You come home and you find water where your carpet used to be. You panic. You don't know what to do so you do the first thing that comes to mind... stop the water. In the midst of your panic you inadvertently twist the shut off nozzle too hard and it breaks. In vain you rack your brain to find the main shut off valve and you race outside to find the main shut off valve only to find it has a surprise... a snake has taken up residence inside your shut off valve container and it does not seem too happy about being discovered. You freeze for a moment but your desire to stop the water from further damaging your home gives you the courage to reach in and successfully turn off the water while the snake makes a hasty dash to the nearest bush. Now you call your insurance company and you follow their instructions to the letter. The adjuster has sent its water damage restoration company of its choice and will meet you at your house. You are relieved...

The adjuster arrives and acts like your best friend telling you that everything is OK and the insurance company will take care of everything. You notice, however, that the adjuster is busily writing notes in the adjuster's notebook but the adjuster does not have anything negative to say so you don't worry. The adjuster asks what happened and you explain what you know... you came home, you found the water, and you shut off the water... what else is there to tell? The adjuster begins drilling you with seemingly irrelevant questions like, what time did you get home and how long did it take before you turned off the water. You pause when the adjuster asks you why you were unable to simply shut off the water at the source and you tell the adjuster about the breakage. You are unable to answer what caused the water to be turned on in the first place so you speculate out loud that you must have left the water running before you left for the day. All of this is written in the adjuster's notebook. You thank the adjuster from coming to your home and helping you through this nightmare. You are shocked when you receive your claim denial letter in the mail.

You stare blankly at the denial letter in a state of shock and disbelief. You expected to see something to the effect that everything is taken care of but here you sit reading this impersonal letter letting you that the insurance company that you contracted to protect you and your assets from loss is telling you that they are not going to honor your contract with them. Your shock and disbelief slowly turns to anger when you consider all of the money you spent with this insurance company so you reach out to your buddy, the adjuster, for help. You quickly learn you are on your own. You find that the adjuster is blaming you for the accidental water damage citing the fact that you admitted to leaving the water running before you left for the day, the breakage of the shut off valve indicates you failed to maintain your home in the expected manner, and your brief pause at turning off the water means that you failed to stop further damage from occurring.

This hard learned, real world crash course has taught you:

The adjuster either works for or contracts through the insurance company so their loyalty and livelihood is directly tied to and dependent upon the insurance company

A portion of the money the adjuster earns can be derived from the amount of money the adjuster retains for the insurance company

The adjuster is well trained in psychology and interviewing techniques which allow the adjuster to subtly probe the claimant (you) for any information they can later deploy to delay, deny, or significantly reduce your claim

The adjuster uses such psychological and deceptive interviewing techniques in every case

The adjuster is NOT your friend

Still... all is not lost, there is HOPE. A professional independent water damage restoration company will have the resources and experience necessary to aid its customer in restoring its water damaged asset to its preloss condition while holding the insurance adjuster accountable for its soulless and sadistic bad faith and deceitful practices.