Impressing Locals
The night a fire took my home, Doug was there
~John S. Corkins, Porterville, CA
In July 2006, I experienced a personal tragedy of losing my home to a fire. After a day I began to reconcile myself to the fact I would need to rebuild my home from the ground up. I was dreading the experience of selecting builders and dealing with the insurance company.
As it turns out I was worried about nothing. We have all heard the horror stories about insurance companies never paying or helping when they should. I can tell you this was not the case in my situation.
My agent, Doug Schultz at Rural Ag Insurance Services, showed up at the fire that night and stayed with me until 2:00 AM. He then went to his office reviewed my policy and met me the next morning to review all my options.
- Within forty-eight hours an Allied adjuster was on the scene and wrote me a check for living expenses.
- Within four days a second adjuster started evaluating contents loss, and a third adjuster came on to the scene to evaluate structural loss.
- Within ninety days I had plans drawn, a builder selected and we began to build my new home. Allied fronted all the money required to build the house and covered all outside living expenses. They also forwarded the money to replace all of the contents.
- Within ten months my new home was completed and the only out of pocket money I spent was for some upgrades that did not exist in the previous home.
Everyone I talk with says this is unbelievable! My agent sat with me once a year and reviewed my homeowner’s policy and content coverage for each of twenty years. While it’s not his job to be involved with the adjusters or loss recovery, Doug stayed as involved as I asked him to be.
I wasn’t lucky to have the proper coverage--it was due to my agent’s good planning and annual review of my policy to make sure I was properly insured.
Things always go wrong but somehow they made everything right. Someone was almost always on site and answered any questions or concerns.
By the way, I highly recommend G.J. Gardner as a builder, and if I ever build another home they would be my overwhelming choice.
Agent diligence netted me thousands more from claim
~Burt Fugate, Porterville, CA
I rely heavily on the people who work for me and the companies I do business with. Rural Ag Insurance Services has been handling my crop insurance needs for several years. What I like best is they work well with my staff, and they check over the work that others do, like the adjusters.
Recently Rural Ag found an adjuster’s error in a claim settlement because they took the time to review the claim. The adjusted claim settlement netted an additional several thousand dollars that I would not have received had Rural Ag not been so thorough.