We had a little disaster at the Sphinx house. Mr. Sphinx left a clogged sink running for many hours in our primary bath. It flooded the bathroom, our bedroom, damaged the hardwood floors, damaged the ceiling and walls in the living room, dining room, and basement. So we are dealing with our first significant homeowner's claim.

We have Travelers. They say they will send a mitigation company that will dry everything and rip out wet drywall. They will make an estimate, then we can use Traveler's repair company or our own.

My first question is whether I should resist using their repair company. All other advice welcome.

Oh no, Cindy! What a nightmare!!

quote:

whether I should resist using their repair company

Hmm I think it depends on the other company is and how much control you’ll have. Will they tell you the company name?

Also for just about any job, you want to get more than one quote, so this shouldn’t be any different.

I would imagine there are some judgment calls throughout the process (fix this thing this way, or that?) and maybe you can get an idea of the thinking of the contractor by talking to them first?

Another question is timing. One contractor might be less expensive, but if that contractor is also booked out and you have to stay in a hotel longer (?) then the faster but more expensive contractor might be better.

Also, this sounds like a huge job with many moving parts. Won’t you need multiple contractors? The clean-up, water/mold remediation people won’t be able to re-do the floors, the floor people won’t be able to do the drywall, etc.

Is the insurance company offering you one company which will manage the whole project? Or do you have do all the project management yourself?

Had a similar problem a couple of years ago. I was not there when they "finished". The left a h*** of a mess. My piano was covered with a thick coat of damp dust. Had to get the supervisor of the crew to help me get a bunch of dirty plastic from a light fixture.
It might be wise to get someone to check and be there when they are finishing the work.
I called ProServe when it happened. Their contractors rushed dryers, etc. over. State Farm preferred them, so I stayed with them. The work was well done. Took months to get them here to do the drywall and other work.
Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
We had a little disaster at the Sphinx house. Mr. Sphinx left a clogged sink running for many hours in our primary bath. It flooded the bathroom, our bedroom, damaged the hardwood floors, damaged the ceiling and walls in the living room, dining room, and basement. So we are dealing with our first significant homeowner's claim.

We have Travelers. They say they will send a mitigation company that will dry everything and rip out wet drywall. They will make an estimate, then we can use Traveler's repair company or our own.

My first question is whether I should resist using their repair company. All other advice welcome.

Sorry to hear about your flood. We also have Travelers. We have made three claims and they were stellar in every respect. They don't have repair companies out here in flyover land, I guess, since they never made that offer. If I were you I would include their repair company among those you check out, and pick the best one, even if it turns out to be theirs.

Our first experience with Travelers was when 70 mph winds took off a quarter of the roofs in our town. Our first step wasn't to call the insurance company. First we found the roofer we wanted to work with. When we told him our insurance company was Travelers, he was relieved and said they are good to work with. Then he handled all the negotiations with the insurance company directly, which was a huge help.

In this case it was two roofs we were dealing with --the house and the barn. At first Traveler's didn't want to replace our entire roof, since only a part of it lost shingles. Our roofer examined the claims adjuster's report and found that it was inaccurate. Then he told us that our roof shingles were defective, had been recalled, and should have been replaced by the previous owner, and that it was a waste to not replace the whole roof when they were going to be doing the job anyway. He managed to finagle a completely new roof from the insurance company, arguing that we were just going to have to keep replacing shingles with every wind storm if they didn't. Amazingly, they agreed.

Now the barn roof was already on its last legs. The roofer again negotiated with the insurance company and got them to agree to replace it, even though it had already been an old roof.

When at last I talked to their adjuster, he couldn't have been more helpful and explained the whole process to me.

So, i would say, that your focus should be on finding a great project manager who will handle the insurance company for you.

Now, as to the third claim.. it was an unlikely one. Travelers also insures all our vehicles (we have a truck and three cars and a horse trailer). A terrible mechanic destroyed the transmission in my truck by neglecting to hook up the transmission cooler when he replaced the radiator (a questionable repair). And then he refused to take responsibility for it when I was stranded 90 miles from home on the interstate in the baking heat with two horses.

A guy on a GM quadrasteer forum I frequent said the transmission should be covered by my auto insurance. I called Traveler's and they said he was right (!) Because the mechanic caused the damage, they would pay for the new transmission, less the deductible. The next step was to find a good transmission shop, and I found another gem in the owner of a local shop, who went to bat for me with the claims adjuster and convinced them that this was an open and shut case and the bad mechanic was at fault. (the transmission was totally fried and unsalvageable.) On his say-so, they approved the claim and sent me a check.

Again, the person who is doing the repairs *matters*. A lot. When it turns out the job is bigger than expected, you need someone like this in your corner.

So again, in your situation I would research and ask around and find the very best people who will be in your corner, especially when it turns out the job is bigger than initiallly estimated. You then need someone with a lot of experience negotiating with insurance companies and who will take that hassle off your hands. Ask them about their ability to do this when interviewing people, and if they have worked with Travelers before, and what their experience has been.

Unless you have a strongly preferred firm or contractor to do the work, you certainly could use a couple of estimates. But your concern here isn't the price. You want to know what the contractor thinks needs to be done, how they'll do it, and with what materials. You want the best quality job, and as long as the contractor has good experience working with insurers, they'll know how to negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement with the insurer.

Check the company on Yelp, BBB and Angi. Then decide.

I don’t have much to add except to say I’m sorry you’re having to through this.

We're dealing with the same issues. One of the biggest barriers is that we chose a contractor that wasn't on our insurance company's "list" of contractors. What this resulted in for us was a much longer time spent in reviewing estimates, asking for a significant amount of detail for the estimates, etc. We're using State Farm. So I would take a good luck at whatever contractors are on Travelers' list, and then do your checks along the lines of that P*D suggests.

We used ServPro for our demolition and found them to be excellent. And, they're on State Farm's list so they were reimbursed quite smoothly.

Thanks, everyone. We have Travelers, and they've been good so far.

Mitigation crew was also outstanding.

We currently have three dehumidifiers, four floor mats, and 17 fans going. It is deafening.

We had to move the babies, their high chairs, and their playthings to the screened porch. This is super inconvenient.

I am so sorry. I’ve had water disasters twice, but not as bad as yours. They are extremely stressful!

Sorry this has happened to you, Cindy. We’ve had some water damage too, in
a basement due to a broken ceiling water pipe. Had to bring in huge fans to dry it out. And my old piano got doused, but there was some relief from the insurance payout.

Oy, this is brutal.

There are several drying mats on the floor of our bedroom. These heat the floor and send the air to a dehumidifier.

Trouble is, it's our bedroom. Last night was rough. The mats make the room hot, and the dehumidfier and fans make it like I'm trying to sleep on the tarmac at Dulles Airport. I finally put my noise cancelling headphones on and just slept on my back all night.

The good news might be that we will finally be rid of the asbestos in our basement. We have asbestos tile throughout the basement. We haven't disturbed it and just put carpet over. The water caused damage to the tile, so the mitigation company says it needs to go. They say the insurer will pay, and a special asbestos abatement company will remove the tile. That will allow me to do what I've wanted to do for 30 years: get some sort of hard flooring in the basement and get rid of that godawful carpet.

So far, we think the mitigation company is good, so we will probably go with them for repairs. I just don't have the bandwidth to find contractors, and I feel like I would get screwed on the price. If we use another company, Travelers will only pay "the national average" for the work. There is nothing average about what things cost in a high-cost area like Metro DC.

It's mostly drywall and carpet. I guess I will use the recommended company.

Good luck with it. Maybe Travelers will pay for you to stay in a hotel?