERY low. It's within spitting distance of the bottom end of something that might be considered vaguely close to getting near to almost being possible.
Ray Ball thinks he could probably squeeze a few more thousand dollars out of the insurance company, and can also do a lot of the annoying grunt work of itemizing the OBJECTS that were smoke-damaged, besides just the house itself. But this is pretty late in the process to be bringing in a private insurance adjuster -- it's a lot easier to influence the insurance claim BEFORE the insurance company gets numbers for themselves. Just human nature -- it's easier to influence people before they're looking at something in particular.
As I've said before, though, it's not really the damage to the house, or even the damage to our stuff, that's really worrying me. It's my chemical sensitivity.
I would like to walk through the house at some point, maybe tonight, and document exactly what happens to me, so we can maybe figure out what happened and how. And how to clean it up. Would anyone local like to accompany Lis and me, to be an additional observer and help us track this down? We'd appriciate it.
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(Anonymous) 2005-04-30 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)Duzzy