Hurricane season around the Atlantic typically peaks each year in August and September, and this year has proven no different. Hurricane Sally and Hurricane Laura have left hundreds of thousands of people across Florida and the surrounding states with property damage and no power.

Ensuring your home is properly prepared for hurricane season is essential to reduce potential damage to your belongings and help you and your family stay safe. Here are some steps you can take to protect your home before a natural disaster hits.

Take an Inventory of your Property

Start by surveying your home and tallying your possessions before the start of hurricane season each year. If you claim damage to a specific part of your home, you want to ensure that you have the proper evidence to show the insurance company what type of physical damage was caused; that way, you can be properly reimbursed for everything you should be.

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Making an insurance claim should be easy. After all, insurance exists for a reason, right? You expect insurance coverage to make up for your medical bills, lost wages, and other damages that you couldn’t have afforded to pay otherwise.

Unfortunately, many insurance companies will lowball settlements and offer claimants less than what they deserve. Remember, insurance companies are businesses above all else and will offer you the least possible amount that the company believes you will accept.

If you believe that you were offered a lower settlement than you deserve, do not take it! You have options moving forward, with the help of an experienced personal injury attorney.

Determining Whether An Offer Is Low

After you’re injured in an accident, it’s understandable that you may want to just take the offer and put the whole ordeal behind you. However, you don’t want to take an offer that is less than your total damages. Otherwise, you may be left with out-of-pocket expenses when the settlement amount runs out.

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After disaster strikes your home or business in the form of a fire, flood, vandalism, or theft, the worst news may come when you receive notice that the insurance company has denied your property damage claim. You believe you did everything right and you have insurance for a reason, so what went wrong?

Unfortunately, many property damage claims are denied each year because of technicalities, sneaky insurance tactics, and even bad faith insurance practices. If your claim was denied or even if you plan to file one in the future, you should arm yourself with the information needed to ensure your insurance company does not treat you unfairly.

Common Reasons for Property Claim Denials

When the insurance company denies your claim, they must give you a valid reason why. In general, there are a few common reasons for property damage claim denials:

• Not filing on time. If you don’t notify the insurance company immediately of the incident, they may try to deny your claim for not following time-sensitive requirements for filing and documenting the damage.

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If not, we may be able to help. We represent homeowners and business owners who are being unfairly treated by their insurance companies. We can handle your claim— while protecting your legal rights— from the date of your loss to the final resolution of your claim. Or, we can take over the handling of your claim that has been underpaid or denied.

We will communicate with your insurance company on your behalf, evaluate and document your damages, compile the necessary documents, submit a detailed claim packet to your insurance company, and negotiate a settlement of your claim. If your insurance company wrongly denies any portion of your claim— or if settlement negotiations break down— we will file suit on your behalf to resolve your claim. We handle most residential claims on a contingency fee basis— we don’t charge a fee or costs unless we get results. Call us to schedule a free consultation and property inspection.

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Why Might Hiring an Experienced Insurance Claims Attorney Be a Better Option?

Was your home or business damaged by a hurricane, flood, wind, water, fire, or lightning? If so, you have a few options. You can handle the insurance claim on your own, you can hire a public adjuster, or you can hire an insurance claims attorney who is experienced in handling property damage losses. In most cases, we believe that hiring an attorney will be your best choice.

Public Adjusters Can Help Obtain Favorable Settlements

Sometimes public adjusters can handle claims on their own. For example, if an insurance company has acknowledged coverage for your entire claim— and if the insurance company’s representatives are knowledgeable, conscientious and fair— a public adjuster should be able to obtain a favorable settlement for you. However, if this is not the case, there is often not much more that public adjusters can do. At this point, they will typically advise you to hire a law firm to take over the handling of your claim. You may then feel like you’re starting over. Further, you will then be bound by two contracts— one with the public adjuster and one with the law firm. And to make matters worse, it could now take longer and could cost more to resolve your claim than if you simply hired an experienced attorney from the beginning.

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Do you know how a flood damage lawyer can help you if you are having a disagreement with the insurance company over recovering benefits through your policy? You need the support of a flood damage lawyer who is not afraid to take on these insurance carriers and fight for your best interests. Far too many people who have lost their homes in floods recently were very confused about how to pursue benefits through their insurance policies. If your home has been flooded and you need support, it is necessary to retain an attorney who will take on your case aggressively. When you are suffering from substantial flood damage on your personal property and your home, you may be forced to negotiate with an insurance company. This is one of the most crucial aspects of your claim that should be handled by a flood damage lawyer. You want to work with someone who has experience representing hundreds or thousands of homeowners who have been denied coverage or offered settlement amounts that are far less than the true amount of their damage. A flood damage lawyer will do everything possible to collect the evidence to ensure that you are properly compensated for your property damage and losses. While certain types of water damage are not covered by your standard homeowners' insurance policy, you may have to file for bankruptcy, take a loan, or give up your home and attempt to repair the flood damage. You need to ensure that you have a knowledgeable flood damage lawyer at your side to be able to tell you all of the different options available to you and how to best proceed to protect your interests. It is never easy to be in the position of trying to figure out how to move on with your life after flood damage but you should not be concerned about handling a case on your own. A flood damage lawyer is a critical component of your case because he or she will evaluate all of the facts and be able to tell you how you should proceed in order to have your best interests represented. It is far too difficult to proceed in a case like this on your own and you want to instead have the knowledge of a dedicated attorney to protect you and your best interests going forward.

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A study completed by Ever Drive using motion sensing app, identified that Florida was the second most dangerous state in the country for distracted driving. Florida comes in second only to Louisiana. Data was gathered through the motion sensing app to explore sudden acceleration, hard braking, speeding, aggressive turning and other movements that occurred from the vehicle while the phone was being used by the driver. The study did not measure incidental movements, such as situations in which a phone was in sleep mode or being used hands-free. The study’s findings identified that approximately 92% of drivers across the country with cell phones have moved them while inside a car in the past month. Florida's drivers got the second worst score around the country for driving while distracted, according to the point system used in the study. There are several other states in which police cannot pull over a driver specifically texting while driving including an arrest in Ohio, Iowa and South Dakota. April is the distracted driving month in Florida and around country and there are a growing number of serious distracted driving accidents that occur on busy Florida roadways, particularly affecting residence as well as tourists. If you have already been involved in an accident because of distracted driving, you need to share your concerns and file a lawsuit directly with an experienced personal injury lawyer who has a track record of finding hard on behalf of victims. If you believe someone else was playing with or using their phone at the time of the accident, evidence supporting this could help you recover compensation in an injury claim. You have to act quickly to protect your right to file. The statute of limitations requires that you file an injury claim immediately. Evidence like pictures from the scene or the police report can help point to another person's distracted driving behavior, and you must be prepared to act quickly if you want to collect this evidence and use it in an injury claim.

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