ORLANDO, Fla. – Melissa DeVriese, president of Security First Insurance company in Ormond Beach sat down with News 6 investigator Mike Holfeld to talk about the role insurance companies will play to answer the call for coverage and what policy holders need to know.
“At this point we believe we have more than enough resources to respond to post Hurricane Idalia,” DeVriese said.
We have 443 employees of Security First, over half of them are in our claims department. They’re all geared up and ready to go. We use six national providers to supplement our staff, so we feel very confident that we have the adjustors to handle the storm.
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DeVriese offers the following tips for insurance policy holders in Florida.
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Every homeowner should know how to file a claim
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It would be best to know the policy number and if the homeowner had an idea of the policy coverages. For example, it would be good of they knew of they had flood insurance or not that would be something important to know ahead of time
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If a homeowner isn’t sure of either their coverage or how to get a hold of their insurance company, their agent should be their first line of defense. They should definitely contact their agent, if not, their carrier”
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Their carrier probably has a web site with a portal for you
Storm Event Anticipation. (Are you in the cone?)
“We send out notice before and after a storm. We find it has a very high open rate and customers really appreciate it, and in that email we tell them how to file a claim, what their policy number is and how to obtain additional information,” DeVriese said.
If you have damage, make sure you’re safe, then document the damage. If you have the ability to take photos take videos that’s really important, that will help a lot in your claim. Then call your insurance carrier as soon as it’s possible to file the claim.
“The sooner you let us know you have a problem the sooner we can get out there. We want to get to get you house to the pre-storm state as quickly as possible. I’s really dependent on the carrier and the size of the event on how long that will take.”
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