House insurance?

Question

ok i have 25 cupboard doors in my kitchen and 6 have been ruined with a leak.the insurance company have said they will only replace the damaged ones.the doors we have are no longer available so basically they are saying we will have to buy different ones and have a odd kitchen.is this right and is their anything i can do.should they replace all the doors if i cant get a match or do i not have a leg to stand on.advice please

Answer 1

The insurance company does not owe you an exact decorative match. It is in your policy. They only owe to replace the damaged doors.  However, a cabinet maker should be able to fabricate doors that are very similar to yours. You will need to take one of the undamaged doors to the cabinet maker.

The insurance company may be willing to compromise and give you money to paint all of the cabinetry so the miss match is not as obvious.

Answer 2

Some companies are goofy like that and you may have to put up a fight.  My sister's house was damaged by hail and her company replaced ALL of the siding on the house. Her  neighbors, who did business with a different insurance company, had siding that was "close enough" in color to the existing siding that was no longer available and had to deal with the mismatched siding.

If you argue your case enough and make them feel sorry for you, you may get somewhere. If you're nasty to them they'll do everything they can not to help you.  

I had that with Allstate once when my alarm system got blown out by lightening.  Neither I nor the adjuster could find someone to come fix it since all of the companies were more interested in signing people up on a monitoring service.  At the end of it all the adjuster agreed just to pay me the $1,000 it orignally cost (from the builder) and for $100 I went and bought a brand new one and installed it myself.

The moral of the story being that someone that likes you is more apt to help you.  I never understand why people call looking for help and are nasty to whoever answers the phone.

Good luck,

Jeff

Answer 3

I would recommend getting documentation to show that the doors are no longer available and present this to your adjuster.  They should allow for the full replacement.  This is kinda like if only a small part of your roof was damaged and they allowed to replace it, but those particular type of shingles are not available anymore, they would allow for a full replacement.  I was an adjuster for years at State Farm and that is how it was then, but it could be different for your company, so I would review with adjuster.

Answer 4

It depends on how your policy is written.  If you have a "functional replacement cost" policy, they do NOT have to match.

You really, really need to call your agent and ask.  YOUR AGENT should be walking you through this claim.