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What to do if Hurricane Ian damaged your condos

On Behalf of | Oct 12, 2022 | Property Damage

Building a close community association takes time and a lot of hard work. Unfortunately, it only takes one incident of extreme weather to lay all that to waste.

Hurricane Ian devastated many homes across the Tampa area, possibly including yours. If you are on the community association board, aside from facing your own problems, residents will be looking to you for what to do next.

Assess the damage

Maybe you got off lightly with only a few broken shutters, or perhaps the hurricane took a much greater toll. Either way, to hand in a claim, you need to gather proof of the damage.

Properties naturally deteriorate with time, so insurers may try to suggest that the winds only exacerbated existing problems rather than caused them outright. Photos can play a key role here. Hopefully, you have a set of photos showing the state of the building shortly before the hurricane struck. If you take more photos now to document what the buildings look like after, you can show both sets to the insurer to make the change in condition clear.

Get help to maximize your recovery

Structural damage can be particularly hard to assess. Getting someone qualified to make an assessment gives you a way to double-check whether your insurer’s assessment is accurate. 

Check coverage and exclusions

Was it the hurricane that caused the damage? Or was it the floods the hurricane caused? Many policies do not cover floods, so insurers may claim that water caused your damage, when the winds may have already flattened the place.

If your condo association suffered damage during Hurricane Ian, seek legal help to clarify what you should do next. Remember that insurers will be inundated with claims and are facing massive payouts. Hence they will look for ways to reject claims or pay less than they should. It could be critical to have assistance if you want to hold them accountable and get the insurance your community association deserves.