A letter from Chris, the founder of DamagePort
I wish you didn't need to be here. But I'm glad you are.
Nobody plans for the day their life gets turned upside down. And when it happens, knowing where to begin can feel impossible.
That's why I built DamagePort. Not because the world needed another app, but because I needed something to help me find my footing again.
Why I built it
I'm a control freak. I'll admit it.
I like knowing what's happening, what needs to happen next, and who's responsible for making it happen.
Then disaster came knocking.
Suddenly, I didn't know what to do, who to call, who to trust, or even what questions I should be asking.
There were insurance adjusters, restoration companies, contractors, and public adjusters. Everybody had advice. Everybody seemed to know exactly what needed to happen next.
Apparently, everybody knew more about my situation than I did.
Meanwhile, I was still trying to figure out where my family was going to sleep.
Receipts, photographs, estimates, appointments, inventories, and expenses were piling up. Every day brought more information, more decisions, and somehow fewer answers.
For someone accustomed to being in control, it was maddening.
So I did the one thing I knew I could control.
I wrote an app.
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I've spent much of my life developing software. And when I found myself drowning in the details of an insurance claim, putting fingers to keyboard was the one thing that felt familiar.
I needed somewhere to keep everything together. Every receipt, photograph, expense, appointment, damaged belonging, and dollar coming in or going out.
Somewhere I could look at the whole mess and actually understand what was happening.
So DamagePort was born.
And the more I worked on it, the more I realized something.
I couldn't possibly be the only person who felt this helpless.
There had to be other homeowners out there, suddenly thrust into a process they didn't understand, surrounded by professionals speaking a language they'd never needed to learn.
People who weren't looking for another software subscription, but rather answers. Clarity. Some measure of control over a situation that had turned their lives upside down.
That's why DamagePort is free for homeowners.
The professionals who use it to manage their work help support the platform. The people trying to put their lives back together shouldn't have to pay just to understand and organize their own claim.
DamagePort isn't here to replace good adjusters, contractors, or restoration professionals. It's here to help everyone work from better information, communicate more clearly, and make informed decisions.
I can't promise DamagePort will make your claim easy. I can't promise everyone involved will agree with you, or that everything will go the way you hope.
But I do hope it makes the process a little less confusing, a little less overwhelming, and gives you back some of the control I was desperately searching for.
Because if there's one thing I learned through all of this, it's that you shouldn't have to become an insurance expert overnight just to understand what's happening to your own home.
And if DamagePort helps you do that, then every hour I spent hunched over that keyboard, guzzling coffee, was worth it.
ChrisFounder
Creator of DamagePort
P.S. Being the good little Trekkie that I am, I originally wanted to call it “Damage Report.” But someone beat me to the name.