a trip through insurance world.....Follow

i recently, well, 5 months ago recently, filed a claim with my insurance company.

the reason, my house is over 40 years old and has cast iron dranage pipes and galvanized water pipes. they are corroded to the point sewage and water are impeded.

the insurance companys first response was denial. they stayed on the subject of the pipes and are not responsible for normal wear and tear, and they are correct.

there are some majic words you have to utter to get their attention.

i didnt ask, i told them, they are responsible to damage to my house to access the pipes. info i had gotten from another person with the same problem. they relented, and sent out an adjuster.

well, when the adjuster was finnished, i had to laugh. the price he came up with to dig up all the pipes in my house, then repair all the damage was less than half of what any respectable contractor would want. so i got a couple contractor estamates. they wouldnt budge.

so, off to professional help. my choices? a laywer and sue for breach of contract, and or bad faith or an independant adjuster who knows the majic language to use to get them to ponie up the money.

either one will cost about 30 percent of what ever is paid, the lawsuit will tie up the process for 1 to 2 years however.

so i choose the independant adjuster. i hire a snake to talk to the snakes.

in the end, the insurance company will pay 100 percent of the claim. i, however, will only get about 70 percent of the claim, the adjuster will get the rest. using licenced contractors, something i insist on, i will end up paying about 10 to 15 percent of the cost out of my pocket. the only way to pay nothing is to use unlicenced help, or do it myself.

so, im ok with paying a bit. i can afford it.

i get the check, and my bank is listed as a payee as well as myself. bo biggie, right? wrong. they keep the check and put it in an escrow account and give me a third. i get another third when the entire job is at 50 percent complete and the rest when it is 100 percent complete.

well, being the plumber bill will take up the entire first third and leave nothing for the contractor, the money is locked up at the bank collecting interest for them FOREVER.

so, being a person of means, i take out a loan on my house and pay for the work myself, and use the escrow money to pay off the loan as it is ponied up by the bank.

my point?

you hear all these headlines about insurance companies dealing with fraud, and how the evil policy holders try to ***** them forcing them to make laws to protect themselves, but you NEVER hear the other side of the story.

if i was making an average income, there is no way in hell the work would be completed with the system the insurance comnpany usses. people taking the money and not making repairs? how about people never getting enough money to make the repairs to begine with and walking away from their house with the insurance company check for half of their loss?

who protects the people from the insurance comapnies?

the republican government that allows insurance comapnies to seperate flood damage caused by a hurricane from the wind damage that left thousands of people in florida and new orleans without any coverage when their house was destroyed?

laywers who pocked a good 30 to 40 percent of YOUR money?

independant adjusters who do the same?

the problems we have with insurance companies are caused by their own practices. independant adjusters are a direct result of their practices. layers who specialize in sueing insurance companies are a direct result of their practice.

and yet, the government allows them to pass laws that ***** PEOPLE in the name of big bussiness. no one is holding the insurance industry accountable to the people.

solution? a government insurance company. put the bastards out of bussiness all together, or force them to deal fairly with the people they insure. it would eliminate most insurance realted lawsuits, wipe out the indelpendant adjuster trade, and make sure consumer and bank property is protected. probably drive down rates significantly also.

currently, im only a few weeks away from finnishing my problem, and only because i can afford to pay for it myself.

the other 80 percent of you....are screwed.

my advise? if you have an insurance claim on anything but an auto, hire a professional from the start. it will save you a couple months of jumping through pointless hoops twice.

and for those of you who scam insurance companies? if your going to steal, steal from a thief.

my insurance company is Florida Select. the insurance comapny regulated by the state of Florida as the insurance company of last resort. a gang of thives regulated by hired thugs.

we REALLY need another tea party in this country. our government has run amuk. we are a bunch of sheep being watched over by a pack of wolves, being slowly culled for their dinning delights.

there is no fixing it. we have to start over.

Such a horrible troll, that "blahblah the government is bad because of republicans/*****" schtick is all he ever uses. That horse has been beaten so much that you might as well be ************ it.

Because the housing market is up and reflecting supply & demand?

The talking faces in the TV and my magic eight-ball inform me of all life's decisions I am to make for the day.

"Where's Waldo!?"

"Ask again later."

I meant at the time of purchase but your statement stands correct as well.

/nod

I empathise with you, I just didn't see the connection to insurance assessors not wanting to give Shadowrelm money for buying a house with crappy pipes.

Luckily, Chicago was largely spared the massive housing costs increases (avg'd 5-7% vs the 30-40% increases in places out east). While this means my house isn't suddenly selling for $600,000 it also means I wasn't one of those poor schnooks who bought a 1972 single family ranch-style for $400,000 and are going to see it drop back to $175,000 sooner rather than later. I was already reading an article recently about the housing market capping off in the D.C. area and people unable to find buyers at the insane prices the market has bubbled to.

By the time I am ready to purchase a house, there will be thousands of cheap houses for sale, newly foreclosed on the thousands of idiots that are paying variable interest and interest only mortgages.

There are going to be alot of tears in the next coming years.

I personally blame Bush and his wolves for making people make decisions about how to spend their money. Moral majority. Hah. More like immoral majority!!





See how clever I am. I added im- to moral to make it sumtin new.

Edited, Wed Oct 5 10:53:18 2005 by NephthysWanderer

Exactly. Right next door to the Million dollar apartments are 8 or 9 townhouses. They are the most pointless inconvineant place to live. You are right on a 4 lane highway. It is One Way street (Median between E & W lanes). So it takes 20 mins to get home after you pass your house in the other direction for traffic lights and U-Turns. It is noisey at all hours of the day. They have no front yard and no backyard.

They should have gone for $250 or so. They were listed for $495k. Needless to say its been 2.5 years since they finished construction and they have sold 2. They stopped construction on another unit they were adding and now there is no listed price.

Home Owner sells $250k house for $600k. Some idiot buys it. Home Owner takes $600k and buys another house that should only be worth $300k. The cycle just continues over and over and people like myself can not jump into the ring. They will always sell for $600 and someone will buy it because some feel that living is a ehh house means sh[b][/b]it if you can brag and say it cost $600k.

Sell one of these $600k homes and buy three nice new houses in Maine. Or one mansion and a lakehouse.

Nexa

Yeah, but the signs are already emerging that they won't always sell for $600k. I'm not qualified to say when the market will drop or how dramaticly but as interest rates rise people aren't able to afford to pay six-hundred grand for a two-fifty home. For that matter, there does seem to be some general "waking up" with people deciding that perhaps the house isn't really worth that and opting to look for employment and housing in other markets rather than pay tremendously inflated prices on a modest home in a modest neighborhood. Home pricing will have to adjust itself and, in this case, "adjust" means "go down". At the very least, people will be less willing to buyon speculation leading to more homes on the market leading to (Heaven willing) a downward trend. The upshot being that buying a new home at an inflated price right now might not be the best of ideas if you intend to see it maintain or grow in value.

My job here is useless. She works for NASD and is a Regulatory Manager for the AMEX. Wall Street stuff. Rumor has it that they have several offices in Chicago and we always talked about moving out there if the oppurtunity arises.

Jophiel I hope your right. I am sure you are, it just sucks being stuck in sort of a limbo over here.