After a fire or a burst pipe, the walls get an estimate with hundreds of lines. The sofa, the winter coats, the kids' laptops and the ring in the dresser often get a blank form and a deadline.
I'm a licensed public adjuster in Illinois and Indiana. I build the personal property claim with you, room by room, and negotiate it with your insurer next to the building claim.
Totalset by your policy
On the most common homeowner form, the building is covered for any direct physical loss the policy doesn't exclude. Your belongings are covered only for the causes the policy names. That one difference settles many contents disputes before anyone prices a thing.
We insure against risk of direct physical loss
Anything that damages the house is covered unless an exclusion takes it out. The insurer has to point to the exclusion.
Covered for these 16 causes, each with its own conditions in the policy text. The loss has to fit one of them.
Taken from the HO 00 03 10 00 homeowner form filed with the Nevada Division of Insurance, Section I, Perils Insured Against. Your insurer may use another edition or add endorsements, so I read your own policy before I quote it.
Chicago storms put water on furniture and clothes in two ways, and the form treats them differently. This is the condition written into the windstorm cause for personal property:
This peril does not include loss to the property contained in a building caused by rain, snow, sleet, sand or dust unless the direct force of wind or hail damages the building causing an opening in a roof or wall and the rain, snow, sleet, sand or dust enters through this opening.
The opening came first and the rain followed it. The wet mattress and dresser fall under the windstorm cause. My page on water damage claims covers how the source of water is shown.
Nothing broke the building, so this condition isn't met for what got wet inside. I look for another cause in the list before an owner accepts that answer, because a storm often does both.
Some kinds of property have their own dollar limit for each loss, for everything in that category together. The tags marked theft only are capped just when the thing is stolen. The same ring lost in a fire is paid up to your full personal property limit.
Money, bank notes, coins and medals, gold and silver other than tableware, stored value cards
Securities, deeds, manuscripts, personal records, passports, tickets and stamps, including the cost to restore the information
Jewelry, watches, furs, precious and semiprecious stones
theft onlyFirearms and related equipment
theft onlySilverware, goldware and pewterware, flatware, tea sets, trays and trophies
theft onlyProperty at your home used mainly for a business
Business property away from your home
These caps don't add to your personal property limit. Items you insured separately on a schedule, like an engagement ring, are paid under that schedule instead. I check your declarations page for scheduled items and endorsements before the list goes in.
The standard form settles personal property at actual cash value at the time of loss, and never more than the cost to repair or replace it. Many homeowner policies sold today add an endorsement that pays belongings at replacement cost. Whether yours has one is printed on your declarations page.
Belongings are covered anywhere in the world, with two rules that come up in real claims.
Property usually kept at a residence other than your insured home, a cottage or a parent's apartment for example, is limited to 10% of your Coverage C limit or $1,000, whichever is more.
The cap doesn't apply to things you moved out because your home is being repaired and isn't fit to live in, or to a newly bought main home for 30 days from the move.
After a loss you can ask the insurer to cover property of others while it was in the part of your home you live in, and a guest's things in any home you live in.
Your tenant's belongings in a two-flat are a different matter, covered by their own renters policy. I explain that split on my page on rental building claims.
I walk every room with the family, closets, basement and garage included, and we photograph and list what was damaged before anything leaves the house. You can talk it through with me in English, Ukrainian or Russian.
On larger losses an insurer often hands the contents to a specialist vendor that inventories and prices for the carrier. One of the largest lists "reduced claim payments" among the benefits it offers insurers. I build our own list next to theirs and compare every line.
After a fire, the contents are documented together with the structure and the smoke, as on my pages about fire damage claims and smoke and soot damage. If the receipts burned too, my guide on an inventory without receipts shows what proves an item instead.
Looking at the damage and at your policy costs you nothing. When you hire me, I'm paid a share of the insurance payment, and that percentage is in the signed contract before any work.
What happened and when, which rooms were hit, and whether the insurer has already sent an inventory form or a pack-out company.
+1 224-481-2095 volodymyr@staterestoration.usPhone hours: Monday to Friday 7 AM to 7 PM, weekends 9 AM to 5 PM.
The standard form asks for an inventory that shows the quantity, the description, the actual cash value and the amount of loss for each item, with any bills and receipts you have. It doesn't say the list has to be on their sheet. I usually build it in a spreadsheet room by room and send it with the photos.
Photograph and list them first. The policy lets the insurer ask to see damaged property as often as it reasonably needs to, so a sofa that went to the curb before anyone recorded it is hard to price. If something is a health risk indoors, move it to the garage or a porch and record it there.
Ask for a copy of their inventory and their pricing, and keep your own list going at the same time. I compare the two line by line. Items get missed in a pack-out, and the description on their sheet decides what an item is priced as.
As a public adjuster I represent you on the insurance claim. I'm not a lawyer. What the insurer pays for your belongings depends on your own policy and the evidence, so nobody can tell you the result before the claim is settled.