stlurbanist wrote: ↑Jun 29, 2025
My insurance broker is of the impression that insurance adjuster's timeline (1 to 2 years to move-in) after tornado seems par for the course. I am unable to digest the fact that we have to out for that long. She informed us that DBI was hired as the consultant by the insurance adjuster to estimate how much the repairs would cost. And, since not one but several buildings have been damaged at the same time is informing adjuster's timeline and delaying things.
Does anyone have experience with insurance adjuster? We are yet to hear from them after the inspection. Is anyone out in the industry that can give me a better picture? Would contacting senator or Mayor help expedite things or adversely affect the timeline?
I am unfortunately going through the same process as you at the moment - we expect to be out of our place for over a year while repairs happen. I have no previous experience with insurance companies but I'm happy to share what I have learned over the last 6 weeks...
First and foremost, I would highly recommend finding your own reputable general contractor to get bids for the entire scope of work. The cost of a general contractor should be built into the insurance claim so this won't cost you any extra money. I think the typical practice is that a general contractor will put in all the legwork to get bids for individual projects (window repairs, refinishing floors, repainting walls, etc.), but you'll need to sign a contract up front saying that they will be the general contractor for all repairs so that they get compensated for all the time they put in bidding out the projects. Any consultant hired by the insurance company to estimate costs has an incentive to keep costs low as they would like to be hired by insurance companies in the future. The insurance company is almost certainly going to give you an absurdly low number on their first offer and you will need to have real bids from subcontractors to counter their offer.
After talking with neighbors, it seems that their experiences with the insurance companies have been pretty variable, with State Farm being far and away the worst one to work with. Unfortunately I think the only thing you can do is keep emailing them every few days and asking if there are any updates. I think there are some legal timelines they have to meet, but I'm not very familiar with that part as we luckily had our claim responded to quickly. A quick google search says that they have 15-30 days to accept or deny the claim after sending an adjuster on-site and then another month or so to issue first payments after a claim has been accepted, but again I'm not an expert on any of that.
From everything I've been told it is much harder to get insurance to reimburse you for repairs after the repairs have already been done, so unfortunately you should prepare yourself for a long negotiating period with the insurance company before you come to an agreement on the scope of work / costs and you'll get to see any tangible progress on your home. It is very frustrating to feel like no progress is being made, but apparently that is the best way to handle it.
If you have any more questions I'm happy to answer them as best I can. This whole process has been quite the learning experience...
