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The well being of your tenants should be your first concern. Working with folks like the Red Cross and others to take care of all the needs of displaced families is priority number one. Call Tutwiler & Associates and let us get your claim started. The steps you take early on in the claims process can impact the success of your claim in the likelihood of your insurance company’s denial. We can work with the emergency services providers to get the property boarded up at a fair and reason cost. Our team will also begin the damage assessment process, coordinate inspections and other meeting with insurance company personnel.
We recommend you take the time to make the correct repairs. Remember you own and offer a property that is the home to your tenants. Often making inadequate or quick repairs can cost you in the long run especially in a fire/ water situation with lingering odor and moldy smells that could create negative feelings with current tenants or poor impressions with new tenants. It is also a good idea to get an agreement with the insurance company on the scope and price of the loss before repairs are undertaken.
Property that has been built and occupied is often referred to as being grandfathered in regarding the building codes. Once a property has been damaged it may be required to be brought up to current building codes before a certificate of occupancy can be obtained.
Depending on the age of the property and the building codes in force, this can be a very expensive requirement. Most property policies will only pay you to repair what’s there. Any additional cost for code up-grades may be limited or excluded. The time to check with your agent/ broker and discuss code coverage or law and ordinance coverage is now, before a loss occurs. Tutwiler & Associates offers Pre-loss inspection services that includes this code consideration and documents the condition of your property should a loss occur.
If your policy has coverage for loss of rents or business interruption coverage the trained staff at Tutwiler &Associates will began the process of getting the necessary paper work from you to determine the extent of your loss. This information will have to be reviewed from among other things your profit and loss statements, your rent rolls, income statements and possibly your tax returns. In addition to the financial numbers, a projection of the revenue the property would have received in the future (trend analysis) had the loss not happened will need to be factored in order to make a demand for payment of these losses.