When your home has suffered a catastrophic loss, your first instinct may be to immediately start cleanup and repairs. It’s hard to hold off when faced with a major mess like a fire-gutted kitchen or flooding caused by burst pipes. But resist the urge to clean up damage right away. There are steps you must – and must not - take when you have an insurance claim.

You may believe that, should you suffer a loss in your home related to either structural damage or personal property, it will be covered under your homeowner's insurance policy for reimbursement. You may not know, however, that there are several things homeowner's insurance does not cover and, these days, that list is getting longer and longer. This is because insurers are writing policies with additional limitations/exclusions that can only be found by reading the fine print, which policyholders often do not do.

When your home or business is damaged, your life gets complicated. You don't need the added drama of pushing the insurance company to speed up your property insurance claim settlement, but it often works out that way. It sounds unfair, but when it’s your home or your business that’s damaged, you will be the one most motivated to move your case forward.

When you’re rebuilding your home after major property damage, insurance claim problems are often unavoidable. Getting your family to safety can be traumatic enough. Then you must report your claim, sort through your damaged personal property and find a contractor to make repairs. You must also deal with an insurance company property adjuster who might empathize with you but doesn’t have the same emotional and financial investment.

Natural disasters like storms, hurricanes, and fires can wreak havoc on homes and businesses. Wildfires, flooding, high winds, and even rain and hail can cause structural or cosmetic damage, or destroy a property entirely. While most people have homeowner's insurance, it can still be difficult to manage the claims process.

If you're not worried about flooding, you should be. According to the National Flood Insurance Program, flooding can happen anywhere. In the past five years, all 50 states have had to deal with a flood.

What's the role of a public adjuster I’m Jill Horner and this is Comcast Newsmakers with me this hour is Gene you know he is president at the American Association of public insurance adjusters. Thanks for being with us thank you Jill thank you for having it's the first of all let's define what you do as an organization, what a public adjuster actually does and the role that they serve for both homeowners and business owners.

When it comes to understanding insurance coverage there are numerous terms and language that most policyholders are unfamiliar with. These include Indemnity, Actual Cash Value (ACV), Replacement Cost Value (RCV) and Depreciation.

When your insurance company denies your basement flooding insurance claim, they always trying to find reasons to avoid compensating their clients. You may be tempted to give up, but just because the insurance company initially denied your claim does not necessarily mean that it will stay denied for good. The best thing to do is take a deep breath and move on to the next step.

If your home has suffered extensive water damage after a storm, flood or frozen pipe, you need to act fast, assess the damage, and get assistance from a reliable public insurance adjuster in order to obtain a fair amount of compensation to be used for repairs.