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Last Saturday night our new GE Profile washing machine got the water level switch stuck and the machine overflowed for more than an hour. Our hardwood floors in the hall and some of the family room were ruined, buckling and catching on our shoes within 2 days even though we immediately moped up all the water.
When the service man came out he said he had seen this problem alot. It is basically a $6 part which malfunctioned.
When the insurance adjustor-the one from GE not our homeowners- came out he said it is next to impossible to repair, restain partial hardwood floor so we would have to have our entire 2,250 sq.ft. first floor emptied, put contents in storage, board our 3 pets, put us in hotel for the time it will take to fix the floor. I was in total shock. We have 2 2nd graders, our pets have never been boarded and I am not well. It will be a great inconvenience and unheaval to our lives to do this.
When the hardwood floor man came by he said it had to be that way and we would not be happy if only a section was repaired.
My question is: Shouldn't the GE people also pay us for the inconvenience as well as all the costs involved in repairing the house.?? We had to have 30 ft of duct work replaced due to water sitting in the duct system. Of course this had to be done immediately and the H/AC people insisted on it being charged to my credit card. I could not get in touch with anybody at the insurance company.
Floor man says it will take about 4 to5 weeks for the floors to dry out enough to even start the repair and we will have to be out of our house at least a week.
I want to wait until spring break and have the insurance company pay for hotel at some vacation destination so we can at least make lemonade out of lemons.
Do you think the insurance will go for that. Spring break isn't until April I think.
Has anybody else ever been thru something like this? Should I get a lawyer?
What can I expect in the way of signing a release for future mold and mildew?
Many thanks.
Do I think the insurance company will go for that? Heck no! Of course that does not mean that I would not try to get all the ACTUAL DAMAGES paid for. If you GET AN ATTORNEY that has experience representing clients in property insurance (which is VERY different than medical insurance...) I suspect they will advise you that you are in la la land hoping for anything like free vacation trip.
The worst that could happen if you go to court in a miserly area is GE's insurance attorneys are going to paint you as money grubbing pig and the judge will say thier generous offer to fix the floors is more than you should get. You get a new wash machine or the $6 part.
From the insurance company's perspective you are not their customer nor is anything bad you say about the wash machine going to directly hurt them.
Don't communicate to them w/o an attorney and start getting all your ducks in a row!
No the insurance compay are gopig to payout and then want the work completeed within a certain time span.You are lucy i that they are not saying they will only replace the danged part of the flooring reguradless of if it will match IMO.Besides which if youy leave iot the mold could be come a real issue on your leaving the floorig i place. I'd not get greedy for that vacation and get it done. You ceertainly don't want to have to go thru court because you refuse to settle as that can take years to settle and the outcome may not be what you think.One thnig to rememebr is that insurance companes are liike many things cold 'processors. At some point they are just going to turn the issue over to their attornys which can change everything back to square one.Then you attorney is like to want to settle because altho you rthink of it as a big deal its not that in terms of dollar amount really. He is goig to waste alot fo time and expesense on that amount when the insurance comany wants to sttle fairly on the damage;which it sounds like.
I don't want a free trip. I thought since they offered to put us in a hotel while the work is being done, what difference is it to put us in a hotel here or some place we might want to visit on a vacation. I would never been crazy enough to ask for a trip. And of course I don't deserve a trip.
The thought of packing up my first floor-we have only been in the house shy of a year- makes me crazy with anxiety.
I think you're being unreasonable in your demands. As has been said previously, you are entitled to actual damages. Nothing you have said suggests that anyone has been negligent. A part went bad. That happens - even on new stuff. I'm not even sure that GE is on the hook for the damages to your house. That is what you have home owners insurance for. Your best bet may be to turn this over to \your home owners insurance and let them deal with GE.
Not to rain on your parade, but there is one additional problem that you may be facing. I had a pipe burst a few years ago that flooded my garage and downstairs. After I paid my deductible, I got a grand total of $1,400 from the insurance company. Which they paid. Six months later, when it came time to renew my policy, they promtly cancelled my insurance, saying that that is there policy on water claims (because of the potential mold issues). The kicker is that they didn't just cancel it on the affected property, but I owned two other unrelated properties that they cancelled as well. I started shopping for other insurance and found out that I had been "blacklisted." It seems insurance companies have a database where they share this information with each other. The only insurance I could get from anyone was high risk insurance, which was very expensive. To make a long story short, I fought the cancellation with my state board of insurance and got the decision reversed. After my name was cleared (it takes three years for a water claim to clear your record), I promptly switched insurance companies.
I hope this doesn't happen to you, but you should at least be prepared. In any event, I think that if the damage is extensive, it might be best to get your homeowners insurance company involved. That way, whatever GE doesn't pick up, will be covered elsewhere. If the damage is minimal (which it sounds like it is not), you might be better off bighting the bullet and not filing a claim. You're about to learn the hard way why insurance companies are some of the richest institutions in America. They didn't get that way by paying out any more than they absolutely have to.
I got a grand total of $1,400 from the insurance company. Which they paid. Six months later, when it came time to renew my policy, they promtly cancelled my insurance, saying that that is there policy on water claims (because of the potential mold issues). The kicker is that they didn't just cancel it on the affected property, but I owned two other unrelated properties that they cancelled as well. I started shopping for other insurance and found out that I had been "blacklisted." It seems insurance companies have a database where they share this information with each other. The only insurance I could get from anyone was high risk insurance, which was very expensive.
To me, that sums up EXACTLY how much of a racket insurance companies have become. The state wasn't mentioned, but I would move out of any state that was so corrupt as to allow such shenanigans.
FWIW, what the OP needs is called a "public adjuster." It is a person who comes in, makes an independent assessment of the damages, and fights the insurance company for that sum. Unless a claim is a minor claim, this is the route to follow.
I don;t thnik we are geting the entire story here;one 1400 claim and dropped plus blacklisted. Mold coverage changed years ago but sudden floodig is still covered. Molod comes fronm a probelm over time that is not corrected. I had a much higher cliam in 2005 for ahurricane damage. Since I had repalcement they paid to have all the danage repaired mius the deuctable. if i had not taken the replacement the depreiated amount would have reduced it alot.They even adjusted the amount to cover material cost as I completed the rerpairs because time it took with a hurricane area. The ral problem is people don't read the policy and know what is copvered ;oten go to a lower cost without knowing and often go with a relatively poorly financed company. Sure the insurance companies keep a data base showing claims o al types of insurnace because its require to assess risk. Auot insurnace is just one that peopel apy according to risk in number of accidents and traffic violations.Afterall insurance is a pool and you want to eliminate high riask or chanrge for it to save the pool money.Ther are alos huge amounts pof fraud claims they track that results often in charges form that data base.Of cousre insurnace companies will drop youm if once the inspect the house they fijnd major code or mainterance violations thta have been neglected or ignored.
I don;t thnik we are geting the entire story here;one 1400 claim and dropped plus blacklisted.
Nothing more to the story. I had been a customer of that particular company for about five years. I have NEVER had a claim before from any company. If that's the way they did business, I was all to glad to change companies - that is until I found out I had been blacklisted. I then promptly wrote to the State Board of Insurance. The agent, who had previously blamed everything on the headquarters, then promptly called me back and told me that my letter must have had an impact, because they were reinstating me. Now, hold on to your hat for the next part. He told me that the only caveat was that I would have to purchase another investment product from them. I never did, and they never pushed the issue, but that was the last straw for me. I waited until the water claim had cleared my record (apparantly most companies will not even touch you and others will only do it at a premium if you have had a water claim), then I dropped them like a hot potato.
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