A major insurance company analyzed its claims data and concluded that its policy holders were 10 (TEN) times more likely to suffer water damage than fire damage. In North Carolina alone this insurance company determined that water damaged claims - excluding water damage caused by catastrophes - accounted for 28% of its property claims in the state. The insurance company - in a predictable attempt to control this info and for its own interests - went on to state that much of the damage was preventable thereby parlaying its own realized risk onto the policyholder who may not have had any reasonable expectation of control over the situation.

In response to such ongoing and unrealistic circumvention of responsibility, an independent water damage restoration company in Illinois recently decided to educate the insurance industry and created a "Flood House Laboratory" ("FHL"). The FHL was conceptualized to, and is being used to, educate insurance company adjustors, agents, and relevant personnel as to what full, proper, and customer focused water damage restoration entails and requires. The FHL is a small scale "house" that is complete with hardwood floors. The continuing education insurance company representative is required to flood the house and then physically work with a variety of tools ranging from low level and ineffective "adjustor approved" tools and techniques through professional equipment to see and experience the difference firsthand. From this experiment even the most blind adjustor was able to see, and have an appreciation for, the true level of workmanship and expertise an independent water damage restoration company has opposed to the standard, adjustor approved lapdog that under-prices and under -performs simply to appease the adjuster and get work.

The scary part of this "appreciation" is that such appreciation is something a reasonable policyholder would assume is common knowledge to their insurance company and adjuster. The policyholder is reasonable to question how their insurance company and insurance adjuster could properly and fairly assess their water damage and assign a fair and reasonable indemnification valuation to their loss if they are not properly educated in water damage restoration. Unfortunately, the policyholder soon realizes that their loss is nothing more than another burdensome claim to be unfairly and prejudicially adjusted in favor of their insurance company and in blatant disregard of their contractually bound and written policy.

This is why the policyholder must insist that their water damage claim is handled by a professional, independent water damage restoration company to ensure that their loss and subsequent indemnification claim is handled to their expectation, interest, and favor. Despite the friendly and outgoing attitude of the insurance company's dispatched adjuster, the adjuster is a double agent who, admittedly, works for or contacts with the insurance company and is there, primarily, to find any possible reason or unintentional policyholder mistake to reduce or deny the claim so that they do not have to pay. Despite this, the insurance company still, in an apparent otherworldly and sociopathic manner, fully expects the policyholder to continue making full and timely payments on their policy... the audacity of this fully excepted and enforced self serving, "nothing for something", narcissistic concept is jaw dropping.