Filing an Insurance Claim

The work is almost done on the house, and we got the 2nd check from the insurance company yesterday, so we'll be able to pay our contractor for putting our house back in shape.

We never had to make an insurance claim before (Thankfully!) so it's been educational seeing how it works.  First the adjuster came out and looked at everything, took pictures, made notes, and then he submitted everything to the office.  Then they had to go over everything and determine how much they thought it should cost us to get everything on the list fixed, and they sent us a check for that amount - minus a certain amount that they held back until we actually got the work done.

In the meantime, we got quotes from several contractors and found out that the amount the insurance company said it should cost and the amount it would actually cost to get things fixed, were not the same.  And that is the contractor's job - to work with the insurance company to get to a number that they both can agree on.  So we chose a contractor, and he worked with the insurance company and got everything approved.  And this second check is the rest of the money we need to pay for the actual repairs.

Of course, we have to pay the deductible and for the windows that we chose to replace, but the insurance company is paying to repair all the damages from the tornado.  Which is why we have insurance in the first place.  We hope to never actually have to use it, but we need to have it just in case - just in case a tornado comes through!

The same goes for life insurance.  It's something we never want to actually use, and many people avoid altogether.  It's almost like we feel that just looking at individual life insurance rate quotes is inviting trouble.  We don't feel that way about other kinds of insurance, like homeowners or car insurance.  I wonder why life insurance is different?  All I know is that we don't want to use it and hope never to need it, but I feel better knowing we have it.