Fire losses are among the most devastating claims adjusted.
Damages are evident with a large loss fire, usually what’s called a total loss. However, smaller fire losses aren’t so obvious. Most people notice only the room that burned up and a couple of adjacent rooms that have lingering effects of the fire. What usually goes unnoticed is where the smoke traveled inside the house. Smoke travels into the air handler and spreads through every vent and duct throughout the house, leaving soot on contents, walls, ceilings and floors and even trapped within the walls themselves. Sometimes you can see it. Most of the time you don’t.
When you can go back in, after the investigation is finished
A fire loss isn’t like a water loss. Nothing is still happening and there’s no list of things to run around doing. The property is under investigation by the fire department, and possibly the police department. Until those are finished, you’re not permitted back inside the house.
Your insurance company may also send its own cause and origin inspector if it decides one is needed. That’s a normal part of a fire claim, and the claim generally doesn’t move forward until that process is complete.
What you need to do and what you can expect
- Get somewhere to live, and do it now. This is the one thing that’s genuinely urgent, and it’s generally covered — see below.
- Get the fire report, also called a Cause and Origin report, as soon as it’s issued. Your insurance company will want it before it moves on payment. Ask the fire department what the process is and when it will be available.
- Your insurance company may produce its own Cause and Origin report. Usually more detailed than the fire department’s, and a normal part of a fire claim.
- Expect the investigation to take time. The fire department first, possibly the police, possibly a cause and origin inspector for your insurance company. None of that’s unusual.
Soot and smoke damages
Smoke travels through the ductwork. Soot ends up in rooms the fire never reached.
After a fire, people are focused on the rooms that obviously burned. What they aren’t thinking about is that the smoke went into the return, through the air conditioning system, and back out into the rest of the house — leaving fine black particles of soot on contents, clothing, flooring, walls and ceilings in rooms that were never touched by flames.
Sometimes the particles are so small you wouldn’t know they were there. Unless you know what you’re looking for, you won’t see it. And there are losses where the smoke is obvious but the soot it left behind isn’t.
Soot is a known human carcinogen, and it’s settling on clothing, on bedding, and on the surfaces of a house people are about to move back into. It needs to be identified and addressed immediately.
“Soot is a byproduct of the incomplete burning of organic (carbon-containing) materials, such as wood, fuel oil, plastics, and household refuse.”
The fine powder can contain arsenic, cadmium and chromium. People are exposed by inhalation, by ingestion, and through the skin. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies soot as carcinogenic to humans, and it is listed in the U.S. National Toxicology Program’s Report on Carcinogens.
National Cancer Institute · cancer.gov · sootSo have the property inspected properly by someone who knows what soot looks like where you can’t see it — before anyone tells you the unaffected rooms are fine.
What the fire department did
The fire department is there to stop the fire and make sure everybody is safe, and it’ll do whatever that takes. Those damages generally form part of your loss.
- Saturated walls, ceilings, floors and contents.
- The doors and windows they entered through.
- The roof they opened and the walls they tore down to reach the fire.
- All of it mitigated your loss. Without the fire department there would be nothing left to save.
That isn’t separate from the fire and it isn’t something you absorb. It’s damage caused in the course of the covered loss, and it belongs in the claim.
Cleaned or replaced, and what shouldn’t be cleaned at all
- Hard surfaces outside the vicinity of the fire can usually be cleaned. Plastic, wood, metal.
- Contents located in the vicinity of the fire should be replaced. Regardless of what they’re made of.
- Clothing and soft goods come out. Bedding, linens, upholstered items.
- Mattresses and box springs especially. If there’s soot in a bedroom, the mattress is replaced, and so is everything on it — sheets, covers, pillows and the mattress protector.
- Electronics can be contaminated with soot, a carcinogen. Soot also kills circuit boards over time, and cleaning one properly costs about what the item is worth.
- Anything saturated, or hit by the fire and heavy smoke directly, is replaced. Not cleaned.
If the restoration company cleans it, whether contents or structure materials, make them show you
I have no objection to a restoration company cleaning what can be cleaned. That’s what they are there for. But it needs to be shown to you, confirm before agreeing.
When dealing with contents, if an item comes back and you can still smell smoke or soot on it, that item hasn’t been restored. You aren’t obliged to accept it, and it can go back on the claim for replacement. Say so at the time rather than living with it.
Additional Living Expenses (ALE), a limit that runs out
Most homeowners assume that whatever they spend while they’re out of their home comes back to them. It doesn’t work that way. ALE has a limit — and spreading that limit out is your best friend when you’re in a state of confusion and shock. Get into a house, and do it as early as you can. The decision people regret is staying in a hotel while they wait to see how long repairs will take.
- Move on it immediately. The limit is finite and the clock starts the night of the fire.
- Find your ALE limit on the declarations page before you make decisions about where to stay.
- On an HO-3 it sits under Coverage D, usually labeled Loss of Use.
- On a DP-3 the labels split. Coverage D is Fair Rental Value and Coverage E is Additional Living Expense.
- Keep every receipt. Lodging, meals, additional utilities, the extra mileage. Those are the costs the coverage is there for.
Total Loss?
When the insurance company agrees the dwelling is a total loss, the structure side of the claim becomes straightforward. Generally no depreciation is taken on the structure, and the deductible isn’t withheld. The carrier accepts the building as a total and pays the policy limit for it.
Where a public adjuster fits, and where one doesn’t
My personal stance is public adjusters shouldn’t handle a total loss that’s obvious, and there is a Florida Statute that protects the insured from just that:
Where the insurance company pays, or agrees in writing to pay, an amount equal to or greater than the policy limit for that part of the policy — and does it within 14 days after the date of loss, or within 10 days after a public adjusting contract is executed, whichever is later — a public adjuster may charge no more than one percent.
Florida Statutes §626.854(11)(b)3Public adjusters should never take advantage of a situation, and most homeowners are in shock at the onset of a loss like this one. If the carrier is going to hand you the limit, there’s nothing for me to recover and nothing for me to charge, and I will tell you that from the onset.
Two situations change that:
- The insurance company doesn’t total the loss when it should have. Then I’m the first phone call you should make.
- The insurance company isn’t communicating with you after the 60 days to pay or deny. Call me to get involved.
Those are the two situations where I’ll sign up a total fire loss that’s evident. Outside of those, you can still call me — I’ll give you a contract to review, but I’ll advise you not to sign it until you have heard from your insurance company and they have made an offer of payment to settle the loss.
What to look for in your policy
- Your all-other-perils deductible. How much is it?
- Your Coverage A limit on the dwelling, and Coverage B on other structures.
- Your Coverage C limit on contents, and whether it’s replacement cost or actual cash value.
- Your ALE limit, and its time limitations. Coverage D on an HO-3, Coverage E on a DP-3.
- The special limits on jewelry, firearms, silverware, cash and collectibles. Special limits.
- Law and ordinance coverage, do I have it and how much? On a serious fire the rebuild has to meet current code.
- Debris removal, and whether it has its own sublimit.
- The endorsement titled Special Provisions — Florida. It can change coverages in your policy.
- Who wrote the policy. A Florida-admitted carrier or a surplus lines carrier.
- Yearly renewals often change coverages in previous policies. Review all endorsement changes yearly.
After a fire loss: Dos and Don’ts
Dos
- Get somewhere to live, and do it now. That’s the one thing that’s genuinely urgent.
- Ask your insurance company for its housing placement company. Most carriers have one, and the arrangement I recommend is that you deal with them directly. It gets people into a property faster and it saves both you and the insurance company money.
- Find your additional living expense limit on the declarations page before you decide where to stay. The clock starts the night of the fire.
- Get the fire report, also called a Cause and Origin report, as soon as it’s issued. Your insurance company will want it before it moves on payment.
- Have the whole house inspected for smoke and soot damages, not only the rooms that burned. Soot particles can be too small to see.
- Make the restoration company show you what it cleaned. If you can still smell smoke on it, it hasn’t been restored.
- Keep every receipt. Lodging, meals, additional utilities, the extra mileage.
- Keep dated notes of what surfaces later. Smells that come back, staining that appears, electronics that stop working weeks afterwards.
Don’ts
- Don’t go into the building. Not for photographs, not for belongings, not to look. Wait until you’re told it’s safe to enter.
- Don’t sit in a hotel while you wait to see how long repairs take. Every night consumes the limit faster than anything else you could be doing.
- Don’t assume the rooms that didn’t burn are fine. The smoke went through the AC ducts and came back out through every vent in the house.
- Don’t accept an item back that still smells of smoke or soot. It can go on the claim for replacement rather than being something you live with.
- Don’t let heavily sooted electronics be cleaned and returned. Soot kills circuit boards over time, and cleaning one properly costs about what it’s worth.
- Don’t throw anything out before it’s inspected and inventoried and agreed upon by the insurance company. Damaged contents are the proof of what you owned.
- Don’t be surprised by how long the investigation takes. The fire department first, possibly the police, possibly a cause and origin inspector for your insurance company. None of that’s unusual.
This isn’t everything. Your policy carries conditions and duties that apply after a loss, and they’re yours to meet whether or not they appear here. Read your own policy in full. If something in it doesn’t make sense, call me — it’s a twenty-minute phone call about the loss, whether or not you hire me.
These are the ones specific to this kind of loss. Select the link for the Dos and Don’ts that apply to every claim.
The call that matters
If you have had a fire, call or email me. It’s a twenty-minute phone call about the loss, and I’ll tell you what should be inspected before anyone signs off on it and what the process ahead of you looks like.
You stay in control of your claim. That’s the whole point.