Insurance Secrets Every Homeowner Should Know!

What are your rights when the insurance company underpays or denies your claim after storm damage?

In this episode of The Hoel Truth Podcast, Bob Hoel sits down with Joe Zavodney of Zavodney Consulting to uncover how insurance supplementing actually works — and what most homeowners get wrong when dealing with roof claims.

Whether your roof suffered hail or wind damage, or your insurance is only offering to cover part of the repair, this episode explains:
-What insurance companies leave out of initial estimates (and why)
-Why getting multiple contractor quotes is a myth
-How fast to file, what documentation helps, and your right to request another adjuster
-How to spot fly-by-night contractors vs. local pros
-How small details (like time-stamped photos) saved one homeowner $9,000

This is a must-watch if you’re a homeowner with storm damage, or just want to make sure you're protected before the next storm hits.

📍 Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky — Central & East-Central U.S.
🔧 Featuring: Hoel Roofing & Remodeling + Zavodney Consulting
🌐 hoelrr.com

Transcript

Joe, why should the average homeowner care about insurance supplementing? A

Great question. Insurance companies are not always going to do the right thing by you,

You know, knowing what to do when insurance company is doing the wrong thing. What what to do when they are denying a claim that should be paid out legitimately. What to do when an insurance company has approved your roof, but they're only paying for $500, when it should be $1,000, or whatever the numbers might be.

But just being able to identify, okay, what's the next step after my insurance company doesn't give me what they really should have to begin with?

Welcome this edition of the Hoel Truth podcast. Today our special guest is Joe Zavodney with Zavodney Consulting, and, I'll let him introduce himself. But the relationship here is we use them to help us out on our insurance claims. So we're just going to chat a little bit about life and business, and how we work together to help our customers out, and then also what our customers can do or really any anybody can do if they ever, ever have a home insurance claim, if they're working with us or you or completely somebody else.

Yeah. So as I said, I'm Joe, I am a, father as of maybe a year and a half ago, two years, a husband as of two years and nine months ago. Got pregnant right as soon as we jumped into marriage. Live in a small town, Cedarville, Ohio. Studied at that university, their chemistry. And now here I am doing absolutely nothing with it.

My brother started, roofing company and then eventually a supplementing company, to help people process their claims. And he was asking for help on the weekends while I was in my senior year. And I was a very smart student. So I didn't go to any job fairs throughout my entire college education. And I was just thinking, I'll figure it out when I get out.

And I didn't even have to wait that long. So I dove into the roofing industry. I knew nothing about it. Headfirst. I learned a lot. Still learning a lot. And then obviously, things have just kind of spiraled to where, you know, here we are able to help clients all across the nation. But, like I said, we're in Cedarville, Ohio, so most of our clients are kind of close to that home base area, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio area.

So, yeah, that's that's who I am. That's what I do. I've been in the industry for 6 or 7 years now, and as I said, still learning a lot and still got a long way to go. So, your brother Daniel is who I met first. Older brother then. Yes. Yep. Okay. Okay. That sounded aggressive. He's older.

He's not, like, aggressively older. Yeah, like he's close to retirement now. Yeah. So. So kind of, fortunately thankful that you ran over here for a podcast. Just did some training with our sales team. So, really, you know, so people kind of understand, like to supplementing is every insurance company 99% of the time, let's put it that way.

They leave stuff off and some customers are like, no, it's my insurance company. They would never short me. And I'm like, well, yes, I would, because if they save us just a few thousand dollars per claim, I mean, that's billions and trillions a year in savings and profits for them. So I guess kind of talk. The first thing I think we would talk about is you know, some key points, some pointers for homeowners on how to make their process quicker.

And before we even before we go completely to that, like we were talking off camera earlier when I started in this business almost ten years ago, like you used to build a knock a door, you can see wind damage on a roof. And I could be like, hey, you've got wind damage. I've helped Suzy down the road and Mr. Smith down the road here.

Like I can do all the insurance, handle all the insurance stuff for you. You need to call it in, and you need to pick what color you want and you need to you need to sign checks. And unfortunately, the game has changed. You know, where the homeowner has to be a lot more involved because it's gotten to the point that I've had I've had an insurance agent.

I won't call him out on the podcast because one of them is local to here, told me they didn't really care about what I wanted. I said, I know, but you need to care about your client that we we that's a mutual client. So not just once, but also is you know, that's part of the contract, that insurance contract, it's what they deserve and what you've promised them as an insurance company.

Right. So so I guess give some pointers to homeowners of what they can do, when they do have a claim, when they need to call it, how soon they need to call in, and any documentation that they need to do. Yeah. So I mean,

I've seen and this is kind of a little bit of an aside. I've seen adjusters change their determination just because of a ring camera video of, you know, oh, there really was hail out on this property or there really was storm damage out on this property.

So, any documentation that a homeowner can get, you know, pictures of the hail in their hand, a few hailstones in their freezer, or, you know, even a news article, anything that you guys can be gathering together to, to keep in your back pocket or in the back of your freezer, depending on what it is that you have, is always going to be helpful, but as far as filing a claim, I would say as soon as the storm has occurred, you know, if it's if it's a catastrophe, if we're talking about a tornado, I would I would call my insurance company right away.

But most cases, you know, you're talking about a situation where you aren't either sure you have damage and you've called out a contractor or you know, there was storm. So you you ask for a professional storm damage inspection, or maybe somebody come to your house and notified you, hey, you know, your neighbors have damage. You know, they were approved for a full replacement through their insurance company.

And we think that this storm also occurred here. We'd be happy to take a look. So typically when when it comes to filing a claim, I recommend that as soon as you're aware that there's damage, not only is it advisable for you to file a claim, but I also believe that from kind of a generic policy perspective, those policies are going to typically gear the homeowners to be responsible to fire up, file a claim as soon as they're aware of those damages.

And so for a few reasons, especially in the case when there's a catastrophe or a storm that has occurred recently, these insurance companies are going to deploy a lot of resources. And mostly in terms of, you know, human adjusters who are out on site to come out and inspect large swaths of properties that have that have been impacted by this storm.

And so, not only does that mean that there's a lot more staffing in the area to be able to evaluate your claim on a more prompt timeline, but then also they've got checkbooks. These guys are out there to approve claims. They they already know that the storm damage this neighborhood because they've inspected five other roofs down the road.

So they're not really out there to establish, you know, is this hail or was this not did a tornado really occur here? They're out there to say, okay, how bad is the damage? How quickly can I write a check and move on to the next claim? And so even if that leaves you in a little bit of a mess where they've, they've clearly neglected to account for certain things, that's, that's what that supplemental process is for us.

You know, we're we're there to demonstrate and document those things, so that, you know, your team can go out and talk more roofs and help more people. But better to have somebody out there promptly writing a check, extending coverage for you and your in your house and your property, and then iron out some of those smaller details on the back end than to wait until you know everything is set in stone.

Everything's in place because, I mean, as you said this, this insurance process is not getting faster. Insurance companies are happy to write these checks as slowly as possible. And so if you're able to capture it in that moment of, you know, there's a catastrophe here, then that's only going to assist with the claims process moving along quickly. And, you know, the checks coming faster.

And so that's what that's what I would recommend so quickly. So when you say like, I just want to talk in some lingo that customers sometimes are in the roofing space. We talk our lingo and people, you know, extend coverage like admit there is damage like that.

Some of these companies are there's blatant, obvious damage. And they're they're acting like there's zero damage.

Where, like you said, if they open coverage or they say, yes, there is some hail damage here and they may we may not agree. There may be more than they want to admit, but that at least gets the ball rolling. You know, also, you know, there's different policies. Some is shorter. If you only have six months, some you have up to two years to file that claim, you know, and I guess, I guess let's kind of talk about like, you know, so the door knocking is still a part of our marketing, our lead generation, as companies.

And, and I hate when people all are like, oh, every door knocker is a scam. They're just, you know, they're trying to rip you off. And yes, it's it's kind of like everything in life, there's bad cops. There's good cops, right? There's bad contractors, there's good contractors, like good doctors, bad doctors, you know, so, you know, what kind of, as a homeowner and, you know, the nice thing about smart phones these days is they date and time stamp every picture now, so.

Right. You know, you are correct. You know, a ring camera showing the hail hitting or pictures, you know, so that that is beneficial. But what what should the homeowner expect. Because here's what I always tell homeowners, because there's still that perception that they've got to get three estimates for insurance. And I say, no, actually you don't. You can pick a contractor.

But I said, well, I always try to recommend is go meet with 2 or 3 contractors and pick which one you think is going to represent you the best. Because I always put it is like, if you're picking a lawyer to go fight a claim in a case in court like you, you don't want somebody saying, you have to use this guy over here, right?

And the nice thing about insurance work is you pay your deductible if it's a good policy. So it's the same cost to hire a preferred or recommended or a professional contractor than it is, right? Somebody with no credentials, credentials or somebody from out of state. So what should homeowners look for when it comes to a contractor coming out that first time?

Man, that's a really good question. I mean, I think even just their their promptness and their professionalism is always going to speak to, you know, what's going on behind the scenes. Are they are they communicating with you? Are they articulating this especially when we're talking about an insurance claim. Are they are they familiar with, you know, what insurance claims processes are like?

You know, do they do they know what happened ten years ago and then do they know what's happening today? You know, so obviously those are some of the things that you can see right off the rip. But you're absolutely right. You know, people, if I were to file a claim, I wouldn't want just oh, who's the cheapest person that can do my roof for me?

I would want it to be put back the right way. I would want to make sure that this company isn't going to go away in three years. When my workmanship warranty all of a sudden reveals I need to start looking into it because I'm getting leaks. You know, I think you even mentioned before that you've been out to that area and had to redo several roofs because of workmanship issues because, you know, whether it's somebody who knows there's a really bad storm in the area and they've driven in from Texas or otherwise, you know, knowing that somebody is reputable, they have good reviews, they are local. Those are all going to go a long way. And then obviously, you know, do I have a good relationship with them?

Could I ask them any questions that I need? And of course, as I've already mentioned, are they are they actually going to respond to me? Are they going to meet me out of my property when they say they are? So I mean, and that's probably true about most industries, but but I think especially in the roofing industry, you're going to have a lot of people who aren't going to show up.

You're going to have a lot of people who are happy to pack up their business and sprint to the next town because there's a tornado, and then guess what? They're going to keep running. They're not going to still be there ten years down the road.

I don't know if that helps. Yeah. Like one thing that we do, we use an app right now currently is called Company Cam.

Or what's really nice with it. So, you know, when we're working with you guys on a claim, we help the homeowner, we get the what we call scope of work insurance estimate for what a homeowner considers it. And we send that over to you guys with our company, Cam link and our company cam. I mean, we we do a thorough inspection when it comes to, you know, an exterior, inspection.

And even if somebody calls and wants a run of gutters done, just as like, hey, I want to pay out of pocket for a run running gutters because, believe it or not, how many insurance claims have started by I just want to run a gutters is ugly. Yeah. Hey, you got hail damage on your goddess. Wait a second.

Do you mind me? Check out your roof. You got hail damage on your roof, and then I get a $20,000 makeover for $1,500 deductible or whatever it is. You know, so one thing we do. Company cam. Just because that dates and timestamps like what we're finding and it's actually even super beneficial if you call us right now, this week, next week and we look at stuff, everything's fine.

And then next summer you get a leak and then we go back and now we see hail damage. Well, you've had hail since the last time we were out here. And we got a date of when we were here before, you know, that's that can be really beneficial. Yeah. And, you know, for homeowners, a very brief story about the reason why that's important.

And this, this was just last week that this occurred.

I've been working with a homeowner. The insurance company originally came out and denied the claim. And this is out in Virginia. We demonstrated through, you know, using that same app, you know, hey, here's pictures and evidence showing that this property was actually damaged. They sent out another inspector and they said, you know what?

There is damage. And we're going to write this for, you know, this March, because there was a storm then and sorry, it was May. And our pictures of damage showed that this had occurred before that we had taken pictures on in April, the policy that was in effect, for the storm date of May had a $10,000 deductible for this homeowner.

And because we had timestamped photos and documentation to prove the fact that the storm had occurred before then, they're deductible. Just was again last week, shifted from a $10,000 deductible down to a $1,000 deductible. And so that's $9,000 that would have been out of pocket for this homeowner if we didn't have timestamped photos, if we weren't using, you know, up to date technology and hacks.

And I think that's absolutely right. So even even down to that, what what is what are the resources that your roofing company is using? Are they documenting this property as if it were your own, as if as if they cared about and were invested in the claim process for you?

Well, and another another quick story I had, I was working some claims in Columbus and, and this little cul de sac area and two brothers lived beside each other.

And it was so funny because the one called in late, it was like, I'm leaving tomorrow at 1130 for vacation for, you know, it was a cruise. I'm going to be gone ten days. If you can't get here before then, I'll call somebody else. Got down there, worked with him. The guy's like, I don't want nobody here when I'm going on vacation.

When I get back, we'll deal with it. And like, that's what he said in the beginning. I said, that's fine, sir, let me go look to see what I find. Well, but before I, before I get off the the roof, I had said I'm like, hey, I'm finding hail damage. So he calls his adjuster, calls me before I'm even off the roof and says, hey, I want to meet out there Thursday.

I was like, he don't want anybody here. He goes, oh no, no, he said he trust you. He said, I can share all the information that I have with you and, go over to his brother's house. His brother, literally the storm literally happened on like a Thursday, Friday at midnight. His policy expired with one big carrier and it was picked up by a different big carrier, you know, at 1201 Saturday morning.

And, you know, that guy was nervous. He's like, who do I follow the claim against? And I was like, you follow the guidance when it happen. Yeah. So he goes, they're not going to pay. And I was like, they legally have to pay. Like you had legit coverage, right? I get it. Auto is different. Like you can't if you have a if you have a wreck tomorrow then that's the insurance company.

If you had a different insurance company three days before that, you know. But that is one thing that, you know, that's that's pretty cool that that, you know, that picture, you know, saved that customer $9,000. You know, I mean, to us, it just saves us a lot of time. And, you know, it just makes it's a smoother process.

You know here inside Hole Roofing we talk about customer experience. So like how can we make this the most the easiest for customers. Now unfortunately when you're dealing with insurance companies there's only so much we can do you know. So it's different if we've just got to show up, put a roof on your house and leave. But, you know, dealing with with insurance comes with insurance, you know.

So and a brief point. Yeah, exactly what he's saying.

The clients that we work with, which would be our roofing and this other client down in Virginia, they're the types of companies that. And he didn't pay me to say this are going to fight for, you know, and this this was a process that took weeks and weeks, months and months to get this deductible changed.

And what does that change about the money that that contractor is getting? Absolutely nothing. You know, at the end of the day, the deductible is the out-of-pocket cost that the homeowners responsible to pay or the co-pay, as some people refer to it. And the reason that we pursued that was because it was the right thing to do, not because it was an opportunity for us to pocket 9000 more dollars, but because that's what was right for the homeowner to be restored in the way that they should have been.

And the same thing would be true about your guys's company, I know that, I mean, it's just a once in a million type of a circumstance. But, you know, so I think, I think that's another maybe even going backwards. What do you want to look for in a company? And maybe you can't see those things, but there's a clear vested interest in that from that company that you are made whole after a storm event.

And, and they're willing to go to bat for you towards that insurance company when, when they're not playing fair, which is, as you said, more and more, they're they're not they're not wanting to play fair because they found out that they can make more money if they don't play fair. And if they don't write checks, there's more money in their bank's accounts.

Who would have guessed?

I mean, ten years ago, I remember meeting with State Farm adjusters, and they had a checkbook and they could literally print them out or print it out. Not write a check, but print it out. Yeah. I mean, as a sales guy like that shortened the sales cycle because we weren't waiting on paperwork and waiting on a check to mail.

I mean, the customer was already there because the adjuster was at their house, and then we could get their job done quicker. And, you know, so, but actually I ran into one I think it was last year and he still had a printer, still had a print. Couldn't believe it. 

But another thing I wanted to step, the step back on was when you said they're deploying.

So, I think, some other points they might have to maybe cover with or with homeowners is there's, there's really three different types of inspectors that come out, when there is storm damage. One is what we call a staff adjuster. That means their insurance adjuster for State Farm for Indiana farmers, for Indiana Farm Bureau. What? Every company, most every company has their own staff adjusters.

And then they have what they call independent adjusters. And they can show up and inspect your house and be representing State Farm. And then their next appointment, they may be representing Erie or travelers or something. You know, they're independent. And then unfortunately, here lately they're starting to subcontract some of this out to 16 year old boys that don't even know what a roof is now.

I mean, there's there's a few companies out there that they are, you know, a third party that get up there, they're supposed to document it. Sometimes I literally wonder if they literally have any kind of training. But what? Let's speak a little bit onto what is the homeowner's rights with a policy. And, you know, unfortunately, some of them third party companies have a bad rap of not documented properly, not submitting it in where it's like, where does a homeowner have when it's like, okay, can I request a staff adjuster or anything like that due to, you know, how does the policy protect the homeowner?

Yeah. So I mean, as an insurance policy, it might not clearly say, okay, these are the types of people that can come out to your property and represent you. I mean, at the end of the day, the insurance company probably has some rights to send whoever they want out to the property. 

However, as a homeowner, you guys absolutely have the right to request another inspection, request an inspection with an adjuster who's on staff and typically as an A.

As a side note, those staff adjusters have been there for five, ten, 20, 50 years, you know, and those are the people that have been there in the glory days where where things were easy. And B didn't just come from working at McDonald's flipping burgers where, you know, they've got their rulebook, and their rulebook says that you can't approve X, Y, or Z, and they have no idea that there are always extenuating circumstances, always reasons for why this rule book is not a god or or something that they have to follow every single time.

And that's because every single homeowner is different. Every single policy is different. Every single home is different. You know the amount of homeowners that have been through there, you know, we've got 100 plus year old homes in what where I'm from in Ohio and I'm sure around here as well. And those are just a whole different animal to tackle than something that was built 15, 20 years ago.

And so all of these things come into play, and this rulebook quickly becomes obsolete as something that's just not helpful. And so the same thing is true, especially when you're dealing with an unreasonable adjuster who comes out, whether they're an independent or whether it's a person that, to us at least looks like they literally were just sent out there to not mark up anything, not inspect anything, and say no damage.

And of course, we might be a little skeptical as the contractors that are trying to make sure these things are moving quickly. But I mean, you know, you see it enough times and you see you see all of the evidences and you can only help wonder. But okay, I don't even know if they've been trained to document damage.

I don't know if they've ever had a class to identify what storm damages. They haven't even inspected anything on the ground level. They got right up on the roof. They didn't ask the homeowner if there were any leaks inside their house. You know, if they're not doing these things, if they're not looking at the property comprehensively, which is, I think another another point that I brought up earlier about a good contractor, then maybe you can make the same assumptions.

This is not a good adjuster, you know, in the same way that you might be skeptical about a roofing company that comes out looks at the roof, doesn't document anything at the ground level, doesn't ask you if you have any interior damage or things like that. That's only going to give you a good window into, okay, this guy doesn't necessarily know what he's doing or isn't going to do a thorough job.

And so then when if it comes back as a denial, yeah, that's exactly what happened. They they they weren't thorough with their inspection. And so sometimes it's best to just let them do their thing. And then as soon as they're done, highlight all the ways that they've messed up or highlight all the things that they've forgotten and request another adjuster out there and maybe specifically, if possible, a staff adjuster who's actually an employee at State Farm or an employee at Allstate or whoever, whoever writes your policy who's actually been there, done that, gone through training and and let's hope for the best that this next person that comes out is going to review your property, evaluate the damages more thoroughly and comprehensively than the first guy.

Well, and what one that reminds me, or one that pops up in my mind was we had a tornado damage house, and I believe we felt we dealt with 5 or 6 adjusters. And that is funny with what you said, because the last one ended up being a lady that grew up in Richmond, and she had been with them for like 30 years.

So she ended up closing it out. And it was it was so funny because I met out there with the father in law of the husband, because he was semi-retired and, you know, the wife worked a lot. And it just and I'm never intimidated by like when, when a parent wants to kind of like, just make sure that the contractor knows what's going on.

This because, like, we're legit. We're not we're not trying to be sneaky or sneaky. I think it was actually kind of funny because we had a little disagreement with the insurance company. On the countertops. So flooring ran underneath the kitchen cabinets and they said, well, just take the countertops off, remove the kitchen cabinets, take the flooring out, then put the kitchen cabinets back in, the countertops back.

It's like, okay, the countertops are glued on there, right? Well this this particular customers, the the father in law kind of thought I was getting greedy by saying they needed new countertops. So he found a guy that that said he could remove them. I said, okay, I just want to meet him out there and I just said, okay, I just need an estimate.

But in your estimate, I need you to write that you're reliable for the countertops, right. And the cabinets in the case that they in case they don't fall part. He goes, I can't do that. So then the father in law was like, okay, I understand what you're saying. Well, it's funny because when that sixth adjuster, I think it was six, she showed up, the father in law was there, and she's like, hi, I'm so-and-so.

I'll be the claim rep through the rest of this. And he laughed because it got to the point where he was annoyed with it. Yeah. And, she's like, well, what what's that about is like, man, no disrespect, but you're the sixth one we've heard this from, you know. So that is the only that's the only bad thing about when I do send the catastrophic people in because they are only in town for a period of time.

I understand what you say. They're what we call a little looser with the checkbooks. Maybe, more willing. Willing to pay claims, get them closed out, you know, that kind of stuff. So, I mean, it's it's it's more challenging now, unfortunately. But honestly, if I say this out loud, maybe I shouldn't. It's it kind of weeds out the guys that didn't know what the hell they were doing that just luckily would get adjusters to be like, oh yeah, I'll pay for a new roof and gutters on that house where it's like, you know, and you know, we're and that's why our, our process is so thorough.

That's why even on a normal inspection, we try to take a lot of pictures. And I don't want customers to think that we're trying to sell them on something they don't need. It's just let's have this as a record, you know, let's make sure there's nothing. Or we always try to talk to the husband and wife because it's always funny.

The husband's got his idea of what needs done right away, and the wife is usually a little different. Or, hey, did you tell them about the leak that we've been having over here? Oh, I forgot that. That's a no. That's in it's in your closet. I never go in there or whatever that is. So, you know, and and that's why we've teamed up with you guys.

Like, I was just telling the sales team, like I think I use for other supplementing companies before I found you guys. And it's, it's nice because as a company, we're only as strong as our team. But as a construction company, there's kind of that other level of like, okay, our vendors, if it's supplier or supplementing vendors or, you know, our crews like that can make us look really good or really dumb, like with that particular tornado damage.

House. Very fortunate. The representative with you guys that was, he drove over here from his house from Cedarville and came to the office. He threw a whole roofing shirt on, so they just had no idea that he was a supplement. But like, it was that meant a lot to me as a contractor is like, okay, like, these guys do a really good job supplementing for us.

A but B they're willing to do the little stuff like that because, you know, which doesn't sound so little. But yeah, right, right. But like at the end of the day it's like okay. And you know that just kind of helped. I mean, I don't want to say numbers, but we doubled what the initial offer was from the State Farm.

I'll, I'll blast them, to get this house back to. Yeah. Preexisting, you know, and that's another word that we talk a lot about in our world is like, how do we get it back to preexisting as good or better than the preexisting condition where they're like, oh, just replace one side of siding, even though it's not even remotely close?

Yeah. And color and, you know, unfortunately for Indiana, we don't have the matching laws as good as Ohio does, you know? But for what it's worth,

if you happen to be in the state of Ohio, it's not. Get it? Well, I mean, this is not a good thing, but those laws, whether whether it's case law that's that's come out, interpreting that or otherwise, it's just even though the state says that, you know, and the official terminology is that the, the repairs need to be a reasonably comparable appearance, aka it needs to look the way it looked before.

And, you know, if the house was uniform before, it should look uniform when we're all done. You know, insurance companies are kind of finding a little ways to claw into that and make it not so black and white that I, you know, anybody that reads that should read that and say, oh, so you're saying if it doesn't match, it should be written to match.

And then, lo and behold, insurance companies have found a way to say, well, when they say it should match, what they really mean is it shouldn't kind of maybe match. And that's why we're not going to pay to match. And so

we're getting we're getting to be where we're in your boat and we're, we're dealing with difficult adjusters who like to give us a run for our money.

And so we had we had a adjuster one time, we were in Brookville and, I know I really shouldn't bash some companies, but, I don't really care. It was an all state claim, brand new rep. He's like, hey, this guy's got two missing shingles. I said, dude, it's all state. You can't even get them to pay for the shingles missing, let alone anything else.

He's like, nope. He goes, the homeowner told me, the adjuster says that if I don't find anything that's matching, he'll pay for a new roof. And I'm like, dude, is Allstate? No. Like, don't waste your time. So he grabbed a couple shingles. He went down, took some pictures. I told him how to take the pictures and he just he adjuster was from Ohio.

Oh, well, he thought Indiana was matching. He approved the new rules. Wow. So I took the that I was like, okay, so let me read. Yeah. Let me retract what I said. Always do what we can for the customer. And I wanted him to help the customer as much as possible. But he was brand new and I was and I mean, he was like, yes, I want to get this one bought.

And I'm like. And he had never dealt with Allstate. Oh my God. And I was just like, and I'm like, man, I don't want you to get deflated when you get when this doesn't ever happen. I'll say, you know, and then literally, the funny part is the guy works for Owens Corning and we put a metal roof on his house.

Didn't even want shingles, didn't even want shingles. So they tease him at the plant. They call Mr. Metal or something like that because he got a metal roof put on his house. But, you know, and, you know, and but on a serious note, like, I really do want the guys to do as much as I can to help the customer, because sometimes like that, the insurance company will approve it.

Now, with what I have heard on Indiana's like, we can't argue like the reasonable appearance thing because, you know, if it devalues the property. Yes. And then they do owe more than just one shingle. Yeah. And it's something that you already hit on a little bit. You know what? How was this house before this process started? You know, did you have a checkerboard roof?

Okay. Well, then why would an insurance company approve anything other than, you know, putting back a checkered, checkerboard roof back back up there?

But what about the case when, you know, you had a uniform appearance, when any realtor or a property appraiser is going to tell you that a roof that looks all quilted up there, or checkerboard, it is going to be a lot less valuable than a house that doesn't have that.

You know, if you're comparing two side by side. So, you know, there's there's a value of your property that's that's worth considering and important to consider. And then as I said, you know what was there before the storm, you know, are we are we talking about a situation where they had a uniform roof at the beginning of this process?

And when it's all said and done, when all the storm damage has been restored, it needs to be done not only in a manner that's, in accordance with what the codes require. Also, it needs to be done in a manner that's going to bring the property back to the way it was before. And so that can play into when, when the shingles are matching perfectly and when they're not.

But it's also things like what happens when I take off a shingle, what happens to all the surrounding shingles, you know, if you have a really old roof, are we causing damage to those things? You know, even the most careful using tweezers to pull out the nails, if that's even possible, right. These, these other shingles because you have to manually break the seals, then you have to pry under them because they're installed from bottom to top.

You have to pry under them and lift out the nails from the shingles above and surrounding it. And that means all these seals have to be broken. All these shingle tabs that have maybe been on there ten, 20, even 30 years are getting manipulated substantially just to get these nails out to slide one shingle out. So even when there's only one shingle damage that looks like, oh, that's just a repair that's not even worth going, going out calling anybody to do.

You know, you could be causing damage to these surrounding things. And if you're not documenting that, you know, you might file a claim after the fact because you've realized, wow, now my roof is leaking even worse than it was before. I didn't take pictures because I didn't think I needed to when at the beginning of this process, if we had filed a claim initially, we could show all of those consequential damages that are occurring.

And I can even account for, you know, the nails that are tarping in that, that roof, you know, all those all those shingles are nailed through and would have to be replaced as well.

And so there's just a few things I know I'm kind of running on several different tangents, but that's like why you're on that. Let's talk quick about a repair or a patch.

Because here's some scenarios we've seen where, you know, well, my dad, he roofed his house 30 years ago, and he's got an extra bundle of shingles that are green and their shingles are blue, and they run up there and he tacks it up there to keep the water coming in, because he's got three grandkids in that house.

Like where really they should get a tarp put up there. And if they're going to call insurance, because sometimes insurance will show up and we'll consider that a temporary repair, they'll be like, well, you you fix that. And or if five years ago they put green shingles on a blue roof, then it's kind of it defeats it's harder for us to come in and help them.

Fine. Because then now they did have a checkerboard the right roof before then. So but another thing is and I'm kind of busting contractor's chops here, only put a tarp on what needs tarp to like if there's five shingles missing, put a five by three tarp on it. Don't put a 30 by 40 tarp over half the roof, because then you put holes in all that kind of stuff too.

So I guess when you're looking at it for a contractor, like, let's make sure you kind of evaluate that also, just so that that helps you because it is your responsibility to minimize damage as the policyholder. Yes. However, don't shoot yourself in the foot per se with a mismatch, you know, shingle up there. And that's a really good point.

And this is like if you're only going to take one thing away from this, maybe this isn't the one thing, but this this should be one of the things that you take away from this as as a homeowner, you guys are responsible for mitigating future damages, you know? So if if a whole chunk of your roof is blown off, or if a tree branch punctures through one of your windows and you let that sit and you call in the claim, and then two days later, a massive rainstorm, rainstorm, monsoon comes through and saturates your carpet and damages all the floorboards and you did nothing to mitigate those damages.

Now, you might have put a tarp in and then the wind storm blew that up. There's reasonable repairs, right? And then there's unreasonable repairs where you didn't do anything at that point. The insurance company does have a legitimate right to say, well, you didn't you didn't do anything to protect your property once this storm came through. So that's another reason tying back to all the way back at the beginning.

What's something you can do? File your claim promptly, but then also get get a reputable contractor out there who can tarp it in a in a reasonable way. Right? Which isn't way too big, but also isn't way too small that the roof is still going to leak in the first place. You know that it needs to be secured.

It needs to hold up, it needs to last. But it doesn't need to be the full roof. When you've got two shingles missing here, you know. So so you said tree. That's another question that I feel like we get a lot to ask as a contractor. And we're not going to talk a bunch of policy. There's a bunch of different policies out there.

But what kind of if the tree falls on the house, then insurance is responsible to get the tree off the house. But if the tree does falls out in the yard and doesn't hit any fence or garage or house, it doesn't fall back on the insurance company, is that correct? Yeah. And we don't deal to like, you know, I'm getting called when a property is damaged.

So I'm not usually getting a call when we're dealing with a tree that's just fallen on the property. Unrelated, but usually the turning point. And of course every policy is different, but I can at least speak to my policy. My policy would be such that if a tree fell on my property and even just nicked a part of my damage, a part of my property, I can file a claim and they can help mitigate some of those damages.

But if the if the tree is falling in such a way that it's not damaging anything, then usually an insurance company doesn't have any contractual or policy based reason to get involved. And normally there's also normally a tree limit is normally a policy. Sorry. All of a sudden my throat got real dry, but there's usually a tree limit.

Also where, you know, I'm just thinking my wife's aunt, they had a tree fall and hit a garage. And, you know, that worked to her advantage because she had a new siding and, you know, a new roof on her garage and everything. But, looking back at it, you know, the tree fell, you know, and hit that.

So, and then another something else that I kind of thought of is like, with Google, with all the technology is really, really, really good. Sometimes it's not so good. Like, now they can get on Google Earth and see that they took a aerial shot of your house six years ago, and they're missing shingles in the right.

You can't call in a claim and say, you know, one thing we always look for are the nails rusted? Single blows off. Now there's exposed nails. If they're rusted. That's been a while. Yeah. Can't really get away with telling the adjuster that blew off last week. You know another thing that I guess a lot of homeowners don't maybe understand is like, they owe for that one time that it happened.

And wind damage can get a little in the gray area because most of the time, if you have 15 missing shingles, they probably all didn't blow off right at that one time. That kind of depends on the adjuster. They want to be nice. Do they want to be fair? You know, you know, and also maybe depends a little bit on how long you've been with that company.

Yes. You know, if you've been a member for ten, 15, 20 years, usually that means that it's a somewhat decent company or you just never filed a claim. But sometimes those adjusters, I've heard them say, you know, you've been a member here for ten years. You know, maybe this all didn't happen in this most recent windstorm, but you were under our coverage during that whole time.

So we're just going to kind of attribute them all to this claim. But again, that kind of falls back to this is this is a nice adjuster, a reasonable adjuster, maybe a staff adjuster, right. Maybe not a ladder assist adjuster or documenter. Well, and and you know, that's another another reason I trained my sales guys. Go be nicer to adjuster meeting like, you know, and it's so funny because, Chris, my current sales manager, I'll never forget we had two adjuster meetings back to back.

Like one day we had one, next day we had another one. And maybe it was the same day. The first one I remember was was State Farm. It was a hail damage claim. And that guy, it was a 7 or $8000. Okay. And I swear we spent an hour and a half out there. I mean, he documented everything, you know, and I mean, the roof was dry, 25 years old.

I mean, he was documented. There was plenty of hail damage, but then he was documenting this nail pop over here, and then this mail pop over here. We get it done, they approve it. Perfect. We got to the next one. It's probably a $25,000 roof. Okay, it's got what we call a discontinued shingle, which they don't make the shingle anymore.

And this particular one, they don't make it even anything. It looks remotely like it. So it's an easier one for us. If the file the guy gets out, he goes, if you hold the ladder, I'm going to take the guy, climb up the ladder. Now, this is a total different insurance company. He climbs up the ladder, takes a couple pictures, from there, climbs back the ladder, says if you'll carry it to the other side of the house.

He's like, I'll do the same way. We weren't there for five minutes and he he approved the $25,000 roof. So like, you know, I tell the guys is sometimes is just kind of playing their game just yeah roll with kind of things, you know and and go from there. So as we wrap this up, thank you for your time.

Is there any, anything that you feel like we kind of missed here? Because I want to give a shout out for a second. Like, I really want this to be beneficial to our homeowners, to our potential clients, to our current clients. But also, like if and I, I've got some I know, some rough other roofing contractors watch this like and you know, get with somebody give them if you need some supplementing because you guys, this isn't a paid ad.

This is like legit like, you guys are awesome. Always good to work with, you know? Thank you. Communicate. Well, like I've always said, this contractors suck in the fact that they don't show up when they say they're going to. They don't do what they say they're going to, and then they don't answer their phones. And what I respect and appreciate about you guys is, I know if the adjuster is not responding, the adjuster is going to get an email once a week.

Hey, checking in on their settlement. Yeah. You know, so that's that is beneficial to us. But it's really beneficial to our client. Yeah. Yeah. You can just picture our, our supplementing team as if we're just a bunch of guys dressed up as like elves and orcs playing Dungeons and Dragons. But instead of playing the game, we're actually all just calling adjusters, and we're doing all the nerdy stuff that the that the contractors don't have time to do or don't want to do, you know, and that's being good at communicating.

But that doesn't mean that I'd be very good at hammering, shingles up on your roof. So you've got the right people in the right places. And, yeah, we have a similar heart that you guys do. And, the clients that that we have, we're all, as I see it, unified in this, you know, these homeowners out there, you know, our a lot of them have never filed a claim before, or at least, claim for themselves.

You know, they're they're getting thrown into what is a really messy industry. They're getting thrown into adjusters who have a lot of like, you know, argumentative baggage contractors who depending on the contractor who are going out there with a shouting match towards these adjusters. And, you know, there's a lot of opportunity for greed from contractors. There's a lot of opportunity for insurance companies to do the exact same thing and be greedy with not paying out on claims that they really should be.

And so, you know, the things that I love most about my job is, I guess what I'll end with, as is being able to see something specifically for a homeowner. Again, it was like that $10,000 deductible that was reversed to a $1,000 deductible the other week, knowing that that homeowner is being taken care of in that way because of the work that I was putting in and the work that I was doing and and the documentation and the professionalism of that contractor goes a long way, even if even if that doesn't affect my paycheck that week, knowing that, you know, these people are being taken care of.

And at the same time, you know, obviously we as a company are able to put dinner on our kids plates. And so that's yeah, we love what we do. We love taking care of our homeowners. And we have the people that the people with whom we work. We've chosen those people, or they've chosen us because we align in those values to want to do the right thing for the homeowner, want to take care of them, want to walk them through or shepherd them through the claims process as confidently as we can, as intelligently as we can, and as you know, affirmation only as we can.

And by that I mean, like, this is what you guys deserve here, or this is what you should be getting. And even though you're not, we're going to work as much as we can to get you to that end point. Even if part of us working towards that is saying, hey, we're dealing with a really unscrupulous adjuster, we're dealing with a really unreasonable adjuster, we're dealing with a really lazy adjuster, you know, whatever it might be, they might just take six months to get back to us.

But that's totally unacceptable in the same way that it's unacceptable for them to, you know, say that we're not going to pay for these things even if they're damaged by this storm or something along those lines. So I don't know if that answers the question. I'm rambling, that's for sure. No, I appreciate you. Thank you Joe. Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me out.

I appreciate your time here.