How to Use This Site

This site has over 500 articles on California property insurance claims. That is a lot of material. This page explains how it is organized so you can find what you need without reading things that do not apply to your situation.

What This Site Is

InsuranceClaimsInfo.com is a free reference site written by a licensed California Public Adjuster. Every article is written from the policyholder's perspective. There are no ads, no paywalls on reference content, and no email gates on checklists. The goal is simple: give you the information you need to handle your insurance claim or to understand what a professional is doing on your behalf.

How the Articles Are Organized

Articles are grouped into five main categories:

• Understanding Your Residential Policy — How policies work, what coverages you have, how valuation works, and what the exclusions actually mean.
• Filing & Managing Your Claim — The claims process from first notice through payment, including documentation, working with adjusters, ALE, and supplements.
• Disputes & Fighting Back — Negotiation tactics, estimating disputes, appraisal, engineering challenges, and legal remedies when the insurer will not pay fairly.
• Types of Damage — Damage-specific guides for fire, water, wind, mold, environmental contamination, and specialty losses.
• California Law & Regulations — Statutes, regulations, case law, coverage doctrines, and consumer protections specific to California.

Within each category, articles are further organized into subcategories. You can browse the full list on the Resources page.

Three Ways to Find What You Need

1. Start Here

The Start Here page asks one question — who are you? — and points you to a curated reading path. There are paths for newcomers, people mid-claim, claims professionals, and attorneys. There are also situation-specific paths for fire claims, denied claims, first-time filers, policy education, and commercial claims.

2. Search

The search bar at the top of every page searches all article titles and descriptions. If you know what you are looking for — “overhead and profit,” “appraisal,” “ALE” — search will get you there in one step.

3. Browse by Category or Tag

The Resources page shows every article organized by category and subcategory. You can also browse by tag — for example, all articles about fire claims, all articles written for attorneys, or all step-by-step guides.

Who Writes This

The articles on this site are written by Leland Coontz III, a licensed California Public Adjuster (License #2B53445). A public adjuster works exclusively for policyholders — never for insurance companies. Everything here is written from that perspective. For more about the author and this site, see the About page.

What You Will Not Find Here

• Advice on how to inflate a claim or misrepresent a loss.
• Content written for insurance companies or their adjusters.
• Generic content that applies to all 50 states equally. Most articles focus on California law and regulations. When an article applies more broadly, it says so.

Free Tools

In addition to the articles, the site includes a free Personal Property Inventory Tool with over 3,750 items organized room by room. You can check off what you own and download an Excel spreadsheet to submit with your contents claim. No account required.

Questions or Suggestions

If you cannot find what you are looking for, or you think the site should cover a topic it does not, use the contact page. Every message is read by the author.