ARIZONA PUBLIC ADJUSTER – INSURANCE CLAIM OF THE WEEK

I was referred to a repair by a dry out company from Mesa, Arizona. When I arrived it was explained to me that a loss had occurred under the kitchen sink. One of the angle stops had begun to leak and had soaked the sink cabinet and the cabinet next to is. No great shakes, it happens. The homeowner told me that she had already had the insurance company out and that they had forwarded a repair scope of work that included a replacement of the sink cabinet.

Conveniently, they had included a quote from a local cabinet shop (this shop does pretty good work and I had even used them before based on one of these quotes provided by the insurance company). They seemed to have given a fair quote for the replacement of the sink cabinet and according to the insurance company scope of $1,340.00 the face of the old cabinet would be reused. I struggled with that for a couple of reasons.

First, the face of the existing cabinet had been stained by the water that had run out of this cabinet onto the floor during the leak.

Second, there had been no thought to address any damage done behind the cabinet during the leak. It was now dry and I guess since it was “out of sight” it could be “out of mind”.

Third, there was no thought given to the damage showing inside of the cabinet adjacent to the sink cabinet. Given there was minimal visual damage and only on the inside at the bottom but it was obvious that it had been wetted most likely during the leak and was not the same as it was. I spoke with the home owner and told her that I felt that she should be getting more out of her claim.

I told her that the insurance company wanted to replace the cabinet box and reuse the damaged face in order to avoid replacing all of her kitchen cabinets. You see when cabinets are in a house for a long time (a few months to years) they change color for many reasons (light, chemicals, maintenance etc.) they are altered and even if they are replaced in part by cabinets from the same company they most likely will not match the cabinets that have been left in place.

I wrote a repair scope that accomplished this repair and submitted it to the insurance company. After the insurance company received my quote the desk adjuster who had been assigned to the claim called me asked why my scope of work was $12,000 and the adjuster who had visited the site was at just over $1,300. I explained that I did not feel the cabinets would be properly repaired the way they had proposed and why I felt that way.

He was understanding and offered to send the cabinet shop out to review the things that I had explained. I met with the cabinet shop and the home owner a few days later and explained the issues. In addition, I asked the cabinet shop to include an explanation of the trims and panels that they would be using to make the repairs. It turns out that the trims that would match were not even available and that many of the other materials that they wanted to use to make the boxes were very similar (likely the same materials used in the original manufacture of the cabinets) without the custom exposure that the existing cabinets had received.

With the revelation of that information the insurance company saw that it would not be able to bring the policy holder back to “pre-loss condition” or to be like the loss never happened without a full cabinet replacement. This work is now completed and the client is very happy.