Multiple insurance claims for damaged siding?

[WAZ]

We have a house with 30-yr-old aluminum siding. Recently a concrete company clipped the siding and tore off several pieces on the side of the house. The damage was about $1,500, but they were cooperative and (because we can't find matching aluminum siding) their insurance/claim group agreed to pay $7,000 to cover the likelihood of us needing all-new siding.

Now we also have separate hail damage on the aluminum siding on the front of the house. It's fairly significant (probably 10-15 golf ball sized dents on the front) and we were going to call it in for homeowner's insurance — along with the roof, which may also have hail damage — anyway.

So the question is, since we already settled for $7,000 with the concrete company's insurance for THEIR damage to the side of the house, can we also file a separate claim with our own homeowner's insurance for the hail damage on the front? We don't want to "double-dip" and illegally get 2 insurance settlements to cover new vinyl siding. And I know we definitely shouldn't profit from this. As it stands, we got $7,000, but replacing all the siding will still cost another $3,000 or so out of pocket.

They are two separate issues, on two different sides of the house, with two different insurance companies handling two (seemingly) unrelated claims. Does it matter that both claims are for the siding, regardless of cause or which side the house? Or that the whole house probably needs to be done with new vinyl?

If anyone here is familiar with the process or the legalities of this, we're just looking to find out if calling out homeowner's insurance for a hail-damaged siding claim will conflict with (or be illegal alongside) the concrete company's damaged siding claim. Thank you!

 

[spidey07]

I would think as long as the claims aren't for the same damages or they overlap you should be fine. At least that is what common sense is telling me.

 

[BoomerD]

I would think as long as the claims aren't for the same damages or they overlap you should be fine. At least that is what common sense is telling me.

Spidey...you KNOW better than to inject common sense into an OT thread...


(but I agree, should be fine)

 

[Lifted]

The damage was $1,500, but you're fine with potentially being $3,000 out-of-pocket after the claim?

 

[Vette73]

Don't forget to recycle the Alum siding. Probable get several hundred dollars for it depending on the size of your house.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

<-- works in property insurance

You can file the second claim and it is perfectly legal, because they were two different causes of damage. Now what would be illegal, is if you settled with their insurance, THEN filed a claim on your policy for the same loss lying about the cause (so your carrier wouldn't call the concrete companies carrier to subrogate).

Since they are different causes though, it's definitely legal and perfectly acceptable. Now, some things to keep in mind:

1: you will have to pay your deductible for the hail damage. This could be a significant amount ($1500-$2500 are not uncommon to see on homes). This will be taken out of any payout you get.

2: homeowner losses will stay on your policy for 3-5 years typically (varies on states). If you have reported other losses in the past few years, this could cause you to be terminated. Unless there are a lot of losses or a few losses in a short time span, it's unlikely to happen though. Something to be aware of.

3: If you try to get a new policy, you might not be able to for the same reason as #2. Once again, just something to be aware of.

This is one way to go about it: File a claim with your carrier for the hail. Have an adjuster come out to inspect the damages (if your carrier does that which I assume they will), and also have the contractor who is going to replace all the siding give an estimate JUST for the hail damage so you can compare with the adjusters quote. Once your deductible is taken into account, is it worth while to continue with the claim and get a payout from your insurance carrier? You can always cancel the claim and not receive any payouts, if you do it this way it shouldn't negatively affect you in any way.

Any questions let me know.

 

[WAZ]

The damage was $1,500, but you're fine with potentially being $3,000 out-of-pocket after the claim?

Definitely not. That's part of the problem we're looking at. The damaged area itself (the actual damaged aluminum siding) was valued at $1,500. But because it's 30-year-old aluminum that they don't make anymore and can't be matched, there's no way to replace that damaged area. And due to the way the aluminum sheets lock together, you can't just slide in a new section like you can with vinyl; they'd have to start from the top of the house and do at least that whole side.

So our options were: 1) re-side that one side of the house, with siding that's a different texture and closely color-matched paint thumbsdown... would look similar enough from a distance but definitely would not match.... or 2) re-side the whole house in vinyl. We chose the latter.

We got a quote for one side of the house for $4,500, and after some negotiating their insurance agreed to come up to $7,000 (they said they shouldn't have to pay to re-side our entire house in brand new vinyl, upgrading it from the 30-yr-old faded aluminum... it was insurance's job to return it to its previous state, but not to upgrade everything). Since they started at $1,500 and we wanted $10,000, we thought $7,000 was a pretty reasonable settlement.

The quotes we've gotten for the whole house are hovering around $9-10,000, leaving us with that much difference out-of-pocket. We're not "okay" with that, per se, but at the same time we're upgrading our entire house, property value will increase significantly, and we can claim the new insulation from the job on our taxes, hopefully getting back a few hundred bucks next year.

 

[Vette73]

How big is your house (squares)?

Also find a dist. ceneter for siding and buy from them. I redid all but the front of my house for about half of what you are saying. That included the basic Lowes house wrap as well since the siding was off.

 

[WAZ]

<-- works in property insurance

You can file the second claim and it is perfectly legal, because they were two different causes of damage. Now what would be illegal, is if you settled with their insurance, THEN filed a claim on your policy for the same loss lying about the cause (so your carrier wouldn't call the concrete companies carrier to subrogate).

Thank you very much for the reply, it was extremely helpful.

To cover your points... 1) Our deductible is $1,000... 2) we've never filed a homeowner's claim in the 4 years we've had the policy, though we do have a couple auto insurance claim (all under the same company — though I assume it's safe to say auto claims are completely unrelated when talking about terminating coverage or raising rates?)

We weren't sure if the appraiser would price it based on the "actual" damaged area, whether this old aluminum could be replaced or not (like the concrete insurance saying that damage was $1,500 worth)... or if they'd price it like all the siding companies, saying it can't be matched so it should at least cover re-siding the whole front of the house. If it's the former and we'd only get a few hundred bucks, then it's probably not worth the claim. If it's the latter and after deductible we'd have enough to make up the difference and re-side without paying much out-of-pocket, then it sounds like something we should go ahead and do.

 

[WAZ]

How big is your house (squares)?

They said it would be 16 squares.

We still have a few more companies coming out to give us estimates, and they've already ranged from $9,000 to $22,000 o)... so I'm hoping someone can come in close to $7-8,000.

But if we do get a settlement from homeowner's, that would make up the difference anyway. As much as I'd love free cash , I guess I feel more comfortable not profiting from insurance claims... so I'm okay with the price being a little higher as long as it's done right by a professional, covered by insurance, and I'm not stuck with several grand out-of-pocket.

 

[Vette73]

They said it would be 16 squares.

We still have a few more companies coming out to give us estimates, and they've already ranged from $9,000 to $22,000 o)... so I'm hoping someone can come in close to $7-8,000.

But if we do get a settlement from homeowner's, that would make up the difference anyway. As much as I'd love free cash , I guess I feel more comfortable not profiting from insurance claims... so I'm okay with the price being a little higher as long as it's done right by a professional, covered by insurance, and I'm not stuck with several grand out-of-pocket.

I think mine was 13 squares. But I also bought the material myself and then hired someone I found at craigslist to do it.

 

[WAZ]

I think mine was 13 squares. But I also bought the material myself and then hired someone I found at craigslist to do it.

Yeah, we have a situation where "my brother knows a guy who knows a guy who can do it for cheap," so that's something we've considered, pending our insurance outcome.

 

[DrPizza]

Siding is incredibly easy to do. Take the $7000, buy the siding and materials yourself, buy a couple ladders, scaffolding, take your wife out for surf & turf a couple of times, and learn a new skill. Then, put the remainder in the bank.

Siding is sold by the square, starts around $45, and goes up to $150, maybe $200 for a square. The trim is one of the higher costs. Without seeing the house, I'm just going to guess that you don't need a ton of work done around the windows, etc. - just a pretty simple straightforward job to do.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Thank you very much for the reply, it was extremely helpful.

To cover your points... 1) Our deductible is $1,000... 2) we've never filed a homeowner's claim in the 4 years we've had the policy, though we do have a couple auto insurance claim (all under the same company — though I assume it's safe to say auto claims are completely unrelated when talking about terminating coverage or raising rates?)

We weren't sure if the appraiser would price it based on the "actual" damaged area, whether this old aluminum could be replaced or not (like the concrete insurance saying that damage was $1,500 worth)... or if they'd price it like all the siding companies, saying it can't be matched so it should at least cover re-siding the whole front of the house. If it's the former and we'd only get a few hundred bucks, then it's probably not worth the claim. If it's the latter and after deductible we'd have enough to make up the difference and re-side without paying much out-of-pocket, then it sounds like something we should go ahead and do.

No problem.

Auto and home will be looked at individually for the most part. The only time we look at both together is in cases where we are trying to find a business case to do something for the customer/agent. One common example on brand new policies is that there are too many losses, well if they have an auto/home supporting policy then we can make an exception and still issue the policy that would have been rejected/terminated otherwise. I don't know the whole countries insurance regulations (as it's state run), but I don't see any state that would allow us to terminate a home policy because their auto policy had a lot of claims (as one example).

As for how it's going to be appraised, that depends on a few things. Your policy, your adjuster, and your company. It's possible you could get them to cover all siding due to there isn't anything on the market to replace it. I kind of doubt it though. You would need to really haggle with your adjuster most likely. Regardless though, you won't know unless you get an adjuster out to your property and inspect the damage.

 

[xSauronx]

Siding is incredibly easy to do. Take the $7000, buy the siding and materials yourself, buy a couple ladders, scaffolding, take your wife out for surf & turf a couple of times, and learn a new skill. Then, put the remainder in the bank.

Siding is sold by the square, starts around $45, and goes up to $150, maybe $200 for a square. The trim is one of the higher costs. Without seeing the house, I'm just going to guess that you don't need a ton of work done around the windows, etc. - just a pretty simple straightforward job to do.

to be honest...im horrible at doing handywork and managed to do my own vinyl siding in the past. its pretty damn easy. pretty much everything you cut yourself will be hidden by the next piece of siding or trim on the end. definitely worth considering.

 

[SN4p]

File a claim with your homeowners insurance. The will send an adjuster to check the damage and take pictures. He will write an estimate and send it to the insurance company. You have a claim that is most likely covered. I would write it as such.

< Independent Insurance Adjuster

 

[WAZ]

Thanks for the advice guys. I called my insurance company so we'll see how it goes.