BoatBanter.com - Hurricane Ike Boat insurance claim tips?

On Sep 20, 9:49*pm, GSS wrote:
Does anyone have any tips or experience they could share on how to
deal with insurance adjusters for significant boat insurance claims?
My boat was one of many badly damaged in Hurricane Ike...I'm guessing
$50k+ in damage (boat is worth about a $100k). *Flybridge was
crushed,
radar, Loran, radio & gps antennas, flybridge enclosure, T-top, and
outriggers/center rigger all trashed. *bow pulpit yanked off too &
Port Engine engine won't start, plus the whole dock box gone and
everything in it.

The damage was extensive & I was really surprised she stayed afloat,
but it doesn't appear the boat would be totaled...my policy is a
declared value policy, for what I paid for the boat as opposed to a
replacement value policy. *Please respond to the group & thanks in
advance.

About 15 years ago I had an engine fire on the boat I owned at the
time that I tried to put in a claim on. The boat itself wasn't damaged
much, but the other engine was damaged when I ran the boat back on it,
I was 40 miles offshore when the fire happened, plus I had the damage
to the engine that had the fire. The other engine sucked in the dry
chemical and destroyed the engine on the ride back. The bearings were
wiped, the rings were shot, the lifters were all distroyed (dry
chemical has got all kinds of abrasive material in it that the engine
ingested, it got into the oil, into the filter, clogging it, the
bypass valve allowed the contaminated oil to flow through the engine).
My mistake was that I worked with the insurance company, thinking that
they would do the right thing, was I ever wrong. Their adjuster
claimed the damage was wear and tear, and they wanted to pay me a few
bucks to fix the fiberglass damage, leaving me with two engines that
needed major repairs that I would have had to pay for. I learned the
hard way that you really need to hire a surveyor/adjuster to give you
a detailled report of, what happened, a complete list of all damage,
and cost estimates to repair all the damage. Once I gave up calling
the company, and finally took the advice of someone I should have
listened to from the beginning, I finally got my money. It took like 3
years to get them to pay, but once I was armed with my report, and my
lawyer confronted them with it, they paid off within about 2 months.
Hire someone to at least make an official record of the damage and
repair cost. If their's a differance between what your guy comes up
with and the insurance company comes up with at least you have a place
to start with. If your not prepared, your at their mercy, remember,
they make their money not paying out on claims.