Hi everybody! This is Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing with today's weekly
Colorado Springs roofing scam alert. Got a pretty interesting one this time and it
does not involve a roofer it actually involves an insurance company adjuster.
So here's what happened. We have a customer who has been with us for quite
some time who called in an insurance claim for hail damage and actually
violated the one rule don't ever call your insurance company first but they
called the insurance company and said hey we had hail out here could you
please send someone out here to inspect the roof. What they should have done was
called us first have us inspect the roof to tell them whether or not there was
hail damage and they needed to file a claim. When you call the insurance
company and ask them to send somebody out to inspect your roof you have
actually filed a claim and they're sending an insurance adjuster out to
verify the damage. So what happened was the insurance adjuster came out and said
yep your roof is totalled. Very large roof part of it has metal the rest of it is
all impact resistant shingles so very expensive job however the homeowner has
a deductible of almost $12,000 so that's the homeowners share in the cost they
would have to come up with out-of-pocket $12,000. So then they
called me out they said well we need a new roof could you come out and they
asked me to look at the roof and give my opinion. Got up there guess what I found
two hail bruises on the entire roof...two! So here's why that happened. Their
particular insurance company along with a lot of the other ones in town use
subcontractors to come out and do the adjustment of loss. Well the
subcontractors for this particular company if they come out and there's no
damage and they have to deny the claim they get paid a flat fee $65 or $100
something pretty minimal like that. If they accept the claim and write it as a
loss then they it paid a percentage of the loss amount.
Well this is a very big roof and so there the adjuster stood to make quite a
bit of money on this one so he said that it was a total loss said he took lots of
photos that's the other thing a lot of these adjusters subcontractor adjusters
have a stock of photos and so they'll go through and they'll just find photos
that match the shingles that are on the roof that they're inspecting. So this
adjuster stood to make quite a bit of money as a commission for this
roof. Not taking into consideration the fact that the homeowner also had quite a
bit of stake in this a lot of skin in the game in his 12,000 dollar deductible.
So they called the insurance company insurance company decided to send out a
second adjuster to validate either my findings or the first adjusters findings.
That adjuster called me to schedule a time to meet at the roof fortunately it
was an adjuster that I know and trust told him what was going on and his
comment was well that first adjuster probably just got big dollar signs in
his eyes. Talked to the customer today and she told
me that the adjuster was out yesterday and said that there was no damage he
agreed with me 100% that there was no need to replace the room. That is
definitely something to watch out for not every adjuster that visits your
house has your interest at heart I hate to break that to you but that's the way
that it is. What should you do? Always call a roofing contractor that you trust
if you don't know one personally ask for referrals from your friends your family
neighbors make sure that it's somebody that has actually done work for that
person though not just somebody that's gone around the neighborhood knocking on
doors because those are not the most trustworthy people. Anyway if you've got
any questions about your roof whether or not maybe you've got hail damage give us
a call our office phone number is right here 719.433.6991
you can also visit our website we've got a ton of information
out there and other videos that are designed to help you through this whole
process that web address right down here HomesteadRoofingColorado.com
otherwise my name is Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing we'll see you on
our next Colorado Springs roofing scam alert.