After 2 years the saga of Hurricane Ian is almost over for the Boost family. Lots of people have asked how it’s coming, what’s going on, and what’s the deal. I will update everyone that cares.
For those that don’t; with any car that is available as both a soft-top convertible and a coupe from the factory, the coup is the better looking car.
The MGA is the exception that proves the rule.
Ok, on to Ian. The recap is that we suffered damage to Ian. Many people had much more damage, so we were and are grateful. We filed a claim with our insurance company. They sent an adjuster out that spent maybe 15 minutes on site, and didn’t go in the house because he (without going in the house or having our policy on hand) deemed our damage to not be covered. Now, I can’t give out all true numbers because of the settlement so I’ll do my best. They gave us two checks that, when combined with our deductible means they claim that our damage amounts to between $10K and $14K.
Here’s the damage to our house, that they determined amounted to 10-14K:
- Fence destroyed (600’ of 6’ PVC privacy fence, 4 gates) – not covered (estimate was $54,000)
- Shed damaged (minor) – covered (no estimate, I can handle it myself for a few hundred)
- Water softener and plumbing (outside) destroyed – not covered ($4,000 estimate)
- Florida room (‘sunroom’, hard-sided room with windows, hard walls, door, electrical, carpet, HVAC, etc) damaged beyond repair – not covered ($40,000+ estimate, plus electrical, + HVAC, + carpet)
- Soffits blown all over the county – covered ($2,000 I think)
- Well pump burned out (pipes broken, prime lost, pump ran dry) – not covered ( I can't remember the amount here)
- All but 1 window screen AWOL – not covered, simply ignored and left off all documentation ($360 on up)
- Water damage on all outside interior walls from water entering around widows that were flexing due to wind – not covered (thousands as by law the entire room must be repainted, walls only)
- Water damage to ceiling from water coming in due to lifted shingles – not covered. (thousands as by law the entire room must be repainted, ceiling only)
- New roof - denied responsibility. They said the damage must be a coincidence that happened before the storm. The roof was 7 months old. ($34K estimate)
- misc other stuff for a few thousand more.
Incidentally, with the exception of the well pump, all of these are covered as stated in our policy. The insurance company just tries to weasel out of paying because they are crooked. It’s part of the insurance game.
In an effort to come to an agreement we tried to contact the insurance company many, many times. Phone. E-mail. Text. USPS. Smoke signals. A message in a bottle. They completely ignored us. Ghosted us. One day we get a check in the mail for 5.4% of our claim. That’s enough playing with these criminals. We hired a public adjuster (PA). For those that don’t, it’s an adjuster that isn’t hired by the insurance company. Their job is to fight for you, not against you like the adjuster the insurance company hires. They collect 10% of the settlement as payment.
The insurance company ghosted the PA for months. Now and again they’d say they need this form, or that form. Each form we provided would start a (usually 20-business day) clock. They were playing games to delay things. We played the games and eventually sent a letter of intent to sue them.
More ghosting. Eventually, after the Discovery process of pre-trial stuff they offered a few more dollars, bringing the total on offer to less than 13% of our claim. Keep in mind that I’ve paid them 100% of our monthly premium for 2.5 years at that point. No negotiating, no settlement. The next step is depositions. More time wasted.
Then just last week we have non-binding mediation / arbitration. Our claim is now adjusted for today’s rates since they’ve dragged their feet for 2 years in an effort to wear their customer out and avoid paying what they owe. After “Introductions”, basically opening arguments, we are to make our offer. I tried to explain things, but I can’t really do that without giving out info that might get me in trouble. So I’ll sum it up by saying we asked for the full claim amount, they came back with a single-digit percentage of said amount. We countered by reducing our ask by about 10%. They upped theirs about 2%.
Screw them.
Our attorney said we should come down another 8% or so. I said “If that’s what you think we should do, then yes, let’s do that. But I need to tell you I’m pretty upset. We have come down $XX,XXX and they’ve come up $X,XXX. They are wasting my time and I’m done. Keep in mind that everyone on this Zoom call is being paid a few hundred dollars an hour, except my wife and I. We took time off work to have [the insurance company] waste our time? Nope. I have more enjoyable and productive things I could be doing. I could be cleaning the litter box, or getting a colonoscopy, instead I’m here playing games? Nope, this is the last round. I’m done”.
She relayed that to the mediator. They came back with a bigger counter, but still at 16% of the claim.
At that point we gave them our final offer and gave them until the end of business Friday to get off their wallet, or we’ll see them in court. They know they won’t win against a jury of other folks that have been screwed by their insurance companies. They came back with a number we could work with, if I do much of the work myself. The number we settled on is 90.2% of the 2022 claim number, 77.4% of the 2024 numbers.
I’m happy to have it (almost) behind us, but not happy because the insurance company acted in malice (in my opinion) and was doing everything they could to wear us down so we would settle for 10% or less than what they owed us.
So, why did I settle, instead of sticking it out and going to trial? Well, one part of that is to get this chapter closed. We have buckets in our dining room that we simply don’t put away anymore. We just stack them in the corner when the rain stops, and distribute them around the room when it rains. Our poor dog is putting on weight because he can’t run free in our yard until it’s fenced off. There are other issues like mold, etc. Just tired of it. Did I say ‘screw the insurance company!’ yet?
The other, more complicated reason is the way the laws work down here. I’m going to explain it with nice round numbers for the sake of simplicity.
Let’s say that we must have $100,000 to do the work. The insurance company offers us $4.87. No settlement, let's sue them. We have to go through arbitration before court. Now, let’s say that the arbitrator says the insurance company should pay us $80,000. Well, that’s not enough so we should go to court, right? Well, that number, the $80K is now the target. If the jury awards us less than 75% of the arbitrators suggestion, so anything less than $60,000 means we are awarded $60K, but because it’s less than 75% of what was offered, we now have to pay the insurance crooks legal fees. At the time of mediation my legal fees were $25K. So add in the fees associated arbitration, then court, then double it for the other side and I end up with enough money to buy a Big Mac. Not the meal, just the burger lol.
I believe the arbitrator would have had a very reasonable offer, probably more than we settled for, but not a lot more. I didn’t want to take the risk, and just wanted it over.
In about 6 weeks we should have the money and can start putting our lives back together.
Lessons learned:
1 – you think insurance companies are difficult when you have a claim. They can he impossible when the claim is large. I can’t believe the number of houses around here that still have tarps on their roofs 2 years later. Incidentally, it cost almost $9K to have two large tarps put on our roof. And they were the same quality you’d get at Home Depot.
2 – Public adjusters are your friend. But make sure they have a lot of experience, and better yet, actual experience IN the insurance industry. Ours did. It was invaluable.
3 – Instead of a Public Adjuster, next time I’ll just to right to a law firm. You’ll save the 10%, and I think the attorney’s correspondence will carry more weight than a PA. The issue with that is, not working through a PA, they will probably need money up front, and moving forward.
So that's it. Thanks for caring.
