261: How to Get the Most Out of Your Homeowners Insurance Claim | Galen Hair, Attorney

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It's my pleasure to welcome Galen here to the show. He is a property casualty attorney and if you have ever experienced a difficulty, as many people have, with getting insurance companies to pay you, this show is for you. Because insurance bad faith is a big.

Part of the law.

There are zillions and zillions of cases on this type of issue and insurance companies love to collect their premiums. But when it comes to paying, they can be a little stingy with a purse string. So we're going to help solve that problem for you today. Galen, welcome. How are you?

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Jason, good to have you on. Where are you located?

So I'm based out of New Orleans. We practice all around the country. But New Orleans has been my home since Katrina.

I bet Katrina was just a huge boon for your business, right?

Yeah. So I was a baby back then. I was in law school, so it didn't help me too much, but it kind of laid the foundation for my entire business. It's where I learned how devastating disasters can be. Obviously working firsthand. I did a lot of manual labor because I really couldn't do anything else, frankly. And you know, I also saw kind of the insurance adjustment side and what that really means for people and how important it was. So despite the fact that I wasn't in business at the time of Katrina, it ended up being one of the most formative moments of my life and certainly the most formative moment of my company's life.

Excellent. Well, tell us a little bit about, I mean, am I calling it the right thing? Is it always an insurance bad faith case when there is litigation out of insurance companies that won't pay claims, or are there multiple names and multiple causes of action? There probably are, right?

Yeah. So ultimately, whether there's bad faith or not is a factual analysis and also a state specific analysis. So in some states there may not even be bad faith. That's very few in other states. Bad faith means different things depending on what the legislature has done or not done. In every case that we file, there are typically two components to the case. There's a breach of contract claim, which is the carrier's failure to abide by their agreements in the policy. And then in most cases, there is also a bad faith claim, which, depending on the state, has to do with the way that the carrier violated their obligations under the policy or under that state's law. And that's bad faith. Breach of contract is the most common. It exists in 100% of cases. We almost never would file a case if the carrier has done everything they were required to under the policy. That would be exceedingly rare. But bad faith is often accompanied by that.

How big is this issue in terms of insurance companies that just don't like paying out claims or paying them out fully?

So there is a lot of speculation on this because go figure. You can't exactly itemize exactly how often someone is underpaid or delayed or denied. However, most industry participants guess that over 95% of claims are either underpaid or. Or delayed.

Do you handle just property related issues with insurance or. I mean, this happens in all sorts of insurance policies, Auto, life insurance, business insurance, anything.

Right, it does. So my focus is on property related issues and things that are attendant to that. So for instance, I'll do business interruption if a building caught fire and as a result couldn't open. Right. But my focus is really purely on property and there are other lawyers that do other pieces of that. And we even have lawyers in our office. Like we have one lawyer that does a lot of life insurance cases. But you probably wouldn't want me to do a life insurance case. Right. It's a different. Whenever you're talking about property, it's a different thing altogether because what I'm very interested in and what I'm hyper focused on is what the building is made of, how the building is constructed, what needs to be done to put the building back to how it was after a disaster.

And.

And whether the insurance company is paying you to do that appropriately.

And when you say building, this could be a single family home or an apartment building, or a commercial building, or anything.

Right. Anything physical.

Okay, got it, got it. Okay, so tell us a little bit about how this works. And I know you have a couple visuals you want to share for those of you watching on video. For those of you listening on audio, Galen, if you can be sure to tell them what's on the slides.

Yeah, for sure. So the first thing is, I think a lot of People are hesitant to hire a lawyer after an insurance loss. And I fully get that. Depending on where you are in the country, you probably hear a lot about tort reform and things like that. This is not what we're talking about. A lot of those tort reform measures are aimed at, rightly or wrongly, aimed at personal injury lawyers, aimed at doctors giving treatment, looking at whether those people should get paid for medical bills that they did not incur, et cetera. We're not dealing with that. We are dealing with people that did not get enough money to fix their home or their business, and if a violation of state law occurred, whether they're entitled to anything else. So what's really interesting about this is we have learned over time that hiring an attorney does appear to work for the vast majority of people. So the Insurance Research Council is, did a study, and they figured out that on average, people who hire attorneys are likely to see a settlement three and a half times higher than people who don't hire attorneys. That's an interesting number when you take into context what that actually means. The average reason people don't say don't want to hire an attorney makes sense to me. It's financial. Right. It's very simple math. If I need $100,000 to fix my home, I do not want to pay an attorney, either hourly or in our case, a percentage of what I recover because I need it to fix my home. But when the numbers bear out differently, it changes the analysis. So if you're going to get three and a half times more money than you can afford to pay some modest percentage to an attorney to recover that, and that doesn't even take into account bad faith or things like that. Right. So it becomes important because it actually changes the factual analysis as to whether you should hire a lawyer or even a public adjuster or anything like that. And I think that's what's really crucial, is most claims are underpaid, but very, very few people seek professional help. And I think it's because they don't know about this.

Okay, so now that you're talking about this, what are your fees typically you get paid on contingency? Are they the typical 33% or 40% if you go to trial, or what's your fee schedule?

Yeah, so the typical personal injury lawyer charges like a third if they don't file a lawsuit, and 40% if they do. That model does not work in our industry. And I'm really proud to say that I'm one of the firms that pioneered a very different model so we charge 10% if we do not file a lawsuit.

And what if you have to file the case?

If we file the case, it is anywhere between 25 and 40%, depending on the jurisdiction, the difficulty, the venue. So what we're doing is something slightly different than what law firms do. Most law firms charge a third and 40% because that's just the model. And why change it if it's not broken? We don't work that way. We run ourselves like a business because we are a business. So we figure out what it is that we need to charge in order to be profitable after we pay our expenses and our labor costs to function in a specific market. So in some markets, some types of claims, it might be closer to the 40%, and others it's as low as 25%, because we know that can stay profitable in that market and charge less.

And how many. When you say market, you're talking geographical, right?

I'm talking geographical markets. Yeah.

And how many markets are you in? And do you consider a market a state or a county or what?

Yeah, so I consider markets to be greater metropolitan areas, even some rural areas. So in any given state, there might be multiple markets, but we are physically in.

We have attorneys physically licensed in about 17 states, as I sit here today. And we work in almost all 50 states through local council or referral counsel. We've been really blessed to be very mobile and very agile. And that's kind of the secret for us to survive in this industry is because what we do is so weather related, right? Well, weather is not consistent by its very nature. You will have consistently bad weather somewhere, but you, hopefully, for anyone, wherever you live, will not have consistently bad weather where you live. So we've built our business model around being very, very agile.

And can you go to that next slide so we can unshare the screen after this?

Yeah, sure thing. So one of the things we see, and this is just a sample case study from a very, very recent residential claim. Often what happens is you file your claim and you receive some very, very, very small sum of money. In this particular case, this gentleman was a victim of Hurricane Ida, which struck in August of 2021, and he received $1,480 for his insurance claim. What was interesting about that is he thought that was reasonable. He figured he would have to come out maybe another thousand dollars out of pocket. But we took a look at and we saw that he had a lot more damage, and we disagreed with those numbers fundamentally. So he ended up achieving a settlement of an additional $60,000. Even so, he was at $61,480. Now, what's also really interesting about this is that did not include bad faith, that did not include attorney fees, and we did not file a lawsuit for that one. So simply by explaining to the carrier that the carrier had missed certain things, and by working with the carrier on this religiously, one of the things we do is we call. We email. I call it professional harassment. Right. And we point out all the things they missed, and we point them out early, and we point them out often. The carrier ended up admitting and agreeing that they owed an additional 60,000. That was enough that this particular client didn't see the merit or reason to go ahead and go forward and file a lawsuit and chase after bad faith. We fully supported that decision.

Okay, great. So you had to hire probably a public adjuster for that, right? Or have some sort of inspection that the client probably paid for to run those fees up, right?

Somewhat. So we have a couple of people in house that perform desk reviews. That's a service that we provide. And then if we have to hire someone to go out, we do it slightly differently than most. If you wanted to hire a public adjuster, you could hire a public adjuster and they would charge you about 10%, typically, depending on your state. Right?

10% of the claim.

10% of the whole claim, including money you've already received, often, which is not ideal. So in that situation, this client would have probably been charged $6,148 by the public adjuster. And there's no guarantee that the public adjuster would actually get any results. Often will go to an attorney later anyway. So at that point, you're paying for a lawyer and you're paying for public adjustment.

Okay, can you tell us, Galen, what is a public adjuster? I mean, insurance companies have insurance adjusters that work for them. Right. And then there are these public adjusters. Who are these people? Are they licensed? What are public adjusters? Tell us about that industry.

So at their core, public adjusters are insurance adjusters that are trained to work for policyholders, for members of the public. They may or may not be licensed, depending on the state. Every state has their own licensing scheme, and in a couple of states, they are not permitted. For instance, in Alabama, there are no public adjusters because the state of Alabama considers public adjusters to be engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. So they're just not there. But in most states, public adjusters do exist, and they do work. They have some advantages and some disadvantages. The Biggest advantage is they're accessible to you quickly. And if you're considering hiring a lawyer that doesn't charge the same way we do, that charges more of that traditional a third and 40%. They are way cheaper because they're usually about 10%. In some states they're hourly, but usually they cap it at a certain percentage as well. And their job is to figure out how much you were owed for your loss. And then depending on the state, they can do more or less. Meaning in some states they can advocate, they can work with the carrier, they can try to get the carrier to pay more. In other states, they kind of have to write an estimate and walk away. It just kind of depends on what that specific state lets them do.

And is the public adjuster someone who actually reviews the insurance policy or are they more focused on the physical condition of the claim?

Well, I guess now we're getting into the difference between a good public adjuster and a bad public adjuster. A good public adjuster should absolutely review the policy because policies are complicated. They're not overly complicated, but depending on a definition or a specific provision, classifying damage one way versus classifying damage another way could have a five or six figure net effect. Sometimes a seven or eight figure if it's a big commercial claim. So a good public adjuster is going to read the policy before they even start writing their estimate. They're going to be focused on what that policy says, what that policy allows, and what that policy does not allow. Then they will move towards writing their estimate. A bad public adjuster will go out there, look at the damage, write an estimate and say, okay, I did my job.

Okay, got it, got it. So a public adjuster, and are they actually an advocate? The way you answered the question, it sounded like they were actually an advocate, like an attorney. Or are they someone who just sort of gives a neutral empirical estimate of damage, or are they both?

Both. So in most states they are an advocate as well as someone that gives an estimate for damage. In some states, they are very limited in what they can do, so they're more of an estimator. Estimating fundamentally is different than public adjusting. Public adjusting. So the word adjust actually means bringing the claim to resolution. Right. So a public adjuster in their truest form should be bringing that claim to resolution in a way that is favorable for you. An estimator is just putting numbers on paper.

Okay, got it, got it. Okay. So if someone wants to go that route, do they just go online and look up public adjuster in a certain zip Code, for example, or area or city.

I mean, that's a way to do it. Right. The problem with that is that is just like hiring anyone out of a phone book. I guess no one uses phone books.

Anymore, but my mother does.

Well, yeah, I mean.

Someone called the other day and asked if we wanted to advertise in the phone book, and I was incredulous. I just had no idea. But, you know, you want a good public adjuster, right? It's just like hiring a lawyer. It's just like hiring an accountant. It's like hiring anyone that's providing professional services for you. You have to think about whether they're qualified, whether they have a good reputation.

Well, let's. Let's assume we get past reviews and, you know, we get the right person. I'm just saying, how do you find one? That's. That's my only question.

Oh, yeah, Google or your specific department of insurance, if they license public adjusters, will keep a directory of every public adjuster that is licensed to work in that state.

Okay, got it. Okay, let's move on. Now, what states and how many states do you do business in?

Again, we actively are licensed in 17, and I think we've handled cases in 48.

Okay, great. And just out of curiosity, give us a sense, and I know this isn't. There's no perfect answer to this, but what states really are good for consumers, for the insured, where the outcomes tend to be very favorable for the insured versus the insurance company?

Yeah. So you can almost kind of predict California, New York, California, New York, not as good as you would think. New York is surprisingly not great, but that's because there's so many businesses based out of there. But California, Oregon, Washington. Right. And then you kind of jump down. Texas is actually pretty decent. Louisiana is one of the best in the country, one of the reasons we're based there. Then you jump over to Florida. Florida has been one of the best in the country, but it's slowly getting worse. In fact, right now, there's a concerted effort to kind of change the way property insurance works and property adjustment. Then the Carolinas are also pretty good. The greater D.C. area is going to be pretty good as well. And then in the Midwest, you've got Indiana and Illinois are going to be pretty good as well.

Okay, got it. Okay. What else do you want people to know about these claims? One question I think a lot of people are asking is, what is the smallest claim you'll handle? And then what are some of the larger ones you've Handled.

So including bad faith penalties and, you know, attorney fees, et cetera, we're looking for cases that are in about the $75,000 range or higher. There's a little bit of wiggle room, depending on the jurisdiction. But we found that that's kind of the magic number where the client doesn't feel squeezed for funds to repair their home after they pay us. The example I gave was. You might look at the example I gave and say that was a $61,480 claim and say, well, what are you talking about? You took that lower claim?

Well, that's what I was going to say. You know, when I say that, when I ask that question, you know, we've got to remember what Galen just taught us, that you may believe your claim is much smaller than it really is.

Right, exactly. So even that $61,000 claim is. If the client had chosen to proceed with the litigation route, that would have been about $180,000 claim. So that was well within. So. So that's a great example where the payout was only 1400 bucks, 1500 bucks. But we actually saw that claim as being far in excess of our $75,000 threshold. So you don't need to be. It's not that you should look at what the carrier pays you. You should just let someone like us look at it and we'll tell you if we think it's big enough for us to help with. You know, the only time it's probably not going to be big enough is someone that, for instance, had a fence blowdown and that's it. And they're confident there's no damage to anything, but there's a lot of damage you don't see on your homes or your commercial buildings. And that damage seriously, seriously adds up. You know, on the bigger claim side, we had a church where the carrier would have sworn up and down. There was about a million dollars worth of damage. And by the time we were done, we were able to prove over $11 million worth of damage. And.

We handle cases in that eight figure range often. And it typically starts. The case starts in the six figure range, not the eight figure range.

Yeah. And what should someone do if they have a claim that's actually smaller, where you're not going to take it, but they feel that they're getting the short end of the stick with their insurance company. What should they do?

Yeah, so the first thing is they should definitely talk to a public adjuster. I would 100% do that. I would also consider finding a contractor that Works on insurance claims. I actually don't recommend using them for bigger claims, but these contractors can kind of work some of the smaller claims, and they work them aggressively. And what they do is get you to sign a contract that basically says, hey, you give me the insurance proceeds, I'll do the work. So they become inherently vested in the outcome. And if it's a smaller claim and there's not much to do, but you want your house fixed because you've gotten the short end of the stick, they will work their butts off to fix your home.

I'm kind of surprised that they can do that. You know, I had a couple of roof claims last year, and I was quite satisfied with the outcome, actually. I mean, these were roofs that would have needed replacement anyway, or at least in the near future. And it's like my insurance company paid for a bunch of something I was going to have to do anyway in the near future. So, you know, you really can make money off of insurance. And I'm not saying that in a way of, you know, taking advantage of the insurance company. I mean, I didn't even really negotiate with them. They just paid me out. And I was actually quite pleased with it with the results on these. But, you know, maybe I should have hired a firm like yours and those would have been bigger.

Yeah. It's kind of funny. I feel like the. The jaded part of me when I hear you say things like that, I start thinking, I bet they didn't replace his decking. And you know, I bet. I bet they don't have the right underlayment. Right. And I start thinking about all the things.

Right. You know, I'm thinking about that too now. Yeah, but. But, you know, I was surprised when one of those roofers pitched that idea that you're mentioning to me, that they would get part of the claim. And I'm really surprised they're allowed to do that. That's. I mean, that's such an obvious conflict of interest. Right.

For.

And I'm sort of taking the insurance company's side now, but it just doesn't seem right. I'm surprised they're allowed to.

Yeah. There's two schools of thought. Right. So there is an active effort in most states to try to buy the insurance carriers to stop these assignment of claims or assignment of benefits. Right. And the theory is they lead to more insurance fraud and they ultimately cost more money. The countering school of thought, though, is that at the end of the day, the contractor knows what a fair price is to do the work. The Contractor is doing. So let the contractor do what the contractor does, because who. The person that probably doesn't know what a fair price is is the homeowner. And then similarly, when we think about adjusters, most adjusters are very poorly trained and they're using computerized pricing software. Again, no contractor is actually reviewing this stuff. So the idea is a contractor that does, you know, 5,000 residential roofs a year or more is probably in a better place to figure out how much it's going to cost to replace that architectural shingle roof appropriately. And maybe they should be the ones to pick the price. Now I get the other side, which is if it drives up insurance costs and it drives up premiums and it makes it less palatable to be there. The parade of horribles. But there are two countervailing schools of thought, and I think they both have merit.

Okay, all right. Good, good. What else do you want people to know?

One of the things I talk about a lot with people is insurance fraud. And I think it's really important for people to know, because insurance fraud happens on both sides. And if I was giving someone a piece of advice, if they called me up and said I had a claim, I don't want to hire you, but what should I know? I would say do not commit fraud. Do not lie. Tell the truth.

Of course not. Yeah.

Well, you know, interestingly enough, 24% of consumers are willing to pad a claim if it's an insurance claim. Interesting. They might be the most honest people in the world, but they are willing to pad a claim if an insurance company is going to pay for it. Right. So. So it is rampant when carriers say it's rampant. But what carriers don't tell you is that carriers also commit fraud, and people carriers hire commit fraud. The definition of fraud is simply making a misrepresentation, you know, as a. Like to try to get or not pay insurance proceeds. It's very straightforward, and it works both ways. It happens on both sides of the fence. But you only hear about consumer insurance fraud because most insurance fraud prosecutions are referred by something called a special investigations unit, which is housed inside of a carrier. Carriers do not report themselves for fraud. Go figure, right?

Imagine that.

So I'm actually part of a group called the American Policyholder Association. And one of the things we do is, is investigate insurance fraud committed by carriers and make referrals to prosecuting authorities when we identify them. And we've done some cool things. We found mass copy and paste on engineering reports. We've found mass copy and paste on wind Denials where, you know, someone will say, oh, the wind wasn't high enough to cause damage. And then we actually would find in a letter, by the way, copy and paste this into all of your hurricane X claims. And then we find out later they didn't know the wind. You know, so you see things like that and so be aware is. I guess what I'm saying is when you go through a claim, protect yourself, record calls if it's legal in your state to do so. If it's not, make sure you follow up every call with an email. Document everything. And that's the way you ultimately protect yourself if you do need help.

You know, it is really ridiculous and this is just a general statement that these corporations get all the rights of people, yet none of them ever go to jail. It's just disgusting. If an insurance customer, if a policyholder commits insurance fraud, they could go to jail. Right. But if an insurance company commits insurance fraud, you know, maybe they get a fine if you're lucky. You know, these corporations are abusing the planet and nobody ever goes to jail. It's just disgusting that they have all the rights of people, yet they don't get the punishment of people. It is absolutely appalling that our society works this way.

Correct. And look, I'll tell you this. When an insurance company commits fraud, it causes divorce, it causes homelessness, it causes suicides, it causes suicide, it causes joblessness and suicide. And in fact, they did a study after Hurricane Sandy and it was something crazy. Like over 30% of children were having some kind of learning or developmental disability. If that family had been a victim of the hurricane, well, that's because they had been underpaid and they have been living in these terrible conditions and the kids have not been able to get their feet on the ground and really start to develop the way we want them to so that ultimately in that region will affect the entirety of the population in another couple of years because those people will be hitting the workforce and they have not had a fair start as children, which is just terrible.

Yeah. And maybe they end up in prison or whatever. They turn to a life of crime. Yeah, it's absolutely. The processional effect of some these things is just shocking. One other question I want to ask you, Galen, before you go, is what are some of the things that people might not know are in their homeowners insurance policies? And remember, you're definitely talking to owner occupant homeowners, but you're talking mostly to investors that own rental properties. What are some of the things their policy might cover that they don't even know about and they never would think to make a claim for. And then the second part of that question is, what other additional coverages should they consider buying, adding on to their policy that maybe wouldn't be included, but would be available for a small fee? And it amazes me with some of these insurance policies how cheap it is to add some of these additional coverages. Sometime, you know, $26 a year, it's like nothing. And you've got a whole new area of coverage, potentially. Tell us about those two things. Things.

So you're an owner occupant. Your deck page is probably pretty thorough. You have your four basic coverages. I hate, hate, hate when I see a homeowner that does not have additional living expense coverage. Often they have waived it. They have signed their life away. I cannot stress enough, make sure you have additional living expense coverage. That is what keeps your family safe after a disaster. Getting paid for your structure, getting paid for your contents, that's well and good and that's important. But having a roof over your head while you were coping with the disaster is so fundamentally important. Other than that, you have some little supplemental coverages that you should look at. You probably have debris removal, you probably have lost food. You probably have all those little things that 500 bucks here, 500 bucks there really adds up. Sometimes there's ease of even, like computer loss, like losing electronic files and stuff. You really got to look for those things, but they're there. And again, and just, you know, nickel and diming, those things really, really, really adds up. If you live in a place that is susceptible to hurricanes or hailstorms or tornadoes, do not ever, ever, ever, ever sign a wind and hail exclusion. Many insurance companies will offer it to you, and they will offer you a very minor and almost insulting reduction in premium, but your agent will tell you it's a savings and you will sign it again. I hate seeing that. I've seen homes leveled that look like pancakes and there is no coverage because they signed off on it. But on the multifamily side, you have a ton of additional coverages, right? Especially if you're investing and you know, so first of all, if you're investing in individual homes, what you have looks a lot like a homeowner policy, except it's a landlord policy. So just check that, you know, if it's cheap enough, I'd get your appliances covered, things like that, because those can be big ticket items. If, if most of your, if you're not really Diversified geographically. Like if you have 40 homes in New Orleans, Louisiana, well a hurricane, you're going to be replacing 40 sets of appliances. So if you can get it cheap enough, get those, especially those bundled policies where you can put a ton of properties under one policy. That's always a win. Just make sure your numbers are high enough. But again, like electronic records, business interruption, make sure you have that business interruption or loss of use coverage there.

Yeah. So the loss of rental income, big.

It's huge. Right. Again, if you own 40 homes in a geographical area where suddenly the homes are all damaged, that really, really adds up. Right. And then on the multifamily side, that's like, it's like, it's like a restaurant menu of coverages. Right. And it's not on the deck page. If you have not done yourself the service of reading that entire hundred page pl, then you have no idea what is in there. One of the things we do on the multifamily policies is we make what we call a chart of coverages where we literally read the policy from page one to page 50 or whatever, page 150 and we make a chart. This is covered and it's covered up to this amount. This is covered and it's up to this amount. This is covered and it's up to this amount. And that is what we give to whoever is going to do our estimating. Right. Because we want to make sure that they're looking for these things when they're writing. And if you do not undergo that exercise for yourself, you have no idea what you purchased. And there are so many little supplemental coverages that really, really add up, like audio visual equipment, things like that. You know, that's more for commercial buildings, but you need to typically get separate electronics and audio visual coverage. And then finally I would do an umbrella. Just fundamentally, the more properties you can loop into one policy, assuming it's a good carrier, that's cleaner and better for you. Typically simpler deductibles, you gotta make sure you have enough coverage. But then on the liability side, you really should have an umbrella that sits over all of that so you're personally never at risk.

Then that's on the liability side. What about these insurance carriers that say they're a non admitted carrier? What does that really mean? What's the significance of that?

Yeah, be careful with that. It means different things in different states. And in some states it means that you do not have the same legal rights if they do not adhere to their obligations under the policy. And that's big. So for instance, you know, using Louisiana as an example because it just came up recently, there's a surplus lines not admitted insurer that cannot be sued. In some courts, they also.

Well, Louisiana is weird because you have two systems of law. You have Napoleonic law.

Yeah. We've migrated over to the rest of the folks over the years. You know, it is fundamentally rooted in code of law. But these are statutes that the Louisiana Department of Insurance lobbied for so they could get these carriers in. Right. They don't have to answer lawsuits as fast. There are some courts they can't be sued in. And in some states, these non admitted insurers may not be subject to bad faith penalties, which means they have all the incentive in the world to mess with your claim because there will be no repercussions. And that's pretty big. That's pretty big.

And what did you call those penalties?

Bad faith penalties.

Bad faith penalties. That's different than punitive damages though, right?

It's similar. In some states you can get penalties and punitives. In other states the penalties take the place of punitives. So for instance, in many states you cannot get punitive damages if you get penalties, but the penalties are prescribed by statute. Right. So that's amazing. In Florida, the old rule, it's changed now. It used to be if you could basically prove that they had underpaid by a dollar, you would get all of your attorney fees. Right. So bad faith penalties look different in different places. But there really is. The point is all bad faith disincentivizes a carrier from playing games during the adjustment process and ideally incentivizes them to pay you faster. Now, functionally, economically, it does not incentivize them to treat you better, but you never ever, ever want to incentivize a carrier not to treat you well. Right? So, so think about that when you're dealing with a non admitted insurer and maybe even meet with a lawyer like me in advance, a lot of them will talk to you, especially if you're investing. They'll be happy to meet with you for free. Say, look, here's what, here are my proposals. What would you go with if you were me? Keep in mind, if I lose these homes, I might have to hire you. Which of these policies would you get? And get their help. Sometimes a lawyer that does this work can be your best silent partner in helping you purchase more properties because we'll look at what your risk is and where it's headed.

I know this probably varies by state, but what is the statute of limitations on these Types of claims, because someone might be listening to this thinking, gosh, I had this claim three years ago, and now that I'm learning all this stuff, I should have hired a firm like yours. But I settled it, and I didn't think I got a fair shake. What is that like? So not only the statute of limitations, that's part one of the question, but the other part of it is, what if you've already taken some money from the insurance company? Do you still have rights?

Yeah. So the first thing with the statute, it can be as little as a year. It could be as long as. I think seven years is the highest one I'm aware of. Look, in your policy, interestingly enough, it might not be accurate because there might be state law that lengthens that time. But under your policy, we call it the sue us clause. There literally is a. A clause that often says, like, you know, your right to sue us or time to sue us or whatever. And it says if you sue us, you must do so within X amount of years of the loss. That's a good place to start. But then your state law may modify that a little bit. It typically won't shorten it, it'll lengthen it. Right. If your state statute, prescription or statute of limitations is a year, but the policy says three years, more likely than not, it's going to be three years because the carrier is consenting to that extra time. So that's the great place to start. If you have taken money from your insurance company and now you were sitting here thinking it was not enough, you likely have not waived any of your rights in almost every state. That is what's called undisputed funds. So if you did not sign a settlement agreement or you did not otherwise indicate that you were allowing that to be a settlement of your insurance claim, they will use the word settlement. Okay, it's confusing, and I think it's intentionally confusing, but they call the check a settlement check, but it's because they're settling the amount of the loss. If you did not sign anything saying you agree or otherwise indicate to them that you agree with those numbers, you probably can still pursue your claim. And in fact, most people that come to us have already received payments. And I can think of one time in my career where it has been sufficient to constitute a waiver.

Okay, that's good to know. Good. Okay. Anything else you want us to know and give out your website?

Yeah, sure thing. So if you have any questions, by all means, feel free to contact me. We'd love to talk to you. We're@www.insuranceclaimhq.com. that's www.insuranceclaimhq.Com. and if you need any resources or need to learn anything, we've got a book on the website. You can get that and it kind of walks you through how to handle your claims.

Good stuff. Galen here. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Jason.

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