Claiming Insurance

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I was wondering about any moral obligation I may have in a current situation. My family’s house recently had a flood in the basement and some of my music books got wet. I can still read what they contain, but if anyone has had books get submerged in water, you know they are all bent out of shape and what not. I guess I could still use them although I haven’t taken a close look at them. I could also use the extra money. So what is my obligation if any:

A) Don’t claim the books because I can still read what they say.

B) Claim the books, but only use the money to buy the exact same books I am claiming

C) Claim the books and use the money for whatever.

I don’t know much about insurance claiming as it is my parents house and I don’t know the legal side of it. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not going to be a ton of money for them anyways. My mom just wants me to sort through what is and isn’t damaged and I don’t want to be guilty of “stealing”. I am somewhat scrupulous.
 
I would go with B myself. I know you may still be able to read them but you get insurance to protect your property. You have damaged property. I think I would have a hard time trying to read bent books. I suppose if you don’t mind reading/using them you could be happy with choice A. Are they books you will read again? I have books that I read over and over again so I would replace those if damaged but if it were something I didn’t read or need for reference then I probably wouldn’t replace it. Are they sheet music? I think it would be difficult to play piano or guitar etc. if you had to constantly unbend it, and page turning would be annoying. I would have to replace those.

I would not go with C though. I’m a bit on the scrupulous side too 🙂
 
Consider a parallel situation where you had car insurance. If your car was totalled, you would receive a check that was (hopefully) equal to the value of your car. When you went to replace it, would you have the moral obligation to buy exactly the same model? Of course not. The insurance is not meant to perfectly replace anything you own, but to protect the value of your investment.

In this similar situation, the books may not have been rendered completely useless, but their monetary value was destroyed by the water. They would not longer be considered worth anything to a collector, 2nd hand bookstore, etc. You could certainly claim the value of the books even if you did not intend to replace them.
 
Might be a moot point. Standard homeowners insurance doesn’t cover flood damage. At all.

If you have a sewer / sump pum backup rider AND the water came from one of those two places (not spilling in from window wells or other surface flooding phenomenon), then you are covered and can choose B or C in good conscience as noted above.

If it was a surface flood, you are SOL unless you have flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program. Even then, they have a lot of exclusions for basements.

Good luck.
 
manualman is correct. There may not be any coverage for this loss anyway. However, in the event that there is coverage, Dr. Colossus is correct. Depending on the size of the claim, your adjuster may depreciate the value of the books. In order to claim the replacement cost of the books, you may have to replace them and submit receipts. The policy probably says you have to replace them with “like kind and quality” meaning something similar. If you choose not to replace them at all, which is your option under the policy provisions, then you are only entitled to the depreciated amount of the claim.
 
The insurance person already came out and said to total up the cost for damages. He already looked at the furniture and what not. It is my parents house and they said they have insurance for this. They already paid the deductable and I can claim anything that got damaged.
 
Choose C, you are not making a fradulent claim. There was damage to the books, and you can do whatever you want with the insurance money.
 
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wcknight:
Choose C, you are not making a fradulent claim. There was damage to the books, and you can do whatever you want with the insurance money.
Click to expand...
Consider also, what does the insurance company expect you to do with the money? They probably don’t require that you replace the books to make a claim. And if they were to investigate your claim, they would see that damage really was done to the books, so it is certainly not dishonest.
 
alright, thanks for the advice. The bad news is the insurance might not pay for anything because they just found that the policy actually doesn’t cover flooding. I’ll take your comments into consideration if anything like this happens in the future.
 
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