Mold Removal Grand Junction
“Mold removal Grand Junction” is a very commonly searched term, online. Even though we in Western Colorado live in a very dry part of the country, mold is still very common. Look in the dark, neglected parts of your kitchen and bathroom and you just may find discolored sections. If you haven’t read it yet, we recently created a blog post about how to tell if you need mold removal.
YouTubing “Mold Removal Grand Junction”
“Mold removal Grand Junction” wouldn’t be such a popular search term if people weren’t in need of it around the Grand Valley. The problem is that mold removal is often expensive. It’s not uncommon for people to try and find how-to videos for mold removal. YouTube videos can only go so far, however. Especially when a person’s dealing with microbial growth, there’s not a lot of room for error. We always recommend that homeowner’s, property managers, and renters hire a professional mold remediation company – like us – whenever they find growth.
The last thing you want is to YouTube mold removal, self-perform the work poorly (which is very likely), and spread mold spores to other areas of the home. Mold removal is much cheaper when it’s just one area of the home. It gets a lot more expensive if you mess it up and accidentally spread mold everywhere (which is also very likely).
Mold Removal Is Often Not Covered By Insurance
Another reason why people often try to self-remediate is that mold removal is often not covered by insurance. Unless mold removal is specifically written into the homeowner’s HO-3 policy (home policy) as an additional rider, getting coverage can be a big problem.
Insurance uses two keywords to determine coverage. If a claim isn’t based on a “sudden” and “accidental” loss (there’s your two keywords), the adjuster, regardless of insurance company, will most likely deny the claim. Ultimately, adjusters make the final call on policy coverage. It’s important to note that insurance agents do not make final calls on coverage, even though they sell insurance policies. Most insurance offices today also do not handle claims in their office; they send claims to their insurance carrier’s claims department. Agents also have virtually no power at all in determining what counts as being “covered” or not. Ask any insurance agent. They’ll verify the truth of those statements.
Insurance companies reason that insurance coverage is in force to protect homeowners from damage to their home that was essentially unpreventable. Things that are “acts of god,” or entirely unforeseeable. If insurance did cover maintenance, wear-and-tear, or damage caused from negligence, almost no one in the country could afford coverage. Keeping home claims limited to sudden and accidental losses cuts out all the regular maintenance that goes into homes, keeping rates and deductibles down.
Mold Growth Not Considered “Sudden” Or “Accidental”
Why do we mention all this? Well, sad as it is, mold is almost universally regarded by insurance companies as a problem of negligence. Mold can grow in moist, dark environments in just a few days. But most commonly, it grows very slowly. If a homeowner remodels their home and finds mold, that mold growth likely wasn’t “sudden.” It may have been “accidental” (no right-minded homeowner would intentionally grow mold on the backside of their drywall). But it certainly didn’t come about instantaneously. Insurance companies view mold as the homeowner’s problem. It’s something that they “could and should have been on the lookout for,” and will not receive coverage from the insurance carrier.
As we mentioned above, some insurance companies in Grand Junction, and elsewhere, do offer mold removal as a separate rider to HO-3 policies. That additional coverage, though, is often relatively small when it comes to mold remediation. The policy might allow five thousand or ten thousand dollars of coverage. But in many cases, five to ten thousand dollars can be eaten up by even a small mold remediation project, and often does not cover the full cost of remediation.
Getting Mold Removal Covered
1-800 Water Damage performs a lot of mold removal jobs in Grand Junction each year, big and small. And, we often perform work that is covered by insurance. How? We are experts at working with insurance companies, so we know how to help homeowners get things covered. For example, mold (as we mentioned) is typically specifically excluded from insurance policies. However, if mold grows as the result of a water loss, that mold removal may be covered. So long as the water loss – flood, water damage, broken pipe – was sudden and accidental, we may be in the clear, if mold grew as a result of that water. If we can’t appropriately dry and perform water damage repair on a home without removing mold growth, since the water damage is covered, removing the mold may be required – and thus also covered.
It’s sort of a strange workaround, but we have been able to perform mold removal in our hometown of Grand Junction many times using this strategy. Of course, it doesn’t work in every situation, and isn’t always possible. But it is one of the reasons that working with pros for mold removal can be beneficial for homeowners.
Small Spots Of Microbial Growth
We know there’s also a host of people out their googling “mold removal Grand Junction” to get rid of just tiny spots of microbial growth. The earlier article we linked above can be a great resource. You may also give our office a call at 970-712-5298 or contact us on our website with questions. As professional mold removal contractors we have major concerns whenever we hear that someone’s attempting to self-perform mold removal. But we can at least give some ideas of proper removal if you’re set on self-performing the work.