Simply Explaining Insurance #64- Dryrot

I had a conversation with a client that wasn’t pleasant due to a denied claim. This is a battle that I will continue to fight and it is one of the main reasons I write on this blog and record podcasts and videos. My industry does a terrible job of educating our clients on how these products work.

“I have been paying my premiums for 30 years and never filed a claim.” “Why isn’t this covered”? “This is why I have insurance”. “Why do I even have insurance”? These are the conversations I have found myself in over the years and it sucks.

These policies are binary. There either is coverage or there isn’t. In my latest situation, I had a client who called me and told me he thought there was damage done to his room from ice dams 20 months ago.

You can go back and file a claim for something like that and I will ask the questions to determine if I think there will be coverage. I asked him a very important question. “Has there been any leaking”. He said there wasn’t .

He was mistaken. I am sure it genuine as well! Some of this stuff is hard to identify and locate. The fact is, his roof had been leaking for 20 months and there was dryrot that formed and that is a hard exclusion from any homeowners policy.

If he had filed the claim 19 months ago while the wood was still wet, it would’ve been covered. We covered many claims just like that. Those claims we covered, prevented the damage would’ve occurred later.

I’ve written it before and I will write it again. Neglect, faulty installation and wear and tear are excluded from insurance policies. Please contact your agent when you have any questions regarding how these policies work.