Filing a Claim

Filing a homeowner's insurance claim after our lightning strike has been a new experience for me. We've had our insurance for nearly 25 years without a claim, so I am going to be interested to find out if filing a claim will cause our premiums to go up.

So far, Allstate has done a pretty nice job of taking care of things. We had a new well pump installed the first business day after the strike; our phone service restored in a very reasonable amount of time; and a check for taking care of repairing and painting scorched areas of sheetrock. All our affected electronics were picked up, serviced or declared totaled, and the repairable ones returned within less than two weeks. Scorched carpet will be replaced in the next couple of weeks, and since we chose "like kind and quality," it will cost us nothing.

I have heard a lot of insurance horror stories, but so far, this isn't going to be one. The only thing that is not entirely convenient is that for the 'contents' portion of the claim (mostly electronics), they priced out replacement items of like kind and quality, and will send us a check for that amount minus the depreciation. When we replace the items, and send in the receipts, they will reimburse us for the depreciation amount they didn't send in the original check.

It would have been more convenient if they had allowed us the entire replacement amount-- maybe in a debit card sort of thing like the Red Cross issues-- so that we wouldn't have to deal with extra paperwork and mailing and all that sort of thing. But that's a relatively small quibble. At least we were able to choose our replacement items! With the debit card method, though, I could have had the flexibility to spend less for some items, and more for others. As it is, I had to measure each item with Allstate's allowance to see whether we could recover enough to cover the depreciation. It would have been more efficient to just allocate portions of a lump sum by priority, then shop for the best prices, and stretch the funds to the max.

I'm thankful that damage was no more than it was. When we looked at the smoldering phone wires, we knew it had been a close call. We're grateful to still have a house, singed carpets and all!