Your fire adjuster can help you navigate a claim on your rental unit.
When you bought your rental home, you envisioned your tenants' rent paying for the mortgage and the occasional repair. Someday in the future, you would sell the home and reap the profits. Your plans did not involve a fire, yet that's what happened. Now you must work with an insurance adjuster to sort through the wreckage and reach a settlement agreement. While landlord insurance is a type of homeowner's insurance, and therefore the claims process will be similar to a claim on your own home, there are certain issues you must consider when adjusting damage on a rental unit.
Instructions
1. Prepare a list of your items in the rental unit that were damaged. Typically the list will not be long, since most of the contents will belong to your tenants.
2. Prepare documents demonstrating the typical rent you receive from the unit on a monthly basis. If your insurance policy covers lost rents, you will be reimbursed your lost revenue during repairs.
3. Provide these lists to the adjuster.
4. Accompany the adjuster to the damaged building. He will examine the building's structural integrity and determine the extent of the damage. Meanwhile, you should photograph the damage.
5. Speak to your adjuster kindly and with respect. She did not cause the fire, and communicating rudely will not help the process.
6. Provide the adjuster information as requested.
7. Record all communications with the adjuster. This means saving all emails and written correspondence, and creating a diary of all verbal communications with dates and times.
8. Contact the adjuster's supervisor, or your state's Department of Insurance, if you feel the adjuster is not cooperating with you, or if you require further assistance.
Tags: claim your, communications with, rental unit, your rental, your tenants
