HARD KNOCKSCONSULTING
Local Conditions
Rentals, old trees, and a river running through it
Washtenaw claims raise questions the suburbs do not: who the insured actually is, whether the water was flood or not, and what a historic district will let you rebuild.
Student and investor rentals
Landlord forms cover loss of rents and fair rental value, and those figures are almost never in the carrier's first estimate. Tenant-caused damage is a coverage question worth asking rather than assuming.
Mature tree canopy
Burns Park, the Old West Side, Ypsilanti's historic neighborhoods. Tree-fall impact claims come with a separate debris-removal sublimit that gets quietly exhausted before the structure is even scoped.
Huron River corridor
Whether water arrived as flood, surface water, or a covered discharge decides the entire claim. Carriers default to the exclusion; the actual sequence of events often says otherwise.
Historic districts
Protected exteriors mean the repair the carrier priced may not be the repair the district will approve. That gap is what Ordinance & Law coverage exists for, and it has to be claimed.
Losses We Handle Here
Four claims make up most of the county's volume
Tree impact & wind
01Large-limb and whole-tree strikes on roofs, garages, and vehicles. Structural framing damage under an intact-looking roof deck is the part that gets missed.
Water & backup
02Supply failures in multi-unit rentals, sump loss, and basement backup. In a rental, the drying delay is also a loss-of-rents claim.
Fire & smoke
03Kitchen and unattended-cooking fires are common in student housing. Smoke travels the whole unit stack, well past the room that burned.
Ice dam & freeze
04Century-old roofs with retrofitted insulation dam badly. Vacant summer rentals over winter break are where the frozen-pipe exclusions get argued.
Cities Served
Across the whole county
If your community is not listed, it is still almost certainly covered — call and ask.
City Pages
Covered in detail
Housing stock, neighborhoods, and the specific losses that recur in each.
By Loss Type
How each loss gets fought in Washtenaw County
Every peril has its own script of carrier positions and its own documentation burden. These break down what to expect before you call.
Local Questions
Washtenaw County claim questions
The questions that come up most on files in this county. If yours is not here, ask it on the review form.
I rent the house to students. What coverages are in play?
A landlord form, which means loss of rents while units are uninhabitable — and in a market built around a September lease cycle, timing has real money attached. Losing a unit in August is not the same as losing it in February. Tenant-caused damage is also a different analysis than a weather loss, so establishing cause early matters.
My Ann Arbor house is in a historic district.
The Old West Side, Old Fourth Ward, and the other districts carry review requirements affecting siding, windows, and roofing materials. When the district requires a material the carrier did not price, the gap is an ordinance-and-law question rather than an upgrade you are asking for as a favor.
I own a condo. Where does my policy end and the association’s begin?
That line is drawn by the master policy and the association bylaws, and the two documents do not always agree. Unit owners routinely get told a loss belongs to the association while the association says the opposite, and the policyholder sits between them. Reading both documents against each other is the first task on any condo file.
Older Ypsilanti housing stock — same issues as Ann Arbor?
Similar building age, different economics. Ypsilanti and the surrounding townships carry a high share of investor-owned and converted multi-family properties, which brings occupancy, loss of rents, and code-upgrade questions into files that a carrier will otherwise write as simple single-family losses.
What Happens Next
Three steps, no cost to start
You are never charged to find out whether you have a case. If the carrier's number is fair, I will tell you that and close the review.
Send what you have
Policy, the carrier's estimate, any photos. For rentals, the lease and rent roll help too.
I inspect the property
In person, anywhere in Washtenaw County, usually scheduled within two to three days. Tenant-occupied units are coordinated around access.
You get a line-item position
A written Xactimate scope and the coverage argument behind it, then I negotiate it — through appraisal if the carrier will not move.
Statewide
Other counties we serve
Washtenaw County
Find out what your claim is actually worth
Free review, read personally, usually within one business day. No intake team and no call center.
HARD KNOCKS CONSULTING
220 South Main Street
Royal Oak, MI 48067
(947) 241-2950
stanley@hardknocksconsulting.com
State of Michigan — statewideNPN 20573993