When The Flood Team or any water restoration company visits a potential customer one of the most important things is building a scope. Building a scope, or “scoping” is taking in all applicable data from a water loss and identifying the cost and time frame it will take to fix it. The scope is so important because it is necessary to figure what will be the bill for insurance. Your insurance company expects and requires a detailed scope if they are going to pay for necessary services.
Detail is key. A vague scope will leave insurance either not covering part of the job or denying the claim all together. Detail is also very important because different insurance agencies require different information; a detailed scope with reduce the chance of issues with insurance.
When you work with a water damage company make sure you as the homeowner get a copy of the scope. The scope needs to have a diagram or measurements from the area affected. This way you have the ability to gauge if they did their job correctly when they say it’s done. Their scope should also list the equipment that they are going to use. Insurance will want this because every piece of equipment used will have a cost attached to it. If your agreement says a certain amount of equipment and the bill at the end says something different make sure your water restoration company can explain why. By figuring out how much equipment and time it will take to do the job the scope should then give you an estimated price.
A detailed scope will most likely give you a close price to what it will be when the job is finished. A non detailed scope makes it very hard to know what the final cost will be.
The Flood Team always does a detailed scope and so should any company you work with. Otherwise, your bill can get out of hand fast.
