Public adjuster for Macomb County homeowners

Post-war tract housing

Warren, Roseville, Eastpointe, Center Line. Original 1950s systems and single-layer roofs mean repairs trigger code upgrades — ice barrier, ventilation, egress — that the first estimate leaves out.

The subdivision belt

Macomb Twp, Shelby, Chesterfield. Whole neighborhoods were roofed in the same two-year window, so entire streets age out at once — and carriers reach for wear-and-tear instead of storm.

Anchor Bay and the canals

New Baltimore, Harrison Twp, Clinton Twp waterfront. Long wind fetch off open water, ice shove against seawalls, and detached structures that outrun their Coverage B limit.

Finished basements

Macomb has a lot of finished lower levels sitting on aging sewer. Backup coverage is capped by endorsement, so the whole file turns on what is backup and what is covered water damage.

Wind & hail roof

Sewer backup

Ice dam & freeze

Siding & exterior

My basement backed up in a heavy rain in Warren. Is that covered?

Only if you carry the sewer-backup endorsement, and it will have its own sublimit. Macomb County sees regional events where thousands of homes back up on the same night, which is exactly when carriers process fastest and scope thinnest. Establishing whether water came through the drain or through the foundation is the first determination, because one is a backup claim and the other is a flood question.

Hail hit my Sterling Heights ranch. The carrier paid the roof and nothing else.

Postwar brick ranches across central Macomb have low-slope roofs, aluminum trim, and vinyl or aluminum siding on the gables and rear elevations. Those soft components dent at lower thresholds than shingles fracture. A roof-only settlement on a ranch usually means nobody documented the elevations, the gutters, or the condenser.

I own a duplex in Roseville that I rent out. Does that change anything?

It changes what coverages are in play. A landlord policy carries loss of rents, which is a real and frequently unclaimed number while units are uninhabitable, and it treats appliances and contents differently than an owner-occupied form does. Rental files are also where occupancy questions come up, so documenting who was in the unit and when matters more.

My house is on the water in Harrison Township.

Lake St. Clair exposure means higher sustained wind loads and ice damage at the shoreline. Docks, seawalls, hoists, and boathouses are usually other-structures items with their own limit, and some are excluded outright — worth knowing before a storm rather than after. Wind-driven rain through a lake-facing elevation is also its own argument.