Insurance claims for a 52 unit apartment building in Las Vegas

[Dorothy Pang]

Hello BP members,

Would like to get some advice. 

My family owns an apartment building in Las Vegas and we’d made some water damage / flood claims to the insurance company. 

It’s been incredibly difficult to get the compensation back from the insurance company.

The total expenses spent on this was over $100k, we received $25k from the insurance company and they wanted to close the case. 

Our insurance broker are not being very responsive and helpful as well.

Would really want to see what we should do at this point. Should we hire a public loss adjuster? If so, any good recommendations?

Really appreciate it!

Dorothy

[John Mocker]

Dorothy,

There are several possible explainations:

- As Michael Norris mentioned, Replacement Cost (RC) coverage pays first at Actual Cash

  Value (RC - deprecation).   Also, multiple claims could be charged multiple deductibles.

- The policy may be written at Actual Cash Value only.  If that is the case, the depreciation

  could have reduced the claim

- Most policies have some form of CoInsurance requirements.  That means that there is

  a penalty if the proper limits are not maintained.  Often it is 80% Coinsurance.  If the

  RC of a building is $100,000 that clause will penalize if the policy limit is less than 80%

  ($80,000).  If the limit was only $50,000, any claim would be reduced by the percentage

  that the limit is below what is should be  (50,000/100,000 or 50%). 

- The company may be using repair estimates that are too low.

- Your contractor may have over charged.

- Your repairs may have included things that were not covered.

Likely it is a combination of 2 or more of the above.   Before committing to an Adjuster, I would get in writing from the company why they have not paid the full amount.  Send it by registered mail with return receipt.  If they do not comply, see if the State Insurance dept can help.  Once you know why the numbers don't match, you may have a better idea of how to proceed.