Hurricane Hanna – Special Post Hurricane Episode
Hurricane Hanna hit and messed up my fence and roof. We meet with Attorney Michael Moore to tell us how to handle our insurance claims and the steps we should take to get our homes fixed. A can’t-miss episode if you have property damage.
About The Ef ‘N Sonny Show: McAllen attorneys Efrain Molina and Pablo “Sonny” Garza discuss a variety of topics from law to pop culture and much more. For more great episodes, visit their YouTube channel or Facebook page.
Call The Hurricane Damage Claim Lawyer At Moore Law Firm Today
If you were a victim of Hurricane Hanna storm damage, you need to call the Hurricane Hanna storm damage lawyers at Moore Law Firm today for a FAST and FREE consultation!
TRANSCRIPT OF THE EF’N SONNY SHOW SPECIAL POST HURRICANE HANNA EPISODE
Michael is that noticeable
on the light a little bit but it’s okay
oh you see now you look anglo when it
goes off
[Laughter]
hello listeners this is f molina and i
got
sonny how you doing sunny good man how
are you
oh man i i got some lucid shingles
i got a flipped over fence so
having us seeing all that like damage i
thought
we spoke and we think it’s a good idea
to bring on
the man that knows property damage knows
how to file insurance claims
michael moore who’s been doing this for
for how long michael long
time long time i’ve been in practice law
since 1991
so insurance claims you know
since at least the hail storm back in
2012.
and michael thank you so much for
joining us uh
giving this free advice to people
because right now people are are scared
they’re concerned
uh they’re just now like noticing their
their damage at their house so so thank
you for coming on and thank you for
sharing your
your 30 plus years of knowledge well no
problem no problem it’s kind of a weird
time everybody’s outside cleaning up
the debris and not knowing what’s going
on what what happened what’s going on
how much damage they have so yeah it’s
kind of
pretty pretty amazing thing who would
ever thought that the valley would have
been hit
by a hurricane you know
you know last thursday that storm looked
like it was going to go to san antonio
well that’s what that’s what you know my
wife and i were talking about we were
saying that
it kind of hit us by surprise we had i
had no idea there was a hurricane coming
until a friend of mine sent me a text
asked me what i was doing about the
hurricane on friday except
hurricane
and write down all the areas damages
that you’re seeing
out there um of course in the age of
cell phones and iphones and all kind of
good stuff takes tons of pictures
uh because down the road you know six
months a year from now
uh everything’s going to be grown or
some things are going to be fixed so
it’s going to
you know so we need to document what’s
damaged out there
make a list take photographs call your
insurance company
uh sometimes insurance companies are
going to want you to write an email
or or call your agent and sometimes it
needs to be in writing sometimes it
doesn’t just
ask your agent but call it in get a
claim number you’re going to get a claim
number
uh write that down the next thing that
they’re going to do is call you back
there’s going to be adjuster that’s
going to call you back they’re going to
introduce themselves
and kind of go through the claims
process on that notepad you’re going to
you’re going to write your list down on
stuff write down the name of the person
you’re talking to
because a lot of and write down what you
talk about just take some notes
not a big of a deal because you’re going
to want to be able to document the stuff
um what the what the adjuster is going
to do
is ask you whether or not you have any
current problems let’s say
openings in your roof or leaks whatever
and if you do
you need it you need to work on getting
um getting those
leaks either tarped or temporarily fixed
or whatever they call that mitigation
and then what they’re going to do is
they’re going to schedule a little time
for an adjuster to come out there
and look at the property and it’s good
for you to meet the adjuster there
and go through um go through what’s what
you’ve
identified but the adjusters are
professional and the adjuster should
um i mean that you need to see show them
the areas
that you have damaged it but the the
adjuster is a professional
and then they they’ll go out there and
find the rest of the damages it just
it’s also so important is keep receipts
of the stuff
um you know receipts for tarps or
temporary repairs or whatever it may be
um because that gets applied to your
deductible down the road
okay uh some people may have a thousand
our deductible another person may have a
percentage of the value of their house
uh whatever it is like what’s what’s
a deductible what is that okay
so um let’s say for example you have 10
000
damages in your house and you have a
thousand dollar deductible
the insurance company is not going to
pay the deductible they’re going to pay
the 9 000 of the 10 000 okay
um and when you bought your policy um
you made a determination at that point
what kind of deductible you wanted
sometimes the percentage of the value of
the house sometimes
it’s a fixed dollar number but whatever
that is that is your
deductible um and that’s your out of
pocket
before you get into the insurance money
so in other words you get ten thousand
dollars in damages
and the thousand are deductible the most
insurance companies can be reliable for
is the nine thousand
it’s kind of like a copay right yeah
exactly like a co-pay
i mean insurance companies you have your
co-pays and you have your deductibles
and insurance too the same sort of thing
with uh with with property damage claims
a lot of people out there just
or don’t have electricity i mean i’ve
got neighbors down the street they’re
having to go into hotel rooms
most insurance policies have a provision
there called
alternative living expense and what are
we what we call
ale and what a how ale works is that if
you go out and have to buy
if you have no electricity you have to
buy food out and you have to go
uh have a hotel keep those receipts
because you’ll get
reimbursed down the road for what they
call alternative living expense until
your home is in a in good condition and
some other people have coverages for
spoilage
uh you know all the food in your freezer
or your
uh a refrigerator whatever it is of
course you have no electricity for a
couple days it’s all gone
um and so you’re gonna uh you’re gonna
be able to claim that
if you have uh spoilage coverage uh of
course
we take pictures of what’s inside the
refrigerator because they’re gonna know
what you have in there but anyways
just for for everybody’s out there um
but uh but all your receipts for meals
and all your um
uh receipts for hotel rooms uh all that
kinds of stuff is a reimbursable part of
your claim so keep
track keep track of that it all varies
policy to policy isn’t that
true yeah that’s i mean yeah that’s
exactly right i mean most policies
have ale but that’s just the coverages
you get uh
and that’s a pretty common type of
coverage alternative living expense
uh what we had here was a hurricane and
a hurricane is considered a wind storm
and
most policies have coverage for wind
storms
but the thing is um the legislature in
2000
in 2017 they changed the law and they
made it
much more complicated um for going after
the interest company i don’t know if you
all want to talk about that but it’s
real important
um um on how to present a claim at the
end of the day
yeah how do you
present a claim so i mean at the end of
the day
what has to happen is you got to figure
out your scope of damages okay
um and um and so you’re going to want to
get us up
a second opinion on what your damages
are out there
okay not because insurance company a lot
of times what happens is they go over
there
and they’ll say oh you have two thousand
dollars in damages your deductible is
2500 bucks oh sorry see you later
ah you don’t get any money and then you
have a roofer come by or you have a
contractor phillips house and say hey
you’ve got 35 000 you know roof damage
you’ve got 10
000 dollars interior damage all this
kind of stuff so which which
which has to happen is that the
insurance companies want these estimates
done
in a specific manner it’s called the
software package of
zac mate what it does it line items all
of the different damages
and it has in there and that software
is able to do the do the estimates based
upon
local pricing of labor local pricing for
products
and it’s all itemized individually so if
the insurance company wants everything
itemized a lot of contractors don’t
use itemized statements like that
usually to say okay rufus you know x
interior y whatever it is this estimate
is all itemized so what we
uh what you need is to find a contractor
that can do an itemized statement
through xactimate
and you present that to the carrier if
the carrier doesn’t pay it then you’re
going to need to get to get
a lawyer to help to help you and under
the new law there you’ve got yours
you have to present the claim a specific
way under the texas insurance code
um the specific sessions called 540
today
and anyways so you present your
your uh you present your demand and the
carrier theoretically has
60 days to come out and reinspect the
property
um sometimes they do sometimes they
don’t it’s designed
the theoretical part is designed to get
the carrier and the homeowner back
together again
find a resolution i’m telling you in the
last
thousand claims i’ve done that never
happened it’s just
it has to happen and uh and then
after the period of time the demand
comes and goes
uh then at that point you can file a
claim i mean let’s say father claim i’m
saying
i mean to say is you can file a lawsuit
and michael
if people wanted to to call you
to to handle their claim
uh is there a certain period
of when they could call you or or uh
so i mean okay um
the the statute limitations on these
claims is generally two years
um and of course these all insurance
policies they’re all written a little
bit differently
normally it’d be two years from the date
their claim has been denied but some
policies have a provision in there
and say that they have to um file a
claim or a lawsuit i mean a claim or a
lawsuit within two years of the event
it all depends on the policy um you know
again my
point is common center we can help you
sooner we can give you a second opinion
center
um i don’t know if they got caught up on
the last segment but you know if they
call us for a second opinion
we go out there and look at it and if
there’s no damages we don’t charge
a inspection fee we don’t charge
attorneys fees or stuff like that they
get a free
second opinion the um um
if they you know if the homeowner calls
us and they want to
they want us to help them file a claim
we’ll be glad to do it for them
um and if they get whatever they get
paid up front we don’t charge a fee on
that it’s for us
getting new money for the homeowner
beyond the initial adjustment
because again if the insurance company
comes out there and does the right thing
they don’t need a lawyer okay um you
know
and that and that’s that’s the best case
scenario
um but if the interest company comes out
there and there’s a lot of damages and
and we see that there’s you know the
adjustments under the deductible
whatever it may be
that’s when they’re gonna need some help
that’s when they’re you know help
through the system and it’s just
very complicated um
when it comes to hurricane preparedness
um
i was there putting sandbags out and i
and i thought to myself
how is sunny preparing like for this
hurricane because because if there’s
anyone that’s going to be prepared for
anything it’s going to be sunny
because sunny over prepares so
i text sonny he he doesn’t text me back
like 10 15 minutes pass and then he’s
like i’m drinking to
tequila and i go but there’s a hurricane
coming
so then i realized that based on sunny’s
facebook posts it was
a national uh tequila taste testing day
was it tasted at this national tequila
day oh national tiki tequila day
so so sunny was busy uh
doing what sunny hey man you know what
that
is to me it’s more important than
columbus day
get the day off um and i did i did a
uh a four tequila tequila tasting see
so i could try to prove my wife wrong
that tequila that she likes so much
isn’t that great and on a blind testing
of four tequilas i ended up picking the
tequila that she likes the most
every single time
it was uh fun getting ready for the
hurricane we i mentioned this earlier as
the mitigation of your damages and uh i
feel like we need to talk about that a
little bit more because people don’t
know
what they’re supposed to be doing with
their a lot of people don’t know what
they’re supposed to be doing with the
damage to their home
uh we do have i mean as homeowners we
have a duty to
try and mitigate and fix the damages
at best we can while the insurance claim
is pending isn’t that true mike yeah i
mean if you’ve got a leaky roof you need
to go down to lowe’s or home depot and
go buy a blue tarp and go get somebody
to go put it put it on there okay
call your claimant and call your claim
in let them know you’ve got
you’ve got a hole in your roof um and
you want to let the carrier come look at
the roof
in an unrepaired condition so they can
see how damaged it is
i mean so you may have to spend some
money to put a good a good
tarp on there because you know uh we
don’t want more rain to come in to cause
more damage we’ve had cases where
uh the the the storm caused you know 10
000
damages but the homeowner uh
didn’t put a good tarp on and then the
next day
it rained even more and caused another
ten thousand dollars of time for ten
thousand nars and then kerry comes out
and say
uh we’re not responsible for the uh for
the second ten thousand
we’ll consider the first ten thousand
because someone you didn’t mitigate your
loss
uh so i mean they’re gonna try to throw
every card they can’t at you
and the thing is just got to be smart
about it get the repair and get the
temporary repairs done so you don’t have
a problem down the road where the
carrier is trying to blame
um the blame you the homeowner for not
what they call
mitigating it so if you have no lawyers
watch this program
it just means to fix the things
temporarily so that it doesn’t get worse
uh that’s that’s the whole idea is not
don’t let your damage get worse than
they already are from storm because if
the insurance companies want to try to
figure out a way to blame the homeowner
for the damages
right like how can people like find out
like some people don’t even know
if they have like insurance or they’ve
been paying like a premium
with their mortgage how should they like
find out
what their insurance company is or who
their insurance companies so
that’s a real good question uh so a
couple of different things here a lot of
folks
will have an escrow and they’re paying
their
uh they’re paying their um their
mortgage payment and it’ll be a part of
it for insurance in there thing is
every once a year you should be getting
a binder let’s say a letter or something
from the insurance company
that uh that shows you have coverage and
quite frankly if you don’t have any of
that
worst case scenario sometimes folks just
need to get a hold of banks say hey
who’s my carrier who’s my carrier and uh
they’ll give that to
the information to you um
it’s really important to get that the
thing is we’re right after the storm
people are busy you know doing temporary
repairs and picking up you know
cleaning all the debris but it’s
important to get your claim in and not
wait because as time goes on we all get
busy we all you know
we get distracted and then you know four
months down the road you’re saying hey
you know what i should have called that
claim in
and if you call the claim in late the
carrier’s gonna gonna make a big deal
about that about
late reporting of your claim so it’s
important to get your claim in
early i mean we all think oh yeah you’re
gonna have damage you’re gonna call it
in but the thing is
um you just call there’s a toll-free
number or call your agent they can get
the claiming going
but just get the claim in because the
last thing you want is you know six
months down the road we have another
deluge you know
we’ve had lately and then suddenly have
you know you didn’t do the repairs now
you have all this extra damage on there
and you did
report claim on time and they make a big
deal up because because it’s real
important for everybody to know
is that your roof warranty is voided
by the result of wind damage to your
roof
and if you’ve got a warded roof you’ve
got damage to your property
and that’s exactly what the homeowner’s
coverage is trying to do
is to reimburse you and to get you in
the position the way you were before the
day before the storm
and so people might think you know what
what’s one shingle
well that’s one shingle you can see i
mean if you get up there if you get a
roofer up there they’re gonna go find
hundreds of shingles up there that lift
it up
you won’t normally be able to um
i was woken up uh by the wife at three
in the morning
uh and it was explained to me that i did
not
place the sandbags correctly
so i had to go out into the hurricane
and readjust
the sandbags that were soaking wet and
would not allow
themselves to be readjusted and it was
cold
i was in my underwear and flip-flops and
uh
i walked back in and she said did you
readjust them and i said no he’s
dangerous
you know what your wife’s smart that’s
one way to get those life insurance
like proceeds
oh darn he survived it again okay go
back out there
i always find the the preparing for the
storm is like
the quote-unquote the that’s the that’s
the part where we’re anxious and it’s
kind of fun and people
you know they make drinks and what have
you but when the storm actually hits
that’s some scary man
there’s a lot of a lot of anxiety a lot
of down time
a lot of people just get bored they
don’t think it’s going to happen it’s
happened and suddenly
holy crap your roof’s getting peeled off
yeah yeah you’re loose being peeled off
there’s your wife’s sending out
breaking uh it was
it was scary no we were fortunate our
our neighbor spence unfortunately flew
away
um but our fence did not um
we just sustained some damage to our
pool motor and equipment
so we have a swamp in the back right now
it’s pretty gross but it’s kind of weird
how these storms
always hit at night what is that about i
mean you know what’s hit in the middle
of the night when they were asleep
yeah and that and that sucks too because
you couldn’t we couldn’t sleep it was so
loud it was so loud you couldn’t sleep
and
the little the little that i did get to
fall asleep uh
i you know i got either got woken up by
the wife to go
adjust sandbags uh at one point i was
in and out of sleep and my four-year-old
came
into the living room because i was
sleeping in the living room because it
was quieter in the living room and it
wasn’t our bedroom
and i just saw a dark shadow of like a
little doll
walking towards me and i was having
dreamland i freaked
out i thought the storm sent a goblin
flood insurance and fema so
a lot of a lot of folks out there
had rising water rising water is not
covered by your homeowner’s policy
that’s called flood insurance
uh your typical homeowner’s policy
provides coverage
for storm damage which is like you know
wind
and rain in broken windows or shingles i
mean something that causes damage by the
wind
rising water because of a flood is not a
considered a wind damage claim it’s
called a flood claim you have to buy
that
separately from your homeowners it’s a
separate policy
a lot of people don’t have it because um
because uh they don’t live in an area
that’s prone to floods
but if you do have flood coverage and
you do have a flood you need to call the
claim in
it’s a different carrier call your agent
they have that information
for you if you have no insurance or if
you don’t have or for example you have
no flood insurance
then then you would qualify well i’m not
saying i’m not an expert at this but
fema is insurance of last resort um
in terms of um you know going and
trying to collect
money for your damages for floods and
that kind of stuff
and we don’t handle female claims or
flood claims that’s handled differently
and we handle
um only um you know storm claims or
hurricane claims those sorts of things
um so that’s what we do and that’s the
difference in those
three types of things and one’s win
claim the others flood
if you have no insurance then you’re
going to want to look at the fema
because this has been
declared a federal disaster area so fema
is going to
come in and and do
some adjusting for folks that have no
coverage
this doesn’t just apply to homes either
right mike it applies to
stores business owners commercial
buildings
you’ve got damage you own a building or
you own any kind of
structure and it’s got damage and you’ve
got a policy that you think covers it
hey it’s worth checking out right
exactly
um and what you know some you know
anytime you own a piece of property
that’s got a mortgage you’re going to
have cut insurance on it
period and so yeah i mean if you’re
concerned that you don’t want to file a
claim because you don’t want to hurt
your
your claims record you never had a claim
whatever well give us a call
we’ll take a look at the property and if
we find damages then you do find a claim
and if you don’t it’s another thing if
you delay and file the claim if you
don’t file a claim
and let’s say a couple years down the
road you sell the property
well the buyer is going to look at the
property and they find that you have
existing hurricane damage that you
didn’t fix they’re going to use that to
negotiate a lower sales price so sooner
or later
this is going to be addressed either you
do it today um
with the claim process and get it fixed
or later on down the road when you try
to sell the property
well and the buyer the property’s gonna
um is gonna
um is gonna take a credit on the
purchase because of pre-existing storm
damage
so it just it’s gotta get addressed one
way or another it’s gonna be addressed
mike you said earlier that fema’s gonna
be down here because we were designated
as a disaster area is that right
that’s right that’s right how does the
designation of a disaster
affect your your insurance client
well it’s not going to affect your
insurance claim with
a your storm damage claim it doesn’t
affect it at all
i mean because you have insurance right
ema
is for people that don’t have insurance
on their buildings or their homes or
businesses or whatever it may be
okay mike what if someone’s house was
damaged in uh a prior storm
and they filed a claim and got paid for
it and then they didn’t make any repairs
can they do anything about it now yeah
that’s gonna be a little bit of a
problem we’re gonna have to work through
that
and so the big deal is that we’re going
to have to figure out what’s the prior
damage and what’s the new damage
but if you’re if the damage your
property is the same damages
today as it was in your prior claim then
um
then there’s really nothing to do you’ve
got to do the repairs
um and um if you don’t do the repairs
it’s like if you had a car accident and
you destroyed your front
bumper and then you get paid for your
front bumper and you have another car
accident involving your front bumper
you’re not going to get paid for it
twice right so
okay mike thanks for being with us today
and uh this information hopefully helps
the public this is what you need to do
if you uh want to file an insurance
claim or if
you want to file an insurance claim but
if you need to file insurance claim
because you’re seeing damage on your
property
so if you have any questions you can
call the moore law firm at the number
down there
you can call the p garza law firm that’s
my law firm you can call the office of
effort molina we
all practice in this area and uh we’re
here to help
many questions you might have
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