Sign Louisiana Electrical Services Contract Later

Document type sign electrical services contract louisiana later

um i do want to um uh introduce henry labrie again but if you have any um questions when we finish let henry go through his list as fast as you can because it'll take him a while and he'll discuss it and at the end of his list make your notes as he's going through it and then we'll come back to those categories and you can ask him questions about it and then uh we'll jump in on this this is my law partner and brother matt lundy and he'll talk to you about business interruption has been our first dj standing over there and that's a nicole morgan who works with our law firm gary middleton is is offering his services to people he goes and photographs and takes a little team and documents damage early on because some people don't get to have their adjusters out there for months some haven't i mean i haven't had my adjuster at my house yet some of you may not have had adjusters yet but one of the things that we're going to suggest to y'all is you let your adjuster come look at your house listen to what he says document when he gets there document when you call them you know document what he says walk around let him look at the damage get the estimate and continue to get the estimate when they send you a check don't sign a release don't endorse it continue to get the money if you feel like at the end of the day they're not paying you for what you should that's when you come see us we want you to get everything you can get hopefully without not having an attorney so what we're doing today is just giving you the do's and don'ts with your adjusters and how to look at a claim and what the policies say because the policies can be inconsistent and uh and that's why we've got henry library mr labrie is his uh owens aaa flood masters uh i met him 15 years ago uh after um rita after hike uh he's done this kind of work his whole career for 25 or 30 years because he only represents owners he doesn't work for carriers underwriters so he's going to tell you what you should do and what you shouldn't do and what you should say and not say around your adjuster so we thank henry for being here good evening i hope today that we're here to give you as much knowledge uh as we possibly can this is the most controversial industry there is you can say the right thing the wrong way and then deny your coverage i'll give you example if you people say you got mold you don't have mold coverage correct but you do have if it's a result of a covered loss okay your limits policy limit not 5 000 or 10 thousand so that's just an example we travel united states all over the united states we work disasters uh ain't nothing i hadn't heard seen or watched okay uh we're gonna talk about your your policy debt page we'll start with that uh like they said earlier hold all your questions to the end you know every question is important because you need an answer and we realize that uh we're going to talk about your debt page on the front of your deck page it says structure that tells you how much limit you have on your structure then it says content that gives you how much limit you have on your content coverage if you turn your house upside down everything falls as content make the list then you have what they call ale or loss of use additional living expenses there's usually a percentage of your policy limit or there's a number that's how much money you have to live somewhere else rent something until your house is put back in pre-loss condition one of the main questions you need to ask a justin when they show up does my policy owe to put me back in pre-loss condition if he says i don't know he's a rookie in the contract it says they ought to put you back in pre-loss condition that's all you're here for we're not trying to get anything that don't belong to nobody or anything else but they do oh to put it back in pre-laws also on your pot deck page it says other structure that means if you have an out building or a detached garage things like that that is what is classified as other structure usually there's a limit or usually there's a percentage either way every policy every company writes them different okay we're going to talk about when the structure of your home let's talk about the windows we write all windows to be replaced here's the reason why we do it does every adjuster agree with it no the hundred and thirty mile-an-hour wind pushing against that window has compromised the gas and the seal inside that energy window and that when doing about two to three months will start fogging up it compromises the caulking that seals around the window to minimize leaking we don't talk about damage or total loss we talk about damaged windows because what happens is once that gasket is compromised every one of them gonna start leaking in months down the road now some adjusters we can talk about that in just a second let's go do it now in fact the adjusters right now that are going out are probably a year to two three years experience so my question to them is what are you certified in construction roof he gonna say adjusting that's what that tells me he's not an expert in construction he's not an expert in roof he's not an expert all he's there is eyes and ears take pictures take notes and send it to the in-house adjuster that actually makes all the decisions i'll give you example after hurricane rita we took a big hit at my house uh we took i don't know almost 400 000 in damage a couple tornadoes i pulled up beautiful sight three-story convertible beautiful my wife thinks i'm nuts that's okay but the adjuster walks in and says asking me what a dehumidifier is okay i opened the door and i said out i called my agent your agents are there to use them work them work your agents they sent me a large loss adjuster he walked in no problem no problem no problem three or four small issues he had with my methodology how we wanted to do it that was all that is your difference between a rookie and a large lost if you have major damage on your home ask for a large loss are you going to get it probably not but you got it on record that you asked for a large loss because the guy comes out they all have limits if the guy comes out it's like the one to me his limit was twenty five thousand well it's a joke you know we sit there four hundred thousand they send a guy out here can only prove twenty five then they then they say well i'll send it off to the next adjuster he's good for 200. well we're wasting time delay techniques is not your issue lack of adjusters to service or claims is not your issues that makes sense all right let's talk about mileage well let's go back to roof there's three areas of roof that you have problems if you got missing shingles that wind has lifted those shingles and broke the seal underneath them so if you look at your roof you'll see shingles blowing up the compromise they're damaged policy says it don't have to be destroyed if it's damaged if your shingle lifted up and there's debris underneath them it has to have a new roof because that roof will never reseal the other claim that you can run at them is that shingle has a 90 mile an hour warranty we had 130 mile an hour wind you voided our warranty the adjuster's going to tell you we don't insure warranties he's right don't get mad but they do do ensure to put you back in pre-loss condition with a warranty so don't talk about warranty talk about pre-laws that make sense all right on your uh on your roof we talk about warranty we talk about pre-laws on your mileage anything you do to deal with this claim every day right of mileage 65 cents a mile and you'd be surprised how much money that adds up to in months keep a daily log where you went check on furniture check on this check on that trying to find a place to live renting furniture if you find a rent house somewhere other than around here and it's four thousand dollars a month rent it go back to your al lee this is how much money you got to spend so if it's four thousand not furnished you could they'll rent pay you furniture to get it moved in to put you back in like kind quality where you live that makes sense all right keep up with your mileage all the time if you got a hundred thousand dollars in ale you can spend up to a hundred anything over that it's out of your pocket that makes sense then we're gonna talk about all your furniture in your house the insurance pays to pack you out hire somebody come in load up all your furniture and put it in storage if there's no storage is available in louisiana send them to mississippi send it to alabama send it to texas they pay for that now when you totally finish and ready to move back in they owe to pack in and i don't include you out here hands and knees sweating like crazy packing all this furniture up to save your insurance company money it pays to put you back pre-loss now you can stand there and supervise the packers the movers they'll put it in the climate-controlled storage and then they owe to bring it all back and put it back in your house if you have people family and everything else just come over and help you do all this generate a time sheet get a yellow pad legal pad illegal pad paper it don't matter cardboard and everybody signs their names and the hours they work you a lot of adjusters they will accommodate that and allow that to apply to part of your deductible okay most of your deductible here is one percent because it's a named storm it's one percent to five percent if your house is insured for four hundred thousand you got five percent you're out of pocket 20 grand that makes sense if it's one percent then do the simple math if you have to rent an apartment somewhere and you have a pet and they said we'll rent it to you but it's a non-refundable deposit your insurance will pay that non-refundable deposit because you don't get it back if it's a refundable deposit you pay it then when you leave you get your deposit back but if it's non-refundable they'll pay that deposit all right we're going to talk about uh off-site power laws when an area like this has took major storm you lost your whole grid in lake charles so what happens is off-site power losses covers causes on-site damages and then everything you got electronic that was plugged in claim it on your content every every appliance that they have in your house is plugged in when the surge went through the whole grid when it went down it sent all those surge into every appliance you have in your house and let me give you example and don't take my word for it watch for the fire trucks 60 days from now you'll see fire trucks everywhere because it damages your appliances instead of them overheating and tripping breakers they catch on fire claim them claim every one of them i don't care if he agrees with you because ultimately that adjuster that comes out don't make the final decision okay now another side of that everything you claim say you had a fifty thousand dollars in content humans you know how they are when you write fifty thousand dollars in coverage in list of itemized you stop because that's all the coverage you got keep writing because if you got 50 000 anything over five years is depreciated five years or less zero depreciation simple math but here's another kicker to it if you have a hundred thousand dollars in content losses and you only have 50 000 in coverage the other 50 you write off your income tax as casualty loss okay all your clothes every everything that's in your closet on hangers always take them to the cleaners let them clean it pay the bill they'll reimburse you for that excessive amount of moisture over extended period of time damages everything everything in your house pillows sheets mattresses everything claim it it don't say it has to be to start if it's damaged the damage is due to excessive amount of moisture over extended period of time and there's no power y'all still you know you always under a mandatory evacuation that activates some more smaller areas in your policy i haven't seen some of the louisiana policies so i can't really speak on that the powers-to-be can we talked about the size of adjuster if you've got damages ask for a large loss let's talk about debris if you say tell the adjuster he said yeah we had trees and you know metal and limbs and shingles he gonna say you don't have tree coverage but in your policy it says debris don't define it if you have tree on your house they'll take that tree off if you have trees if you have trees on your driveway getting entrance in out to your house they'll pay to clear all that up if it's land in your yard you don't have coverage if it's touching your house you do but debris do not define debris in your policy it says debris they don't define it why should you if you get a check from the mortgage company sign the back of it accept it under protest make a copy of the front and the back or take a picture put it in a bank people says well who do we get on tarpon let's back up to the check if you have a mortgage the checks come and join to be made out to you and the mortgage company you have to send your check sign it send it to the mortgage company they'll release your money in thirds most of the time some of them 50 but they're rare so if they release it in thirds that means you got to get work done submit for a draw get a third pay your contractor and wait and get back in line again with the same contractor to finish the work i don't agree with that but i don't write the rules it's my house i'm responsible for the debt i want to be able to have all my money up front it don't happen because the mortgage companies has that right but make sure on your roofing and stuff is debris and stuff under you can ask a roofer he'll pull it up he pulls up sees debris take pictures you're good the only way you lose people is when you quit you know statues vary in state to state if if you have a year you know you keep submitting supplement every time you find something different or it hasn't been submitted submit it if they tell you they close your claim call your agent say i have a supplement reopen it it's okay that's their technique trying to make you go away if they say they close it the next day document everything it's like lundy said document everything they say when they say it reopen it next day they send you a check and close it again reopen it again don't quit that's where you get in trouble all right we're going to talk about tarping people said i got my roof tarp okay tarps are good but tarps are bad because when they tarp at roof that house attic cannot breathe so what happens is the ho everything inside your attic sweats do i agree with tarpon yeah do i disagree yeah because when that attic sweats all your insulation everything in that attic generates moisture and it'll sour and smell for years down the road uh if they tarp a roof i always tell them pull all the insulation out of it a lot of times fema sent in people all they do is tarp a lot of times it's more harm than good if you have your home or business tarp say two weeks from now there's another major thunderstorm come through tear all your tarps off re-wets everything that's already been done file another claim yes you got two deductibles but you also have two policy limits to fix one house way it works is people get confused i'm gonna try to clear it up quick you don't pay your second deductible until you exhaust the first you have to define the differences between the damages this day this day but most the insurance company they'll run that first one out before they get into the second and the adjuster is going to tell you you don't want to file another claim because then you got another deductible well say yeah but also got another policy limit and then they'll just put their head down and they know they've been outsmarted okay okay if you have say your home is tarp and you end up with a storm comes through rips all your tarp off re-wets everything collapse more sealants and damages you file another claim with your agent okay how many adjusters have y'all seen show up with a policy your policy in their hand none the company does not want them to define your policy they want to define it in house so they can play the word game all right if you're underinsured what you have to do in your policy it says a co-insurance everybody thin s that's additional insurance it's a penalty if your home is injured for 500 000 and it's really worth a million and a half adjuster comes out hey you're underinsured they'll take 20 of your 500 deduct it and send you the check for the rest that's 100 000 you lost keep your homes insured for the value a lot of times your agent should come out hey your house your home is coming up for renewal the going rate now is say 150 square foot you're at 100 or 95. do you want to up your insurance it's your choice but they need to ask that's their job some people want to bring out the insurance company on the large laws they want to bring out a structural engineer that engineer works for them if you bring one that engineer works for you they're most the time are not going to agree now there are people that disagree with their engineers you need to disagree with every one of them that don't mean they're right i don't mean you're right never accept never sign a waiver never accept what they offer i always tell people i don't care what they offer pay i will never be in agreement with it that's okay but you can be you can agree to disagree but move forward let's get money in your hand get money in your bank and get your house going back ask for a draw when adjuster shows up say you have you estimate you have a hundred thousand damage ask for a fifty thousand dollar draw up front to give you money he's you're only going to get about half what you asked for so if you really want up 50 you're going to get 20 ass for 50 you get 25 you ask for 100 you're probably gonna get 50. or he say that's over my limit that tells you what kind of adjuster he is okay he's weak or he hasn't been there long enough if he's not authorized to issue 50 000 on the roof that's gone on the house that's pretty weak the issue you're having now is there's still no power in a lot of places so when these companies come in and they dry out your building or your house they remediate everything tear it all out dry everything out then they take all the equipment generator and go somewhere else make money then your house starts sweating you're in the same predicament every job we work on when we get through remediating and drying there's certain amount of equipment that's left and with a generator to run them to maintain humidity levels in that resident until full power is totally restored as they bring this grid up people say i got power on my place come get your generator wait three days because when that generator leaves your house it's already committed if the power goes back down what are you going to do it takes two to three days for them up and down with the grid to be consistent with power okay we'll talk about your content list make you list we did earlier anything over ten thousand dollars you should have scheduled on your policy antique things like that you should have them scheduled never say it's priceless it has no value watch what you say uh we tell people all the time now you can take all this antique furniture and you can have it restored and they may cost six seven thousand to restore it but they're not replacing it most of your adjusters right now are very young and not educated so if you're very knowledgeable about construction it gets very aggravated frustration and you want to hammer them they're doing the best they can because they don't have any knowledge one thing you got to remember their dna does not match yours so they never going to think like you and you're never going to think like them you don't want to whiz off a man that's trying to get you a check it's okay to disagree but tell them up front let's agree that we're going to disagree and move forward that way you can get more money in your hand as soon as possible to start your process your contractors around here they're going to be strung out they'll go here they'll go there they'll go here wherever the money is that's who where they can get money for work they've done they're going to move to them and you're going to wait so that's why we need to make sure that you get as much money as and you can up front i've got about two more pages but i'd rather just open for questions i think that's more important right now all right any questions go ahead answer questions one of them is the policy may say there's no matching so you got a leak in your kitchen and the water came through and it's a two by two spot and the rest of the kitchen is is fine a ceiling same color everything and they say well under the policy it says we don't have to match the rest of the room to cleaning this spot because when they pull the sheet rock down and they re-load it and they repaint it it's going to be different than the rest of the room well he mentioned to you pre-loss they have to put you back to pre-law so that means they've got to paint the whole room so don't fall for the no matching clause in the provision in the policy the other thing is you may have a policy that says we'll pay the acv and versus the replacement cost so you know what acv is if your house is totally destroyed and you decide that you're not going to rebuild it and replace it they're going to just pay you the actual cash value that's what the acp that's the depreciated value of the house as is and so that's what they're obligated to pay you but if you decide to rebuild it and replace it they owe you the replacement cost so look at that language if you have an acd clause versus a replacement cost but as he says you got to be restored to pre-loss condition the other thing is sometimes your policy will have code changes in it so if you have an old house that's been you've been living in for years but somehow their ordinances have changed the laws change you've got handicapped rules now so if you rebuild it you got to rebuild it and it exceeds the policy limits look in your policy there's probably a provision that says we will pay for code changes so if the code changes cost you 25 to 50 000 more than what the policy limits are that provision may provide for you to get full coverage for the replacement including the code changes the the deductible look at it you know we got snookered by our insurance carriers on deductible so some of you got two percent some of you got five percent for name storms some of you got a flat twelve or fifteen thousand dollars on a 150 or two hundred thousand dollar policy which is high in the future i would i would buy up my deductible buy it down pay more for it because because of storms like this those were the few things that i thought i would add go ahead let's talk about i'm going to bring up metal roofs what happens is if you have a metal roof unless it has been punctured by debris don't define it debris if it hasn't what happens is the metal roof is doing exactly what it's engineered to do shed water the fasteners have been compromised so it's like this roof here there's a self-tapping screw has a rubber gasket that seals the hole it generates so the lift from the metal up against that rubber gasket compromise the fastener and then it everything leaks much down the road you have a lake here i have a leak there so you don't talk about changing the roof you talk about repairing the roof which means you pull the seams change the seal tape and oversize screw the whole roof which costs more than replacing it but they can sell a repair versus a new roof that makes sense don't get caught in that trap the metal is good the fasteners have been compromised the a lot of times they want to patch a roof no they don't patch a roof every roof in here has been compromised damage warranty issues one way or the other they need to change the whole roof all right yes sir what happens is on the depreciation say you have an item that's more that is 10 years old say it's a 5 000 posturepedic mattress in box spring if it's more than five years old five up to five years there's no depreciation zero over say is ten years old they'll depreciate at twenty five percent and pay you but when you replace that you send in the receipt they'll pay you that 25 back look on your your deal on your estimate from the insurance it says recoverable depreciation millions of dollars they keep every year because people don't know what that means if your house is two hundred thousand damage they'll depreciate it if it's 20 year old house they may depreciate it 25 000 when you look at that page it says recoverable depreciation 25 000 they put it in parentheses amazing but when you finish restoring your home you send a letter in have it notarized all works completed they send you that 25 000 back because their paper says recoverable some of them say if you have like he was talking earlier acv policy actual cash value if it says acv that is not recoverable it says non-recoverable you don't get that back so upgrade your policies from now on invest in insurance that's the best where are you going to invest 2 000 with a potential a year to 200 000 in return it don't happen people people say i don't like insurance we have 60 some pieces of property i don't like it either but trust me i'm in sure poor all right yes ma'am she has five hundred dollars on debris removal applause they got nine acres and trees down everywhere that's all you got unless they block in your entrance and exit to your residence all those are covered in any trees on your house is covered i'm sorry about that but if it says 500 that's all you get ma'am some of them have some of them have limits but you have to read that there's a paragraph that says so much per tree count your trees your what what are you saying well i'm not saying it's a total loss because your structural itself may be good the skin is compromised and it needs to be changed i would address you i would address your metal building as the the fasteners being compromised and if you did all of that oversized screws it's a ton of labor two stories of greater whatever anything over 12 foot two stores of greater go with that and you should have enough money just change the metal not you don't be destroyed damaged go through there if you've got a dent scratch in the insurance a lot of these adjusters now they say well how do i know that wasn't like that prior to the storm you got a good adjuster there ask him where is his pre-loss inspection prior to taking your premiums of good faith we don't do pre-loss inspection will you insure it as is where is write it up keep it simple yes ma'am what happened but what happens on that where the with the hole in the roof that's that's no issues wind-driven rain you got a 130 mile our wind going this way everything in your attic get all the insulation out of it and you'll find all your water damage because it's set on top of your insulation we had a church in the ritter be pulling the ceilings out of a recreation area and water's pouring out of it two weeks later so you trap water in there now joshua they don't like to go when you add it because they're not an engineer but you can open the gate and show them look i got damages here okay it's better if you can minimize a lot of your stuff by showing them water spots and then if you can what we do is if it's damaged we tear it out i don't care if adjusters there or not anything we do prior to an adjuster showing up is non-disputable including price anything that we do and it's controversial remember i told you all that don't hang me if it's visible water damage anywhere we take a picture we tear everything out you may be weeks getting adjuster tear it all out dry it clean it and hand them an invoice then it's not an estimate this is what it cost me they gotta identify that's not right no that's your residence you own it you own the policy that you have the right to tell him what you want show him what you want but remember if you show him every if you don't walk with him if he sees water damage he's probably going to ride it whether it's prior or not a lot of these guys are in-house adjusters they own salary they're working 110 hours a week okay and then you have contract they get paid a percentage but they want to go out there and i've had them show up on jobs we wasn't even there and the homeowner run them off call the police they're supposed to schedule with your contract but if they write and everything as soon as they send it in they get their percentage of that estimate and then they're going to say oh you need to supplement everything else so that that that way they can get paid she said she had a contract adjuster show up in her house and they'd done a walk-through he didn't want her walking through with him he wanted to walk by himself and she started asking some questions he said no no no they're all going to say no because they don't know they don't know what your policy says i've never seen a judge walk up to any job large law 10 15 20 million dollar jobs none of them have a policy they don't know what it says said she had a she lives in derider tree fall on her house she's trying to find a contract or surfboard they're over booked they can't get nobody out to her house it's in my understanding you're right okay here's what you do keep looking don't quit drive around find somebody big company little company get your remediation started it goes back to sir document everything there's not a problem you hire a contractor general or whatever come in here and just tear everything out wet take pictures then when adjusters show there show them the pictures that's your documentation to minimize and mitigate their damages anything done prior to an adjuster showing up non-disputable if you got water damage in your house the whole house if you've got water damage your house got it yeah well there's not enough contractors around there's definitely not enough educated contractors around a lot of companies work for the insurance company they dictate what they can and can't do and that's all they do that's where we're different we work for the people okay his question is where do you live sir grand chaneer congratulations all right here's what happened he says his home his house is totally destroyed he had an adjuster come out they sent a flood adjuster out and the structural structural engineer has nothing to do with flood it's it's the game listen to what they're saying it was destroyed by surge do you have flood insurance you have both okay what happens is they try to pass the buck to flood because it's fema all right and then the insurance sir and it's limited it's limited you have probably got 250 well how much do flood do you have 130 000 plus content no content so you got 130 000 to work with now you're gonna have to go right on up the ladder to work them both to make them both pay here's the key hurricane ike hit galveston crystal beach i had a big beach house there a friend of mine wrote it out like a fool i'm sorry that's just all i know is english if i hadn't offended you yet hang around i'll get to you so but here's what he done he wrote it out and i said video everything i paid him five thousand dollars for that video he said you're crazy thank you in my world that's a compliment so what happens is i took his video and watched it and flood was blaming wind wind blaming flood but when you sit there and watching these roofs comes off these cabins that video showed roofs coming off cabins in his neighborhood but you also look at the road you can still see the yellow stripes that's not served there wasn't even no water on the ground so the wind got it prior to the search where you're at you got wind prior to search okay and rain rain so you you can get a weather data expert to support that the wind got there and was knocking the roof off in the rain long before the search came here's your saving grace agree with all of them because they're all right in their field but they're not right as a policy holder from the water line down is flood water line up is you got two policies congratulations yesterday um the small business administration was passing out this fact sheet you don't need to get a copy of it they're talking about um hurricane laura loans home loans at 1.1.8 business loans at 3 and nonprofit organizations and 2.75 pick up one of these and read it before you leave the other thing i want to mention henry talked a little bit about the stats of limitations we always roceed with caution and conservatism on the statute so consider the statute to be one year so get all your money that you can get if you're satisfied be happy if you're not happy see your lawyer before a year is up if you need to make a claim do not wait due to the compromising of the wind pressure against the window it's all in the wording it's all in a wording the window frame where it's caulked around your deal all that has to be cleaned and recalled the window itself on your windows will you know energy efficient they have that metal aluminum gasket between them the compromising is that wind pressure 130 gusts 140 150 pushing against that it compromises the space and it breaches the seal so you know then you two three months down the road you want to start fogging up change the whole window is they got replacement windows they can come in from the outside of your home cut them out put replacements when they're totally redone yes ma'am some of you may know i did not know of you have some sort of generator work we all know that they can be dangerous we've already seen in the paper unfortunately people have died from carbon monoxide well the other night my neighbor woke up with his alarm screaming the fire department showed up told them they were this close to dying what happened was they didn't know what they didn't know what happened at first his his generator he has a generator is in a confined space and his air conditioning units are in there so they thought oh my gosh the air conditioner is somehow sucking it up and centered in the house that's not what happened if your generator is next to your house you got to be careful because in this case the exhaust was coming out and the air conditioning units weren't sucking it in they were blowing it into the eaves of the house so it got into the attic once the attic filled up it started going into the house so it's just a little public service announcement that we wanted to make to you to be careful make sure there's a lot of airflow where your generator is located so that none of that carbon monoxide gets into your home don't stop now yes well back to the other structure so when i talk to the lady on the phone my hustler hasn't been there i have enough more attention and it has one wall but she says it's not going to be covered [Music] like from the her question was when the adjuster comes they won't ask you to remove the talks let's see the room tell them they're removed okay so [Music] it's not safe for you to get on the roof don't get on the roof that's their job if they want it removed they can hire a contractor remove it take their pictures and then [Music] yes we've been having a they are right but they're wrong good luck let me know if that happened let it and i'll tell you something about what he's saying his question was without water electricity is his house and hannibal some companies say it yes it is because without a kitchen here's the rule without a kitchen or restroom the house is inhabited that's what they say but is it inhabitable without electricity when you lost a total grid yes the reason it says it hasn't if you have an on-site power loss you could plug in a generator then it's only one thing okay so now with the total grid loss that would be a dog fight and it would be pretty easy to win because it would be a lot of people in line okay all right