Last Saturday I was honored to be guest on Boston’s Real Estate Radio which airs on WBZ Radio, AM 1030. I get a lot of my news, weather and traffic updates from WBZ and frequently listen to their evening talk shows so being “on the air” is always a thrill!

Real Estate Radio, which is hosted by financial expert Rick Scherer of MSA Mortgage and legal professional Ali Alavi of Alavi Braza P.C, airs every Saturday night from 8:00-9:00 pm.

This week we took some time to discuss how to deal with insurance claims. There’s nothing more stressful than having your home damaged – whether it be by fire (and the water used to put it out), flooding from a burst pipe or sprinkler malfunction, storm/tree damage…the list, sadly, does on.

At Landmark, we often find ourselves serving as an advocate with insurance companies on behalf of our clients. We recently renovated a home following water damage. The insurance company was about $5,000 under our quote to get the home repaired properly. We compared our quote to that of the field adjustor and then sent a detailed explanation to the Insurance Claim Representative highlighting exactly where and why the assessments were different. For example, the field adjustor had only accounted for only a single coat of paint once the walls were replaced and didn’t note that they were two-story walls. They also hadn’t accounted for the detailed woodwork which would also need to be carefully removed prior to the walls going back up.

After all was said and done we actually received a thank you note from the Insurance Claim Representative saying “It helps when I actually get an itemized estimate that I can review with a breakdown of reasons to justify the higher pricing difference! Not just a homeowner screaming that our estimate isn’t enough and then provides a contractor estimate that says ‘Fix House $20,000’”