Fire Damage Claims in Florida

Fire damage claims can require that a homeowner prove that the fire was started by specific circumstances. This is because fires that are intentionally started will not be paid out by insurance companies. When you have suffered a loss of this kind, you probably have a lot of other things on your plate, and arguing with the insurance company isn’t something that you want to make time for.

If you are struggling with issues related to your fire damage claim, you need to work with a skilled legal team for your case. The team at Lopez Law Group can help you with your fire claim case to make sure that you can secure the insurance payment that you need to recover from this kind of accident. Waiting around for your claim to be paid out on can be very frustrating, which is why having a skilled attorney on your side can be a big benefit.

Do You Know How to File an Insurance Claim After a Fire?

If you are not sure about how to file a claim on your home insurance policy after a fire, you are not alone. Your home insurance policy is intended to be used for significant issues such as fires, water damage, and accidents that have taken place on your property. This policy is not used in the way that auto insurance policies are used and will not cover small incidents or inconveniences that might take place on your property.

Insurance claims for fire damage will require that you reach out to your home insurance company to file a claim. If you are not comfortable with the process of filing this claim, you can allow the team at Lopez Law Group to work on your behalf to help file this claim. No matter who files the claim, you will need to have the following information on hand when you initiate a claim:

•         Your policy number
•         The date and the time of the fire
•         The location of the fire, which might be your home address or a wider area that ended up impacting your home as well
•         Description of the degree of your loss. Your whole home might have burned down, or only part of it might be damaged. Smoke damage can also require hefty bills to return your home to a livable condition, so you will need to report this damage as well.
•         Your contact information
•         A detailed list of the items that were lost or damaged in the fire
•         Receipts for repairs and cleanup work
•         The estimate for the cost of repairs and rebuilding

In most cases, you will also need the fire report from the fire department that responded to the call. This report is required to be created by the fire department and kept on file for a set period of time after a fire has taken place. You might not have thought about asking for this report at the time of the fire, which is understandable. If this is the case, your lawyer can request this report for you in order to complete the claims initiation process.

The insurance company will investigate the initial details that were submitted related to your claim and assign an adjustor. This person will then interface with your lawyer or you as the homeowner to get more information about the fire and the amount of damage that you need to have covered by your claim.

Do I Need to Document The Fire Damage?

While it might be the last thing on your mind, documenting the damage from the fire is critical to making the claims process quick and easy. Home insurance claims move much more slowly than the claims that you might have made on your auto insurance policy. This kind of claim is often for a large sum of money and also will require that more investigation be completed before a payout can be made. The more information that you can provide to your home insurance company, the quicker your claim will be completed.

Taking pictures of the damage is important before weather and time remove some of the evidence of the fire. You will need to document structural damage, personal belongings that have been damaged, smoke damage, and water damage. While the insurance company might still need to send out an adjuster to look at the damage in person, in some cases, photo evidence will be enough for the adjustor to determine the amount of damages that need to be covered under the claim.

Your attorney can help you to gather the information that you need to submit for your claim. You might have many other concerns on your mind after a fire. Having some help collecting the information that you need for the claims process can be stressful and upsetting as well, making this a task that is best handled by an expert.

Can Disputes Arise Between You and Your Insurance Company?

Disagreements about fire claims can be more common than you might think. There can be discrepancies between the amount that the insurance company wishes to pay on your claim and what you have been told the damage will cost you. You might also run into issues with payout delays that are not acceptable while you are without a home to live in.

Your lawyer can help advocate for you and can also take care of the negotiation process that might be necessary to get the settlement that you deserve. Insurance companies can try to pay a smaller amount than is truly necessary for large claims, but a lawyer who is versed in this kind of claims process will be able to defend you against this action on the part of the insurance company.

Arguing on your own with the insurance company can be fruitless and can lead to lots of frustration and added time tacked onto the claims process. Your lawyer can make certain that the claims process moves along rapidly so that you can get back to living your life. Ending the stress of the claims process rapidly and making certain that you can afford to get your home back into tip-top shape is much easier with the help of an experienced lawyer.

Your lawyer might also choose to work with a licensed public adjustor to get an impartial estimate for the costs necessary to repair or rebuild your home. Public adjusters can create an estimate that is not biased, which can help back up the demands of the homeowner with regard to the claim payout amount. Insurance companies are much less likely to argue with fellow insurance professionals and are much more likely to agree to an insurance payout that will cover your costs to rebuild.

What if My Insurance Company Denies My Claim?

There are actually some valid reasons that your homeowner’s insurance might deny a claim, but in most cases, denials are often the result of errors that could have been prevented by securing the help of a skilled legal expert. You might also be able to fight the denial that you have been given if there was information that was not considered correctly when the claim was being reviewed by the insurance company.

Your lawyer will be able to help fight a denial that should not have taken place. The process might include providing information that was missing when the claim was first opened and reviewed. In other cases, the estimates that were submitted might have been incomplete, or information that was supposed to be submitted by the cleanup company that was used for the claim was not properly reported to the insurance company.

When you have gotten a denial for your insurance claim, you will need to reach out to a lawyer right away. There is a set appeal period for denials of this kind, and if you wait too long to appeal the denial, you will no longer be able to do so. Your lawyer at Lopez Law Group will take your denial seriously and work hard to rectify the problem that has led to the problem. Many of these kinds of denials are easily resolved once an expert is involved in the claims process.

How Long Do Fire Insurance Claims Take to Resolve?

While your lawyer might not be able to force the insurance company to pay on a claim rapidly, having a skilled lawyer working on your case can help to make sure that there are no bottlenecks to the claims process. These claims can take anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months to be resolved. If your entire home burned down, the process of completing a claim might take longer.

As a rule of thumb, the larger the payout that is needed to satisfy a claim, the longer it will take to get the payout and close the claim. Insurance companies are very careful about paying out on large claims for good reason. While this diligence is good for the insurance company, however, it can be very hard on homeowners who have lost everything.

Being able to allow your lawyer to handle all of the steps of the process can take a lot of pressure off of you as the homeowner, and it can also ensure that you are not going to have to wait any longer for your claim payout than necessary. Saving time and your sanity can be invaluable when it comes to this kind of insurance claim.

You have probably had to put most of your life on hold due to the kind of loss that you suffered in the fire. The team at Lopez Law Group understands that you cannot afford to wait any longer than necessary for your claim to be paid out. We take the timeline of these claims very seriously and work hard to secure favorable outcomes for our clients.

What Are the Common Reasons that Fire Claims Are Denied?

There are some common reasons that your claim might have been denied. Your lawyer from Lopez Law will be very familiar with these possible problems and can help you resolve them so that your claim can be appealed. There are some kinds of problems that cannot be resolved, however. If you have stopped paying on your insurance policy, and it has lapsed, then even a lawyer might not be able to help you.

In other cases, there is something that can be done about the issues that led to your claim being denied. These situations that can be resolved with the help of a lawyer might be:

•         The policy does not cover the kind of damage that appeared to have occurred in the fire. This may or may not be true. Sometimes, the claim is not submitted with the right information or enough information for the damage to have been presented correctly.
•         The insurance company thinks that the claim is fraudulent. This is also likely due to issues with the way that the claim was submitted. Truly fraudulent claims are not very common, but these kinds of claims will not be satisfied by the insurance company even if you involve your lawyer. If you have not submitted a fraudulent fire claim, your lawyer from Lopez Law will work hard to rectify the issues that led to this incorrect decision on the part of the insurance company.
•         The policyholder did not respond to requests from the insurance company for more information.
•         There were data errors in the claim as submitted.

There are many moving parts in these claims. You might have medical receipts that are included due to injuries that you received in the fire. Your doctor might not have replied to requests from the insurance company to clarify the information related to your injuries. Your lawyer can help you to get this information to the insurance company so that your claim denial does not stand.

In other cases, the valuation of your losses was not correctly tabulated, which can lead to the claim being denied. Your lawyer can ensure that a correct estimate of the cost of the damages is submitted so that the claim can be reviewed again. A correct estimate is required for insurance companies to be able to do their job correctly. When this part of the claim information is much too high or much too low to make sense, the insurance company might decide to deny the claim.

Documentation, as well as information from other parties involved in your fire claim, can cause issues that lead to a denial. Your lawyer will track down all of the various documents and people involved in the claim so that you can be sure that your claim is reviewed correctly and paid out promptly. Denials are not the end of the road when it comes to fire claims. Having a skilled lawyer on your side can have a big impact on the outcome of your claim from start to finish.

Do Fire Insurance Claims Ever Go to Court?

In nearly every case, your fire insurance claim will not require a court date. However, if there are major issues with the denial that the insurance company has given to a client, the dispute might not be resolved in settlement discussions. In these instances, a court date might have to be set to resolve the disagreement between your insurance company and you as the client.

These kinds of cases are time-consuming and costly. Your lawyer will work hard to avoid this outcome, but it can sometimes be necessary. If you are working with Lopez Law Group for your fire insurance claim, you can trust that we will try to save you money and time by avoiding a court battle with your insurance company. However, if you are not pleased with the payout that you are being offered or your insurance has unfairly denied your claim more than once, it might be necessary to go to court.

The team at Lopez Law Group has years of experience with representing clients in court. We can tackle your court case with expertise and attention to detail so that you can seek the favorable outcome that you have been looking for related to your fire damage claim.

Lopez Law Group Can Help You With Your Fire Damage Claim

If you have suffered a property loss due to a fire, you will have other things to take care of and other concerns to worry about beyond the insurance claim that you need to file. An experienced lawyer can help you navigate the claims process related to your property loss so that you don’t run into problems, bottlenecks, and delays in payment of your claim.

Contact the team at Lopez Law today if you have a fire claim that you need help with. We can help you complete the claims process, and we can also represent you if you have been given a denial for your fire claim. We have the years of experience that you need working on your side to make sure that your claim can be resolved in a favorable manner.

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