Sunday, August 20, 2006

Our Very First Lawsuit

Yesterday in the mail we received a copy of our lawsuit against Allstate.
LawsuitAllstate
It's entitled in legalise a "petition for damages." Reading this was unexpectedly emotional for both Therese and I. We've never sued anyone before. The case is called "Michael M. Homan and Therese M. Fitzpatrick versus Toni Reboul and Allstate Insurance Company." Toni Reboul is our insurance agent. I like Toni, and think she is a good person. I remember sitting in her office and telling her about all the trouble we were having with getting Allstate to pay for damages from the hurricane and flood. Her facial expressions demonstrated that she felt sorry for us, and she kept apologizing for the way that her company was acting. She told us about how during the flood she laid awake at night worrying about her customers. Had she insured them for enough? Those sort of questions. In any case, our attorney, Greg DiLeo, and others I've spoken to have said that including agents in the suit is customary. And they say that she is insured against these sorts of things, and it won't cost her a thing. They also say that it was her job to make sure we were adequately insured. We were insured against flood for $172,000, and our homeowners was just $141,000. Anyway, after all that we've been through, it is strange that both Therese and I feel some guilt about suing Allstate and its representatives.

5 comments:

Tim Bulkeley said...

May your suing, be successful, and may you loose no sleep at all over what you have to do to get a fair deal! God bless.

Anonymous said...

You feel bad cause you are good people. So it is a good sign. But try and not to continue to feel bad, try to feel on your way to justice.

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the suit. I understand why you feel bad about naming your agent: they don't have any power over adjustments and settlements. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

mominem said...

As the former target of lawsuits, I can tell you the no lawsuit against you costs you nothing. At the very least the time you spend defending yourself is lost. For someone self employed or working on commission that can be significant. For an ethical person the cost is far higher.

Michael Homan said...

I'm sorry to hear that Mominem.