The Situation
The owners of a single-family home in Bear Valley, California reported a collapse loss to their insurance company. The damage was structural, and the home could not be repaired piecemeal; the question from the start was how far the structural damage actually extended and what it would truly cost to rebuild that part of the house.
The owners filed a dwelling claim under their homeowners policy and the carrier sent out its own adjuster to scope the loss.
The Insurance Company's Response
The insurance company issued an estimate and offered $550,354.69 on the dwelling. On a loss of this size, that figure looked substantial, but it was built on a repair scope that treated the collapse as a more contained event than it was.
The carrier's estimate did not account for the full extent of the structural repairs the collapse required. Accepting it would have left the owners funding a significant part of the rebuild themselves.
What the Insurer Got Wrong
The insurance company's initial assessment offered just $550,355, failing to account for the full scope of damage to the property.
What We Found
Our first step was to get a qualified set of eyes on the structure itself. We retained an independent structural engineering firm to evaluate the collapse and define the actual repair scope, rather than relying on the carrier's field adjuster to make structural judgments. The engineering work established that the damage to the structure went beyond what the carrier's estimate had priced.
We also brought in a construction consultant to develop an independent repair estimate reflecting that engineered scope and real-world rebuilding costs for a home in this mountain community, where labor and material pricing differ from the figures carriers often plug in.
The gap between the two estimates became the core of the negotiation. The claim was disputed, and resolution ultimately ran through the carrier's legal representatives. We pressed the documented scope through that process until the parties reached a written settlement agreement.
The Result
The claim resolved by negotiated settlement at $930,193.00 on the dwelling, an increase of $379,838.31 over the carrier's original offer. The additional funds went to the repairs the engineering and estimating work had documented from the beginning, and the owners closed out the claim with a settlement that matched the actual scope of the collapse rather than the carrier's first read of it.
Settlement Secured
We increased the settlement from $550,355 to $930,193, recovering an additional $379,838 — ensuring the property owner received full compensation for all damages.
