As the temperature drops, your home becomes more susceptible to being damaged by water damage! Frozen and burst pipes, ice dams, fire damage, and wind damage are very common insurance claims to file in the wintertime. But is water damage covered in your RI homeowner’s policy? Most of the time, yes! Will your insurance company pay you enough to restore your home after water damage in RI? Most of the time, no! Read on to learn about common covered perils and why you’ll need an experienced public adjuster to get the highest possible payout for your water damage claim in RI.
What Is Covered in Your Homeowner’s Policy: Water Damage Related
Frozen & Burst Pipes RI
When the temperature drops below 20 degrees, your pipes could freeze and could potentially burst, “As the ice expands, it pushes water toward the closed faucet. This causes an immense amount of water pressure to build between the ice blockage and the faucet — eventually, the pipe ruptures under the pressure, usually at a spot where there’s little or no ice.” (LiveScience, 2014). When this happens, you could have a very costly water damage claim on your hands. Thankfully under most homeowner’s insurance policy, the water damage that comes from the pipe burst will be covered.
Ice Dam Damage RI
Ice dams are ridges of ice that form at the edge of a roof and prevent melting snow and water from draining off the roof. Ice dams can cause water to seep through the cracks on your house and turn into water damage. Ice dam damage in RI is typically covered in your policy, but when you submit a claim, be sure to use a public adjuster as these are tricky claims to handle on your own.
Fire Damage RI
You wouldn’t typically think that fire damage is a common claim in the winter, but with the increased use of fireplaces, candles, and space heaters, the risk of a fire in your home becomes very high. Fire damage insurance claims in RI can be extremely difficult to deal with and are typically very expensive since there are so many costs that are associated with a fire damage claim.
- Smoke damage and soot damage
- ALE (Additional Living Expenses) and temporary housing since the home can be unsafe to live in after a fire loss.
- Water damage from the fire department extinguishing the fire.
- Contents damage; some, if not all your personal belongings will need to either be replaced or properly cleaned.
- In some cases, mold damage if the water damage is not properly dried out.
Contents Damage RI
When you experience a loss in your home from any of these perils, your personal property could be severely affected. In order to have your belongings properly cleaned or replaced, be sure to talk to a contents specialist. Our contents specialists will know exactly what to say to make sure these items are covered in your policy as well as getting you the money you deserve for the contents.
Wind Damage RI
Wind is more intense during the winter months and thus creates most of these costly claims. Wind damage can cause shingles to rip off your roof and siding to come off the side of your house. When this happens, your roof could begin to leak, or water can enter your home through any openings the wind may have caused which can result in water damage. Fortunately, this is also covered by a standard homeowner’s insurance policy.
What Isn’t Covered in Your Homeowner’s Policy: Water Damage Related
Flood Damage
Unless you have a rider on your insurance policy, if your home is damaged by a flood your insurance company will not cover any of the expenses associated with flood damage. If you live in a flood risk area, be sure to purchase this extra damage protection. To learn if you live in an area susceptible to floods, check out this link. https://www.riema.ri.gov/resources/citizens/mitigation/mapping.php
Mold Damage
Mold damage is only covered by your insurance company if the mold damage comes directly from water damage that is covered in your policy. If you neglect repairs on your home which result in mold damage, you can’t be compensated to remediate the mold.
If mold damage occurs with water damage that is covered, the safest thing to do would be to hire a trained public adjuster in this area. Mold can be very expensive to properly remediate and extremely dangerous if left untreated or improperly remediated. A public adjuster at Performance Adjusting would ensure that you get the money you need to remediate the mold as well as the water damage that came from it.
Gradual Water Damage
Unfortunately, gradual water damage is not something that is covered in a standard homeowner’s insurance policy. “Gradual damage due to water damage is a common problem when it comes to insurance claims. An example of gradual damage is when something happens slowly, like paint chipping off a wall it starts with a small chip, then eventually half the wall is uncovered” (The Balance, 2019).
To prevent something like this from happening, be sure to frequently check all your plumbing and hoses in your house so that you won’t be responsible for a costly gradual water damage claim.
What to Do After Water Damage in RI
If your property is damaged by water, wind, fire, mold, frozen or burst pipes, roof leaks, or ice dams, a public adjuster from Performance Adjusting is the answer to getting you the money you need to restore your home or business back to pre-loss conditions.
Don’t leave the settlement up to your insurance company as they’ll do what they can to keep the money in their pocket. We’ll be on your side and will handle the claim from start to finish, which will offer peace of mind during the claim process. We will obtain more money than the insurance company’s initial offer. Without the help of a public adjuster, you may have to pay for repairs out of your own pocket.
Our sister company, Rhode Island Restoration is available 24/7, 365 days a year for emergency water restoration services as well as fire damage clean-up. We’d be happy to send them out to mitigate your property damage.
If you’ve already filed an insurance claim and haven’t gotten the payout you need, we can step in and take care of getting you more money for the damages. Click here for a free consultation or give us a call at 401-724-9111 and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have about using a public adjuster.
