Claims

Report it now. Sort out the details after.

Give notice first and ask questions second. Almost nothing on a claim gets worse because you reported it quickly, and several things get much worse because you waited a week to decide whether it was worth mentioning.

Reporting a claim is not the same as filing one.Reporting means the carrier is on notice and a claim number exists. You can report a loss, learn what it would pay, and decide not to pursue it. Ask us first if you are unsure — but do not let "I'll ask first" turn into missing a notice deadline. Be aware that a reported loss can still appear in industry loss history databases even if nothing is ever paid.

You can also go straight to your carrier. Every carrier on our panel takes claims directly, 24/7, by phone or app, and several will get an adjuster assigned faster at 2am than we can at 2am. Do that, then tell us — send us the claim number and we pick it up from there. Nothing about reporting direct removes us from your file.

First response

What to do first, by what happened.

The first hour of a claim decides how much of the rest of it is an argument. These are in order for a reason.

Auto accident

A collision, a hit-and-run, theft, or glass damage.

Get out of traffic if the car is drivable, hazards on. If it is not drivable, get yourself out of the vehicle and off the roadway.
Call 911 if anyone is hurt, if a vehicle is blocking travel lanes, or if the other driver is impaired or leaving. North Carolina requires a crash report for injury, death, or property damage above a set dollar threshold. When in doubt, call and get a report number.
Photograph the scene before anything moves: both vehicles from all four corners, the plates, the final resting positions, skid marks, the traffic controls, and one wide shot showing the whole intersection.
Exchange information. Photograph the other driver’s license and insurance card rather than writing it down. Get the plate even if they hand you a card.
Say what happened, to the officer, factually. Do not apologize, speculate about speed, or agree on fault at the roadside. Fault is decided later on evidence, not on the shoulder of the road.
Get witness names and mobile numbers. Witnesses leave within about five minutes and are nearly impossible to find afterwards.
Report the same day, even if you do not intend to claim. A report on file protects you when the other driver decides three weeks later that their neck hurts.
See a doctor if anything hurts at all. Soft-tissue injuries often present a day or two later, and a gap in treatment gets used against you.
Do not authorize repairs beyond a tow until the carrier assigns an appraiser, unless leaving the vehicle where it is would cause more damage.

Home or property damage

Wind, hail, fire, tree impact, theft, vandalism.

Make sure the building is safe to be in. Gas smell, compromised structure, or downed wires means out first, everything else second.
Stop the damage from spreading. Tarp the roof, board the opening, shut the valve. Nearly every policy puts a duty on you to protect the property from further loss, and damage that happens after the event because nothing was done is the part carriers decline.
Keep every receipt for emergency work, tarps, board-up, generators, and a hotel if you cannot stay. Those costs are usually reimbursable.
Throw nothing away. Photograph and video everything before you move it, room by room, including the rooms that are fine — that is your baseline. Stack damaged contents somewhere the adjuster can inspect them.
For theft or vandalism, file a police report and keep the report number. Most carriers will not proceed on a theft claim without one.
Report it to us or straight to the carrier the same day. Wind and hail claims in particular are worked in the order they arrive after a storm.
Do not sign a contractor agreement, a direct-pay authorization, or an assignment of benefits before you talk to us. Signing your claim over to a roofer in the driveway is the single most expensive mistake people make after a storm.
If the house is unlivable, start a running log of extra costs — lodging, meals above normal, pet boarding, extra mileage. That is what loss of use actually pays.

Water loss

Burst supply line, failed water heater, appliance overflow, sewer backup.

Shut the water off at the source, then at the main if the source is not obvious. Find your main shutoff now, before you need it, and make sure it turns.
Kill power to the affected area if water is anywhere near outlets, the panel, or a submerged appliance.
Photograph and video everything while it is still wet, before extraction and before anyone starts cutting. Mitigation crews demolish quickly and cannot un-demolish for the adjuster.
Get the water out and air moving within the first day or two. Drying is the whole ball game: the sudden discharge is generally covered, while mold that grows because the room sat wet for a week generally is not.
Call a mitigation company — we can name a few — but do not sign an open-ended work authorization or an assignment of benefits. Sign for the emergency service, not for your claim.
Keep the part that failed. The burst supply line, the hose, the failed heater. Carriers routinely recover from the manufacturer, and that recovery is how you get your deductible back.
Report it immediately. Water is the most time-sensitive loss type there is, because the damage keeps compounding while the phone is not ringing.
Know which kind of water this is. A pipe that burst is a homeowners claim. Water that rose off the ground or came in from outside is flood, and flood needs a separate flood policy. Sewer and drain backup is usually an endorsement, not standard.

Commercial liability

Someone is hurt on your premises, by your work, or by your product.

Take care of the person. Call EMS if there is any question at all. Do not offer to pay their medical bills, and do not tell them your insurance will cover it — well-meant promises can be treated as an admission and can prejudice your own coverage.
Secure and preserve the scene exactly as it is. The broken step, the spilled product, the failed part. Photograph it before you fix it, then fix it.
Pull the video immediately. Most systems overwrite within days, and "the footage recycled" is a genuinely damaging fact at a deposition.
Write an incident report the same day: date, time, exact location, what happened, conditions, who was working, who saw it, what the person said. Memory degrades fast and this document will be read years from now.
Do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurer, adjuster, or attorney. Route every one of those calls to us and to your carrier.
Report it even if nobody has demanded anything and nobody looked hurt. General liability policies run on notice, and late notice is one of the most common reasons an otherwise covered claim gets contested.
If you are served with a summons, a demand letter, or a subpoena, send it to us the day it lands. Answer deadlines are measured in a few weeks and a default judgment is very hard to unwind.

Workers' compensation injury

An employee is hurt on the job, however minor it looks.

Get them medical care. Serious injury means EMS, no debate about who pays.
Send them to the right provider. Workers’ comp is a directed-care system in most states, including North Carolina, and treatment outside the authorized channel can turn into a payment fight the employee gets stuck in the middle of. Know your carrier’s network before someone gets hurt.
Take the employee’s notice of injury in writing. North Carolina works through Industrial Commission forms — the employee’s notice and the employer’s report of injury — and the statutory deadlines are short. Do not sit on it.
Report to the carrier the same day you learn about it. Lag time between injury and report is the single most reliable predictor of what a comp claim ends up costing you, and it feeds directly into your experience mod.
Never discourage a report, and never let a supervisor imply it will cost someone their job. That is retaliation exposure on top of a comp claim, and it is a much worse problem.
Test only if you have a written, consistently applied policy that says you do. Selective testing after an injury creates its own liability.
Start the return-to-work conversation in the first week. Light duty inside restrictions is better for the employee and materially cheaper than time out of work.
Stay in contact with the injured worker. The ones who feel forgotten are the ones who hire an attorney.

Before you call

What to have in front of you.

You do not need all of this to report. Missing pieces are not a reason to delay — they are just the things we will ask for next.

Who you are: Name on the policy and the policy number if you have it. If you do not, your name and address is enough for us to pull the file.
When and where: Date, time, and the specific location. "The kitchen ceiling under the upstairs bath" beats "the house".
What happened: A plain sequence of events. Do not editorialize about fault or coverage; describe what occurred.
Who else was involved: Names, phone numbers, and the other party’s insurer and policy number if there is one. Employer and job title for a workplace injury.
Any report numbers: Police, fire, or incident report number, and the agency that took it.
Injuries: Who was hurt, how badly, whether they were transported, and where they were treated.
Photos and video: Whatever you took at the scene. Send them with the report rather than waiting to be asked.
Where the property is now: Which tow yard has the vehicle, whether you are still in the house, which mitigation company is on site.
How to reach you: The number you will actually answer, and the hours you can talk. Adjusters call once and move on.
Lienholders: Mortgagee or lender for a property loss, lienholder for a vehicle. They get named on the payment and they will ask.

Claims advocacy

What we do, and what the adjuster does.

This is the part of an independent agency that earns its keep. The adjuster is a professional doing a job for the company that pays them. We are on the other side of that table, and we do not stop being your agent because a claim got expensive.

Your agent

Us. Paid by the carrier, accountable to you.

Tell you, before you report, what your deductible is and what the policy is likely to do — so you can make an informed decision rather than a hopeful one.
File the notice, get a claim number, and confirm the assignment actually happened.
Chase the adjuster when your calls stop being returned, and escalate inside the carrier when chasing stops working.
Read the estimate against your policy and flag what was missed — code upgrade, matching, overhead and profit, additional living expense that was never opened.
Ask for the specific policy language behind a denial, in writing, and push back when the language does not say what the letter says it says.
Help you assemble the inventory, the receipts, and the documentation so the file is complete the first time.
Tell you honestly when the carrier is right and the claim is not covered. That happens, and hearing it early is worth more than being agreed with.

The carrier's adjuster

Employed or contracted by the insurer that issued your policy.

Investigate the loss and decide whether the policy covers it. That decision is theirs, not ours.
Set the reserve, write the estimate, and determine the amount payable.
Order the inspection, the engineer, the independent medical exam, or the appraisal.
Negotiate with the other party and their attorney, and defend you if you are sued.
Issue the payment, including to any mortgagee or lienholder named on it.

What we cannot do. We do not adjust claims, decide coverage, or issue payment, and we cannot overrule an adjuster. What we can do is make sure the file is complete, the decision is explained against the actual policy language, and somebody keeps asking until it is. Whether a loss is covered is determined solely by the terms, conditions, and exclusions of your issued policy — nothing on this page changes or confirms coverage.

After the report

Roughly what happens next.

Notice and claim number
The loss goes to the carrier and a claim number comes back, usually within minutes on the phone. Write it down. It is how every future conversation starts.
Adjuster assignment
The carrier assigns an adjuster, typically within a business day for routine losses and longer after a regional storm when everyone in three counties reported the same hail. If you have not heard from them, tell us and we will chase it.
Inspection and investigation
An inspection, photos, a recorded statement, an estimate. For liability and comp claims this stage takes longer because there is another party with their own version of events.
Coverage decision and estimate
The carrier confirms what the policy covers and what it will pay, less your deductible. Send us the estimate. Reading it against your policy is exactly the kind of thing we are for.
Payment, supplements, and closing
Initial payment issues, often with the mortgagee or lienholder named on the check. Supplements for damage found once work starts are normal and worth pursuing. Recovery from an at-fault party can return your deductible months later.

Still not sure whether to report?

Call the service line and describe it. We will tell you what your deductible is, what the policy would likely do, and whether reporting is worth it — without reporting anything until you say so. If it turns out to be urgent, we will report it while you are on the phone.

Claims: (828) 555-0177 Other ways to reach us