I have to feel passionate about something in order to write a review about it, and that's why prior…read moreto now I've only written reviews about music, movies, hotels and restaurants. I never thought I could feel passionate about an insurance company until my recent experience with Proper Insurance.
My wife and I have owned our home in San Diego, California since 1993, and we had our property insurance through Wananesa Insurance the entire time. But when we relocated to Mexico in February 2025, and decided to rent our home as a short term vacation rental, we had to find another insurance company because Wawanesa doesn't provide coverage for short term rentals. Our property manager referred us to Proper and I felt comfortable with them from the beginning.
We were staying in our house in San Diego during the month of September, and the night before flying back to Mexico, I was sitting on our living room couch and felt a bump under the area rug. When I lifted up the rug I saw that one of the wooden floor boards was warping and coming up off the floor. I felt around for any dampness but it seemed dry, so I just chalked it up to an old board that was finally starting to warp. But then, the next morning, just as we were about to leave for the airport, I noticed another board coming up.
Since I had a plane to catch I asked our property manager if he could contact a flooring company to come out and assess the situation. And by that time there were around twenty boards coming up. The flooring contractor thought that the damage was caused by a leak in the wall between our garage and living room, and that's when I knew that I had to contact Proper and most likely file a claim.
The first person I spoke to in the claims department was a woman by the name of Campbell, who was incredibly nice and reassuring, while still being honest that coverage would depend on several factors, such as how long the leak was there and how quickly after discovering it we were filing our claim. Campbell told me that our claim would be assigned to an adjuster, who would be in contact with my by email.
By the next day I received a detailed email from our claims adjuster, Dede Martin, who then followed it up with a personal phone call. And again, after speaking with Dede, I felt great and reassured, assuming that what I reported accurately panned out.
Dede told me that a field adjuster would go out to the house and assess the damage, and I heard from that adjuster the very same day. A few days later Dede contacted me with the field adjuster's report and said that Proper would be covering all of the damages and repairs, less my twenty five hundred dollar deductible. But because the field adjuster's estimates were higher than what the flooring company and contractor who repaired the drywall quoted me I was actually fully compensated. I brought this to Dede's attention, and I believe her reply was that I still might end up incurring more expenses that haven't yet accounted for.
Beyond reimbursing us for the repairs, Dede said that Proper would reimburse us for lost income from rental cancellations, and for any "potential" loss of income due to our rental listing being suspended until the repairs were completed. This "potential" loss of income would be based on our rental income for the same time period last year, but since we didn't list the house for rent until April of this year we didn't ask for any of that reimbursement.
I requested Proper to deposit the insurance proceeds into my checking account with Chase Bank. However, because both mine and my wife's names are on title to our house we needed a joint checking account, which we didn't have. So I had Proper send the check to our daughter in San Diego, thinking she could sign the check over to herself and deposit it into her account. But the bank wouldn't accept it.
I contacted Dede again, and explained my predicament and how desperate I was to get these funds into my bank account by direct deposit. As always, she was incredibly understanding and apologetic. But more importantly she reached out to Proper's accounting department and convinced them to make an exception and do a direct deposit into my account. They just needed an email from my wife saying that she was in agreement with this.
In closing, my recent experience with Proper, and especially with Dede Martin has been exceptional! So much so that I'm now convinced that I can be as passionate about an insurance company as I am about music, movies, restaurants and hotels! I never would believed it!
