Is It Worth Filing a Claim if a Winter Storm Damages Your Home?

If your house has recently incurred some winter weather damage, here’s how you should proceed regarding your homeowners insurance.  As you know, we’ve experienced record-breaking snowstorms in central Oregon these last couple weeks that have caused significant damage to more than a few homes out there. As a result, we’ve been getting a lot of questions from people about their homeowners insurance and how it applies to this damage. With this in mind, today we’ve brought in Allison Glasier from Country Financial to talk a little bit about homeowners insurance claims after big storms. Does homeowners insurance cover snow and ice damage? Is it worth filing a claim? According to Allison, it’s important to be proactive to nullify any damage your home might’ve incurred. If you’re able to carefully and safely remove any snow or ice buildup or have a professional do so, that will help. That’s an important trait in the eyes of insurance companies. Always be proactive when dealing with winter weather damage. As to whether it’s worth filing a claim for leakage coming in from the roof or an ice dam buildup, if the damage is above the standard $1,000 deductible that most homeowners have, it’s definitely worth filing a claim. If you have water that’s coming into your home or into the walls, have an adjustor look at it. The worst thing you can do is ignore it and let it fester until you have a mold problem. When we do a home inspection, there’s a lot of water damage that shows up that you can’t see just walking through the home. Having mold build up can make people ill. Even if you file a claim and someone does an analysis on it and you still end up paying the damage, it doesn’t go on your insurance record. If you want more information regarding homeowners insurance claims, you can call Allison at (541) 322-9432 or send an email to [email protected]. If you would like to know more about insuring your home, click here. 7 Cold Weather Projects to Increase Your Home Value When it’s warm outside, it’s easy to do outside maintenance work and home improvement projects with your landscaping, painting your home, and adding decks or even sunrooms. But even in the winter months there are plenty of interior projects you can tackle to increase the value of your home. Here's a handy infographic that you're free to share! Click Here for Full Article and Infographic to Download & Share Why Oregon Home Check? Oregon Home Check offers services that set us apart from other home inspectors: Extremely convenient scheduling of the home inspection! There are no inconvenient delays when you come to us. You can schedule the home inspection with ease. You have real time access to our scheduler -  24/7 You, or your client, can check pricing and availability of our inspections right from your smart phone Once scheduled, both you and your client receive a confirmation email, so you’re never in the dark about the status of your reservation. We specialize in the needs of first time home buyers! First time home buyers are excited and nervous, and everything is new to them! We know this and are dedicated to ensuring that their experience is a pleasant – and informative – one. We feel that we are not only inspectors but educators as well. All first-time home buyers receive a complimentary Home Maintenance book, in English or Spanish as desired. We share information such as when and where to change filters, when and how to winterize the crawlspace, how to maintain the sprinkler system and so on.  When you book your first home inspection with Oregon Home Check, they’ll give you a $100 discount.  Click Here to Book an Inspection