The editors of FC&S receive questions from subscribers on a regular, frequent basis. We love our subscribers and are always happy to answer your questions; some have been very interesting over the years and even we have learned a lot from you.

Sometimes though we get a question that isn't exactly clear, and we need to ask for follow-up information. We have no problem doing that, but we can only imagine your disappointment when you're expecting an answer from us and get our response asking for clarification as to what exactly your question is. So in efforts to not disappoint, we've put together a few pointers for you when sending in your questions for the experts.

First, let us know the policy you're working with. Is it an ISO policy, MSO, AAIS form, and what is the form number and edition date? We have access to all those policies; other specialty or proprietary policies however we do not have access to, so if you need us to look at the policy language you can do one of a few things. Attach it when you're on the Ask the Experts screen at the bottom of the page; sometimes though your policy is too big to attach, so you can send it directly to Managing Editor Christine Barlow at [email protected] and she'll make sure the right editor gets it. You can also put the excerpt of the policy language into your email; many times that's all we need. Remember that the declarations page provides information on policy limits but not coverage; in most cases it's not helpful without the rest of the policy.

So what's next? We need to know what happened: What was the cause of the loss, what are the damages to property or injuries to people, and what is your question?

We often get too much or too little information; like Officer Friday we need just the facts. What happened – did a tree fall, did lightning strike, did wind blow the shingles off the roof? Once you tell us what happened, what the cause of loss was, then what is the damage? Did the tree fall onto the dwelling, the vehicle, the neighbor's house, did lightning hit the power lines which caused a power outage within the building knocking out the refrigerators and freezers damaging food, did rain come in through the hole in the roof ruining the materials stored in the building? What is your question? Did you receive a denial from an adjuster, are you asking about application of deductibles or special limits, are you asking if there is coverage or is the loss excluded? While it may be obvious to you what your question is, it isn't always obvious to us. We see a lot of questions on a lot of different policies, and we don't like to make assumptions.

What about situations where you can't find something on FC&S? Ask away! We may or may not have the content you're looking for, but it never hurts to ask. We may know the article you're looking for or be able to find it a different way; working in the system all the time gives us an advantage when it comes to looking for articles because we know it so well and see so much of the content. We may also have ideas as to which articles you might find helpful in a given situation. While we try to name the articles so that they're readily searchable, sometimes search just doesn't find something you need.

We often get questions on particular ISO forms. While we have a lot of ISO forms on the site, we do not have all of them; there are just too many. So if you're looking for a particular form and can't find it, shoot us a question and we'll find it for you; or if we don't have it, as is sometimes the case, we'll pull it from ISO and add it to the database.

What about hypothetical questions? If you give us enough details, then we can form an answer. However, so much depends on the variables in a situation and the given policy language, that it's hard to develop a meaningful answer for a hypothetical situation that may never happen.

So, once you have your question ready to go, look at the right hand corner of the screen in FC&S; you can be on most any page, and right there is the Ask the Experts box which takes you to the form to submit your question. Your question comes to us real time, generally about two to three minutes from the time you ask. We ask that you give us five business days to get an answer back to you. Although it doesn't always take that long, that allows for the really complicated questions or if someone is out of the office.

So gather your facts, draft your question, and send it to us via Ask the Experts, and we'll get an answer to you as soon as we can. One last thing – be sure you spell your email correctly in the box! Otherwise we'll be pained when our fabulous answer to you bounces back, and we have no way to find you. We hate it when that happens.