by billf » Sat Nov 22, 2014 05:46 pm
Hi, I have an insurance claim at my house that roughly looks like this:
Replacement Cost: $10,000
Depreciation: $4,000
Deductible: $1,000
Net: $5,000 Paid by the insurance company
My adjuster told me that in order for me to receive the depreciation, I had to have the work done, spend the depreciated amount and show that I owed the money for the remaining work.
I signed a contract with a restoration company to do only $3,000 of work from the adjuster's estimate. Going through the adjuster’s estimate, I calculate that roughly $1,800 of this is the depreciated amount and $1,200 is the depreciation. I paid the contractor the $1,800 and asked the insurance company for $1,200 from the $4,000 total Depreciation for this work. Here's the problem. The insurance company said I had to spend the total depreciated amount $5,000 to get ANY depreciation. I’ve thought a lot about this and it makes no sense to me. My insurance is supposed to pay for current market value of damaged items, the depreciated amount. I told them that my items, building or personal, have current market value and this is what they are paying for. I can then chose to replace it or not. If I replace it then I’ll get the depreciation too. Why should replacing one item effect replacing another one. Another way of looking at this is suppose I had 5 damaged coats for $500 each with a depreciation of $100 each. They would initially pay me 5 X $400 = $2,000. If I chose to only replace one coat, shouldn’t they pay the depreciation on that one, $100?? Why do I have to spend $2,000 to get any depreciation? Please advise. I’m at my wits end… !
THANK YOU!
[/quote]
Replacement Cost: $10,000
Depreciation: $4,000
Deductible: $1,000
Net: $5,000 Paid by the insurance company
My adjuster told me that in order for me to receive the depreciation, I had to have the work done, spend the depreciated amount and show that I owed the money for the remaining work.
I signed a contract with a restoration company to do only $3,000 of work from the adjuster's estimate. Going through the adjuster’s estimate, I calculate that roughly $1,800 of this is the depreciated amount and $1,200 is the depreciation. I paid the contractor the $1,800 and asked the insurance company for $1,200 from the $4,000 total Depreciation for this work. Here's the problem. The insurance company said I had to spend the total depreciated amount $5,000 to get ANY depreciation. I’ve thought a lot about this and it makes no sense to me. My insurance is supposed to pay for current market value of damaged items, the depreciated amount. I told them that my items, building or personal, have current market value and this is what they are paying for. I can then chose to replace it or not. If I replace it then I’ll get the depreciation too. Why should replacing one item effect replacing another one. Another way of looking at this is suppose I had 5 damaged coats for $500 each with a depreciation of $100 each. They would initially pay me 5 X $400 = $2,000. If I chose to only replace one coat, shouldn’t they pay the depreciation on that one, $100?? Why do I have to spend $2,000 to get any depreciation? Please advise. I’m at my wits end… !
THANK YOU!
[/quote]
Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 03:54 pm Post Subject:
You fail to consider the _only_ thing that matters... what does your policy state about when RCV is owed? Without knowing that, there is no way to know the answer.
Though I _suspect_ what you mention would/could be correct however, you still need to argue what your policy states. I also suspect you are only getting a little push back and with the correct arguing points your carrier would pay partial RCV. I think at this time they don't want to pay, pay, pay and keep paying on a partial claim. What is working against you is that they see this as 1 claim, not many. So they are only going to pay the difference on 1 claim. If it were multiple claims and you could break out the ACV/RCV then you'd have multiple deductibles. Again, read the policy but it may say the difference is owed.... when the damages are repaired and it refers to the "claim".
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