Travelers Insurance Co. Bad faith from day 1 of hurricane claim settled by arbiter who is insurance co. contractor in same field as claim Hartford Connecticut

In 2004, our family home in Palm Beach County, Fl. was dealt a death blow by Hurricane Francis. While the home was left standing, and at first glance appeared to be salvageable, on close examination we found the roof structure to be irreparably damaged, including the trusses. It was missing a lot of shingles too, and nearly all of the aggregate (sandy surface material) was in the gutters and all around the perimeter of the house on the ground. The ridges of the roof looked as if they had been ground flat by a machine due to the sandy aggregate being blown across them by gusts of up to 135 mph and sustained winds of 90-95 mph for approximately 6 hours. Under County building codes, a roof can only suffer so much damage before it is required to be brought up to current wind codes. It was way past that. The garage door had been hammerred by flying debris, it was torn up! It eventually fell off in spite of repair efforts.

The screen room around the pool was left standing also. But, all the tie down cables were snapped by the twisting force of the winds. Most of the screen panels were ripped out of the frame which was torn free from it's attachment to the house and the frame was twisted about 4 inches out of square all the way around. The doors would never operate again.

The home was properly boarded up before the storm, so we only suffered 1 cracked window.

We also lost about 400 feet of chain link fence, crushed by falling trees and limbs as well as flying debris. We lost about 15 mature pine trees, as well as several mature palms and a 60' mahogany tree. All in all we had approximately 80 yards of damaged landscape material.

We were left without power for about 10 days, so we lost all of our perishable foods including a 25 cubic foot deep freezer full.

After reporting our claim to USF&G/Travelers, on our home owners policy They sent out an adjuster. Now after a big storm like this, the insurance co's. don't have enough adjusters, so they hire anyone they can get and, I assume, give them a few days training at some regional center and then transport them to the storm zone and put them out in the field. This is the type of adjuster they sent us. He might have been 21 years old, but obviously had no previous related experience.

The adjuster said the trees, fence, and food damages were not covered, and valued the total claim at $4,000 and change. (Four thousand dollars), against our "windstorm deductible" of $19,000. It had only been a month since we had the screen replaced in the lower section of the screen room at a cost of $1,700.

We tarped the roof, removed the trees & other debris, and secured the fence well enough to let the dog use the yard at a cost of about $8,000.

We had originally purchased the house in October 2000 with the intention of remodeling it, so we decided to contact a residential designer to begin drawing plans for the remodel, all to be done at our own expense. Meanwhile we hunkered down in the house to wait for the plans so we could begin to rebuild.

At this point we were planning on paying for everything ourselves, assuming the insurance claim evaluation was the last word, and we had no further recourse.

The roof was leaking everywhere, destroying much of our furniture including several antique pieces that my wife and I had collected and restored over the previous 20 years, and eventually the water began running out of electrical fixtures and finally directly onto the electric stove. It may sound stupid to have stayed there that long under those conditions, but they developed over time in spite of our best efforts to protect the property. We were preparing to rebuild as fast as we could and could not afford rental accommodations for the 2 years we estimated it would take to complete the design, permitting and rebuilding process in addition to the cost of rebuilding.

A little over a year after the storm, the ceilings finally began to collapse dropping all the items we had stored in the attic on the floors the furniture and us.

We then began to get angry over the claims estimate which we didn't believe from the start. So we decided to call a "Public Adjuster". By this time we had been made aware of the depth of destruction to the roof by our contractor who we had originally called in to retarp the roof hoping he could do a better job of holding the water back than I had with my tarping efforts. He informed us of the warped and twisted truss members which no one had discovered since the ins. co. adjuster had refused to go in the attic to inspect. We knew there was damage, because we had heard the noises it made during the storm.

The public adjusters estimate of the original claim was roughly $190,000. and change. he informed us that our policy did cover all of the items the ins.co. adjuster said were not. (fence, food, landscape cleanup, etc.) and that the policy also covered living expenses for up to 12 months while the home was repaired. (not included in his estimate)

The P.A. contacted the insurance co., who agreed to send out a "Senior adjuster" and a general contractor to reevaluate the original claim. There estimate was that the original claim should have been $66,000.00 plus living expenses. They still refused to go into the attic or even consider more than a shingle & paper repair to the roof. This was there assessment of the claim value at the time of loss, and made no allowance for further damages caused by their refusal to do a professional evaluation of an obvious "Major Loss" from the beginning.

The insurance co. refused to pay even a dime of their own senior adjusters estimate. They tried to convince us to refile our claim as damage from hurricane "Wilma" that came through in 2006. They said if we would they would pay the $66,000. minus deductible of $19,000. But that would be perjury, because it wasn't Wilma, it was Francis. Our attorney said that would probably assure that we could not file a bad faith claim & suit after settlement of the claim.

Enter the attorneys.

We filed suit.

4 years after the storm, we ended up in binding arbitration.

The arbiter turned out to be an employee in management for the largest water & storm damage restoration firm in the world. This company earns it's money primarily through insurance company assignments, which to me spells a direct conflict of interest! These guy's can't afford to anger an insurance company like this for fear of being "Blacklisted" by all major ins. co's.

Now, 2 and a half years after the insurance co's. own "Senior Adjuster" stated the "Original Value" of the claim was $66,000., plus, and 4 years after the storm, the arbiter found the total value of the claim was $79,000., stated we would have to be out of the house for two weeks, and didn't even allow for a "Pack Out" which is the removal of our belongings from the home to facilitate repairs.

As of this writing, 5 years after the storm, the house is still under repair. I have left our family business where I hold the position of president (Distribution of water & storm damage restoration equipment and supplies to the professional restoration trade) temporarily to allow us to complete reconstruction with the extremely limited funds we have been left with to do the job. We have been living in a rented home for 3 years. We are very near completely bankrupt, but we are getting so close that it appears we may again be able to return to our own home, soon.

The only recourse we might possibly have left is a bad faith lawsuit. But, the last we heard, no attorney fees have been awarded by the arbiter (it is up to him), and our attorneys took the case on contingency because it was an obvious slam dunk. So the attorneys aren't returning our call's and don't appear able or willing in the current economy, to continue the fight.

We ended up refinancing the house to rebuild, and have no money left to fight them with. But we have not given up! I contacted the offices of 2 county commissioners yesterday and today, and plan on contacting the state attorneys office and the state insurance commissioners office to try and find some help.

Meanwhile my family has suffered immensely. Our son who was a beautiful, sweet and smart little 9 year old at the time of the storm has been in therapy for 3 years and is now a somewhat troubled teen. My lovely wife and I just celebrated our 26th anniversary in June and our relationship has sufferred extreme strain, and again, we are on the very edge of losing everything we have managed to build in our lives. I now see a cardioligist monthly. He agrees that my heart problems are probably due to stress. But we will keep on fighting to the end. We don't give in to stuff like this and never will.

So, this is my ripoff report. Now that this is done, I can move on to the next step, drywall and flooring, oh yeah, and fighting cheaters to the end.

Thanx for reading.

Bad dream
Lake Worth, Florida
U.S.A.