The free checker
Two numbers decide this fight, and neither is on the letter the insurer sent you. The first is the subtraction: their full replacement-cost estimate, minus your deductible, minus the first check. The second is the comparison: the 180 days in the standard policy form, measured against the floor your state's law sets. This checker does both, in your browser, from the statutes and the standard form — and tells you the next document to send.
Tell it your state and the numbers on the insurer's own estimate. It does the subtraction, then measures your policy's clock against your state's legal floor — the deadline your insurer may not be telling you about. No login, nothing uploaded; it runs on this page, in your browser.
We never ask you to upload your policy or your declarations page — not here, not anywhere. Anyone who asks for your insurer-portal password while offering to help with a claim is running a scam.
How to read the deadline: the policy clock and the state floor are shown separately, on purpose. Where the law gives you longer, the checker says "your state's law gives you longer than your policy says" — that sentence, with the statute behind it, is the single most valuable line in this fight. Where a date has passed, the checker says so and shows the doors that remain. It will never quietly move a deadline to make your case look better.
First — is yours insurance, or is it a warranty? A warranty covers things that wear out. Insurance covers things that happen. This site is about your insurance policy after a loss — storm, fire, burst pipe. A home warranty is a different product: a service contract you buy to cover breakdowns, sold by companies like American Home Shield or Choice. If that's what you have, use our sister site's free tool instead: WarrantyDecoded's claim-readiness checker — same company as us, built for that contract. If an insurer sent you a first check that came up short after a loss, stay here.
Every rule the checker applies is cited on the result itself: the standard HO-3 form's 180-day notice of intent; Cal. Ins. Code § 2051.5 (12 months, 36 after a declared emergency, mandatory 6-month good-cause extensions); Md. Code, Insurance § 19-213 (2 years); NMSA § 59A-18-17(C) and New Mexico OSI Bulletin 2024-003 (no timeframe condition authorized); C.R.S. § 10-4-110.8(11)(c) (365 days after living-expense coverage ends); a 50-state survey of labor-depreciation law for your state's labor position; and the matching rules in the state dataset. States whose cells we could not primary-verify are flagged unverified on the result and in the state table — never smoothed over.
The working papers for the fight itself — the proof packet, the extension letter, the appraisal demand, the regulator pack — live in the kit. See everything inside the $39 DepreciationDecoded Kit →