| The greatest ignorance is to reject substantive matter out of hand, yet insurance policyholders do it as preset course, unaware of their vulnerability till often too late.
With such compelling information the question is when will you preempt the course setting...join the base? |
Subject:
Re: Insurance Adjuster Standards for Hail Damage
Date:
Thu, 07 Jun 2001 09:39:02 -0400
From:
Antone Braga
To:
Richard Lawhern
References:
1
Dear Richard, if your claim were just a matter of the amount of loss and
not the issue of occurrence, you
could resolve it through the appraisal process (a simple form of arbitration,
although that has now been
eliminated from many property policies). You mentioned that some of the
conditions in your policy are
different than those found at disasterprepared.net. There are a great many changes
in wording taking place in most
states that favor insurance companies. Far too many to list here. I've
yet to find an authority who can tell
me what states have adopted the newer wording. Some of these changes can
be found at
http://www.disasterprepared.net/postmortem.html The burden of proof is
indeed on the policyholder.
However, in the case of amount of loss that can be your strength. Good
luck with resolving your claim to
your satisfaction. With your permission, I would like to post this e-mail
on our forum, so others can see
some of the pitfalls in property claims.
Best regards,
Tony Braga
Richard Lawhern wrote:
Dear Tony,
You wrote as follows:
From: tony@disasterprepared.net (Tony Braga)
To: lawhern@hotmail.com (R. A. Red Lawhern)
Subject: Re: Insurance Adjuster Standards for Hail Damage
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 14:48:35 -0400(A copy of this message has also
been posted to the following
newsgroups:
misc.industry.insurance)
Have you thought of filing your formal claim, which starts the matter
to
resolution? Claim filing information is at
http://www.disasterprepared.net/deserve.html
<<
I filed claim with USAA about seven months after the storm incident
that created the damage. The claim
was denied based on the adjuster's assertion that the dimples in my aluminum
siding are over two years
old. I then filed request for reinspection, with a copy forwarded to
the Virginia State Insurance
Commission. When the second adjuster came out, he brought a witness
with him. I'm almost surprised
it wasn't a lawyer.
The claim seems to resolve to one basic issue: USAA adjusters claim
that hail impacts to aluminum
siding of sufficient force to dent the siding, will remove pre-existing
oxidation in the deepest part of the
dimples created by the impact. The oxidation on the dented wall of my
house is uniform inside and
outside of the impact pits. Therefore (the adjuster says) the damage
is over two years old. However,
neither of these two bozos could quote a published industry standard
that establishes the factual basis for
their assertion. I'm being told that I may have to hire an engineering
firm to establish the basis for my
claim. Burden of proof is on me.This kind of nonsense from USAA seems
to have aggravated a lot of
people in my area. 45 of them about 10 miles south of me have filed
a class action suit against the
company for improper denial of claims. I may end up joining their suit.
If life wasn't interesting enough
already, we had another hailstorm last week with half-inch hail accumulating
up to 4 inches deep in 10
minutes. This one flattened most of our garden flowers and left the
siding un-dented, but speckled with
dirt over two sides of the house. It will be interesting to see if USAA
denies that this is
"damage". Thanks for the link to the claims page. Some of the conditions
of my policy are a bit
different, but the cautions and reminders of the page are none the less
helpful. Disgusted regards, R.A.
"Red" Lawhern, Ph.D.
Subject:
Comments:
Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
|
|
|
 |
|
| About DisasterPrepared.net |