Thieving insurance companies. (Lauderdale Lakes, Seminole: for sale, second mortgage, brokers)

macguy · 06-30-2007, 08:32 AM

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbwilma0630pnjun30,0,3388687.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines (broken link)

After the first disaster happens then you have the second disaster, dealing with your insurance company. I wonder how typical this is? I have a feeling it is business as usual and if you are on the receiving end it will be a fight "Every time" and often at a time when you may not have a lot of fight left in you. These insurance companies are some majority evil people in my opinion. In this case the insurance company offered 2% of what they actually owed.

I think a lot of peoples insurance isn't what they think and if the time came, they may find isn't worth much of anything unless they have the resources and are willing to get a lawyer and fight. I plan on dropping my windstorm at renewal time if I still own this house and not pay tens of thousands in premiums, and that is what it would be over a period of time, along with an over $5000 deductible if I have a claim. I'll take my chances, whats the difference, they won't pay anyway. If someone offered me 2 cents on the dollar for my lose, I swear to God they would not make it out of the room, I'm not kidding.

Hondax · 06-30-2007, 08:56 AM

The article offers great advice. First thing to do after damage-contact a "public adjuster" who is not beholden "by Law" to a insurance company. Great advice.

Suncoaster · 06-30-2007, 03:02 PM

All too true! They'll do anything to avoid holding up their end of the bargain. What a rip-off. You pay your premiums faithfully, year after year, and something happens and bam! You're cancelled.

Or they go bankrupt - leaving YOU holding the bag. Or as stated above, they simply won't pay.

But ohhhhh do they ever spend the big bucks lobbying! Against OUR best interests. and with OUR money!

This state needs to put everyone in Citizens, run it like a government service (no inflated CEO salaries, no kissing up to stockholders, NO LOBBYING waste of money). People cannot afford the price of insurance, when it is equivalent to a second mortgage on their house, just to qualify to get the first one.

And how to pay for statewide insurance? Easy. Raise the "sin taxes." Or allow gambling in restricted areas - look it's ALREADY LEGAL at Seminole-run places where I believe the state gains no tax $$ and there's little (if any) state oversight. And now the ding-bat Interior Dept. is ordering Crist to allow them more leeway........

So expand gambling in non-Seminole venues, pay for a state-run insuror, and stop driving decent people out of the state. Sheesh.

swfl · 06-30-2007, 04:16 PM

Here in WPB, my yearly insurance bill is nearly twice my property taxes!

macguy · 06-30-2007, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by swfl

Here in WPB, my yearly insurance bill is nearly twice my property taxes!

At least with our taxes we get police, fire department, schools, the city maintained and so on. With your insurance it is, from what we now know from what we have recent seen in disasters like Katrina, little more then a casino game as to whether you will get paid anything. Ask those people in New Orleans. In fact it is more likely you will not get paid enough to make you whole again, more likely a mear fraction if anything. Insurance is little more then a gamble anymore and they are allowed to get away with it.

And what a "BAD" gamble. On say a $200,000 home you may pay $4000 in premiums a year. In other words, in any given year you put up $4000 to maybe get $200,000 or 50 to 1 on the money. In reality the odds of you actually experiencing a total loss is probably more in the millions to 1. If you really thought the odds of your house being destroyed on any given year was 50 to 1 you would not to live in it. They make people like the Mafia look honest. Their business practices are so out of line it is an F'n joke, but they get away with it. They are in the business of fear mongering, and fear is very powerful emotion.

Drouzin · 06-30-2007, 05:19 PM

I don't know how insurance adjusters can sleep at night. There are hundreds of thousands of people in LA & MS that would love to get one of these guys in a room by himself for 5 min. These people get bonuses for keeping payoffs below a certain amount, and I have seen many elderly people cry because they were offered $7,000 for a totally distroyed $175,000 home. Grrr.

Floridabound09 · 06-30-2007, 05:26 PM

They need to be regulated more by an agency of, for and by the people and not by someone who is going to take funny money to make decisions.

They need to be controlled just the the health care in our country.

We need to take back our country and show them why we elect them, to do what WE ask them to do and not what they think is the right thing.

Any congress person needs to be put on notice that if you do not represent the people you will be gone.

I personally do not think the people elected the libs in the last election but they fired the reps for not doing what was asked.

We need to hold the congress accountable for issue just like this you guys are having in Florida, its time your elected officals get off there ass and help you guys and the coastal states.

Suncoaster · 06-30-2007, 07:55 PM

The insurance mess isn't only a FL problem anymore - it's happening in all the coastal states - even up north. It's next to impossible to get coverage in some of these places, and other states probably don't have an "insuror of last resort" like Citizens. Truly, something needs to be done. Ideally, it should happen at the federal level - there should be national catastrophic insurance.

I've heard the arguments by non-coastal dwellers that they don't want to subsidize it. Oh really? Well, gee, my federal taxes go to help fund FEMA, although I don't live in a flood zone. I have no problem with that. And our taxes went to help the airline industry after 9/11, which had nothing to do with coastal storms either. When the federal government sends funds to help states deal with emergencies, our taxes help. Which is how it should be. We are all interconnected - of course we ought to help one another.

mikey2 · 07-01-2007, 05:45 AM

The insurance mess isn't only a FL problem anymore - it's happening in all the coastal states - even up north.

That's right. I'm still living in Rhode Island and the local paper has run two articles on insurance companies planning to cancel 10,000 policies this year to "reduce their exposure".

Mind you, we haven't had a major hurricane since 1954, but rates are high and moving higher.

Right now houses are for sale everywhere (especially along coastal areas), prices are dropping like a stone, and nothing is moving.

Not a pretty picture by any means.

MrTudo · 07-01-2007, 09:40 AM

When we were smacked with Hurricane Charley, ( our house was in the vicinity of 140mph winds gusting much higher and we lost part of our roof while we were inside one of the walk in closets ) I called a client of mine who is a lawyer on the east coast of Fla. He told me just get outta here and he'll have a staff member find and call the insurance company ( they were located in ft lauderdale and had NO LISTED TELEPHONE NUMBER! )( The local insurance brokers building was basically leveled )

We had an adjuster show up within a week. Almost the first words out of his mouth were " I see you have a lawyer involved, perhaps I should be speaking with him". That's how the meeting started. It was definitely headed toward a jousting match between him and I. We were ultimately paid within 6 weeks.

There are people around here who were never paid at all much less in such a quick period of time. The same insurance company who is now I think in Lauderdale Lakes, lowered our premium recently.

Perhaps some might think that I jumped the gun by getting a lawyer involved so fast.....but I don't think so.

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.