It’s finally time to get paid. Checks are being issued. You can start your repairs, right?

WRONG!

Unfortunately, the issuing of final checks is only the end of the road if you’ve got your house fully paid for. Free and clear. No mortgage.

If you’ve got a mortgage, you’re going to have to jump through some more hoops, and although most of the hoops are similar, they can vary from company to company and one of your mortgage companies favorite games is “moving the goalposts.” You may get different answers from one day to the next and person to person.

The theory behind this is that until your mortgage is completely satisfied, your mortgage company is a co-owner of your home, and pursuant to the language of your mortgage agreement, you have to comply, to an extent, with their shifting obligations.

Your mortgage company’s main goal is to make sure repairs get done, and that you’re not walking away with a pile of cash and leaving them holding a damaged and underwater property.

This is rarely the case, but good luck explaining that to a bureaucracy…

Does it hurt that most mortgage companies are banks and they can make money off of holding hundreds of insurance checks?

We don’t get paid any extra for assisting with this problem, and technically our work has been completed when the insurance checks are tendered, but we’ve been through this so many times, we’re happy to help you through the process, and offer some tips and tricks.

If you find yourself dealing with the mortgage company to release your insurance claim proceeds and are feeling stuck, give us a call at 772.600-4663 and we’ll also review your claim to see if money has been left on the table.

In the second part of this post, we’ll be posting some of those broader tips and tricks, but we’re always happy to walk our clients through the process of getting paid.

You can also contact VIP Adjusting to discuss your claim with our public adjusters here.