Allstate Battle Continues

Some of my friends are quite a bit further ahead of us in the rebuilding process, and sure I'm jealous. After we cleaned our house extensively in October, we've done virtually nothing construction wise to move forward. That's because we can't even gut our house until the structural issues are addressed. Essentially we need to straighten our leaning house out before we can do anything else. Someday soon, we hope, we will be able to gut our house, replace all the walls, wires, plumbing, and all of the other stuff necessary to rebuild. But for now we're still waiting on Allstate. We can't straighten the house until we settle with them, as our leaning house is our best evidence. We're not waiting passively though. We hired the attorney Greg DiLeo to represent our wind damage claim. He said we have the best case of bad faith that he has yet seen. It's not because of the horrible report filed by the Haag engineers hired by Allstate. Mr. DiLeo said that Allstate won't be liable for that. But we did file a proof of loss back in December for wind damage, and we were insured for both wind and flood with Allstate. "They can't have it both ways" said our lawyer. They will have to total your house for either wind or flood. Also, the senate bill for which I testified, Murray's SB 620 passed and was signed by our governor into a law last Friday. It becomes effective August 15th. That means there will be many many claims filed after August 15th and before the August 28th deadline to file. Specifically, this statute provides for increased penalties of 50%, and an award of attorney's fees if the insurance company is deemed to have been arbitrary, capricious, or without probable cause in either denying or delaying payment on an insured's claim. That is us in a nutshell. Another bill (Morrell's) passed that allows a one-year extension of the statute of limitations. The question still remains, though, as to whether this will be judged to be constitutional. I'm not taking any chances, and will make sure we file our suit before the one-year deadline. We're also finishing up a supplemental claim for flood that we'll submit as another proof of loss. Then, this Friday, we meet with the folks from Louisiana Road Home in Baton Rouge to discuss our house. Oh how the fun keeps on comin'