Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Allstate Denies a Claim We Never Made
My stress level went up yesterday when Therese gave me a letter from Allstate. It automatically meant that at least three hours of the next day would be spent making copies and reading legalize and writing letters and making calls. All the stuff that goes along with being part of the good hands network. In any event, this letter stated they are denying our claim that the flood waters damaged our foundation. Fine. We never made that claim to begin with. If Allstate would like to deny paying us for giant Santa Clause dolls made out of gold on our chimnees they are free to do that as well. Allstate is confused because they never even read our proof of loss letter. So here it is as simple as I can make it. The winds of Katrina racked our house, and Allstate owes us about $80,000 to fix it. Or the floods after the levees broke damaged our house and Allstate owes us another $80,000 on top of what they have paid us, even without addressing the structural damage. They can either pay limits with wind or flood. I'm hoping this goes to court. Our attorney Greg DiLeo files our suit between August 15th and August 29th.
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8 comments:
I look forward to hearing your case resolved satisfactorily.
It'd be nice if everyone sued Allstate so they'd spend more defending cases than they thought they'd save by screwing their policyholders.
They declined me also. My home burnt down in Tennessee and Allstate declined my claim. We are of the opinion that Allstate has been targeting pre selected percentages of their claims pay outs to substantially boost immediate profits. Giving upper management immediate bonuses. This has been going on for several years. However, in the past with the billions of dollars in resources Allstate has been able to dismiss most investigations with their tactical PR department and TV ADS. That is until they got too greedy and upped the percentages of the once easily dismissible percentage, and is now edging towards a fourth of all their claims, thus producing thousands more victims.
I was an Allstate home insurance customer until recently. I filed one small claim in 27 years of paying them premiums. A sewer pipe suddenly broke & sewage was in our basement. I was not interested in being paid for flood damage, just the repairing the broken pipe. My plumber told me that any other insurance company would pay for this, but that Allstate was the absolute worst for paying for his customers claims. Since then, I have talked to carpenters, my roofer, electrician, lawyer & they ALL say that Allstate is the worst. My advice is to do the same & ask youir own trades-people in your area about insurance companies. I doubt any of them will recommend Allstate. If you are with Allstate, get out. If you are denied a legitimate claim by Allstate, move on to another insurance company & take them to court. Hopefully with so many court cases, they'll have to hire lawyers & reps constantly, a good way to put your premium dollars to work if they won't pay you directly.
Thanks for listening. Hope this helps.
There is a new book out called "From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves" which tells how Allstate keeps clients from getting a fair deal on a claim. You can google the name of the book (with quotes around it as above) to get a lot of articles on it or go here for a general article about it: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982072.htm.
It's touted as a "must-read" for anyone fighting Allstate in court.
I am sorry to hear of your misfortunes with your situations. My experience was the polar opposite after having a flood affecting 6 rooms in my home via a backed up toilet. My agents were on hand the moment the problem occurred while my wife dealt with the situation knowing very little about the process down to who we had insurance through. Allstate had the right people show up promptly to begin the water extraction in addition to being very understanding. The adjuster inspected the damage less than a week later and came up with a better than we had expected way to resolve our issues and replace and repair any and all items damaged. I cant say enough good things about my experience and hope the other situations have an outcome such as mine. Good luck. -California
I'm glad for Anonymous's comment above. Many people here in New Orleans had a great experience with Allstate. I should add that most of the people I met from Allstate during the odyssey were quite pleasant and friendly. Like we hear so often in regards to the Allstate "secret" document, I think they are the "good hands" people, until a dispute comes about, and then the gloves come off. Hope more people have an experience like Anonymous's.
Wow, did this ever get resolved? Curious to hear what happened and how it worked out. I recently left Allstate and went with Arbella through a local agency that provides home insurance in Norwood MA, the town that I live in. I couldn't be happier with the decision. I feel like that larger carriers have a one size fits all approach to insurance that doesn't work for everyone.
Jackie,
Happy to hear you found great insurance in your local area. I live in the Greater Boston area as well and recently did the same through an Arbella independent agency, KW Insurance. They offer excellent home insurance in Newton MA and I am very happy with the level of service I am receiving.
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