Let's say a storm gives you some
roof damage or brings in floodwaters.
Or maybe it even knocks
a tree onto your home.
You want to know that you're covered.
You want to know what your policy says.
Well, in case you don't
know the DOS and the don'ts,
and the Inns and the outs of insurance.
Commissioner Cosey Mike Causey
is here with us today to explain
some of those very common things,
but sometimes very complicated things.
You can text him your questions
for the next 15 minutes.
That text number is
336-379-5775 and you get your
question answered in real time.
All right, you know this is one
of those questions that we get
all the time when we get a bad
storm and it knocks out the power.
People have full refrigerators and
freezers and they're asking what
happens if I lose all of my food.
Will my insurance cover that?
Uh, no, probably not unless you have some
type of special rider. So normally no.
Normally no, so that may be
something that you need to you know,
call your insurance agent and say, hey,
do you guys even write that kind of policy?
And what does it look like?
Alright, let's now talk about
roof damage because I know I was
a victim of this not too long
ago when hail came through my
neighborhood and damaged my roof.
A lot of people ask if there
is damage to my roof.
Will insurance replace the entire thing?
Not necessarily one thing I'll do
want to mention on roof damage
if you discover roof damage,
contact your insurance agent and
meeting Italy and report it.
But be really leery of people
coming door to door offering to
repair your roof at a reduced cost.
There is so much scam going on with,
there's a there's a lot of unfortunately
crooked contractors out there.
That that go from state to
state they're storm chasers,
and they've been known to go on a
roof and actually create damage.
So you want to make sure you know
who you're dealing with when you
hire A roofing contractor and make
sure that you've reported it to
your insurance company and that
insurance adjuster has been out
and looked at the damage
right? Because that roofing company
can tell you all kinds of things,
but your adjuster is the one who's
going to say this is how much
insurance is going to cover now.
I know a lot of times folks go well.
They said that they're going
to cover part of my roof,
but the shingles aren't going to match,
and that's just kind of part of it.
Well, that's right.
It's not guaranteed that
they're going to match exactly.
The point is you want to get
your roof repaired as close
as possible to the way it was.
Alright, so let's talk about trees because
those always go down during storms.
Sometimes they go on a house,
sometimes they go in a yard.
Let's first kind of talk about
if a tree falls on your house.
Let's talk about who's responsible for it.
The homeowner of the house. Your
homeowner's policy should cover that.
And it doesn't matter where the
tree comes from, whether there's
your yard or your neighbor's yard.
If it falls on your house,
it's your homeowners policy.
That's correct, if a tree falls.
If your neighbor's tree falls on
your house, your homeowners policy
will take care of that damage.
And we had a question already.
Someone says, well, what happens
if the tree falls on your car?
That's in your garage.
Is your homeowners or is it your auto?
Say it again the the cars in the garage
and the trees. So which one pays?
Is it your homeowners or your
auto insurance? If your auto is
the one that gets damaged. The
homeowners takes care of
the damage to the structure.
The automobile policy would cover
the automobile and hopefully
you'll have comprehensive
coverage because you need that.
And for people who don't know
what comprehensive coverage is.
Well, you're only required to have automobile
liability policies in North Carolina,
so if you want to comp and collision
and comprehensive coverage,
you pay extra for that.
But it is well worth it.
And as I've said, many times before,
make sure you talk to your agent
about replacement value coverage,
both on homeowners policies
and automobile policies.
You need to have that replacement.
Guy you coverage because
if you don't have it,
you probably aren't going
to have enough money to.
Wrote to replace those items that
need to be replaced because of the
depreciation and in the case of automobile.
If you have replacement value coverage in
your automobiles two or three years old,
then your insurance company will buy
you a current year brand new vehicle.
If you have that replacement value policy.
So it's well worth the few
extra dollars a year.
But if you don't have
that replacement policy,
what may happen is your car is now.
Only worth you know $5000,
but you might owe $7000.
The insurance is still only going
to pay you $5000 for that car.
That's exactly right.
That's what you call being underwater.
You owe more than the vehicles worth,
so make sure if all possible you
get replacement value coverage.
All right replacement value coverage.
That is the definitely take
away from this first segment.
We're going to take a quick break
and we'll have more of your text
questions when we come back.