.................

[MizBlu]

So your first-hand experience which you can report on was fair and you got a great settlement. OTOH, your evidence to condemn 3 other companies is based on heresay. OK, I think I understand now.

Good try, but no cigar. That hearsay was my family and my neighbors. If that's not good enough, oh well.

Btw, you really have to improve your reading skills. I said I had no problem with my insurance company from beginning, but everyone I knew had problems with Allstate, State Farm, and Nationwide.

 

[chrissyk]

Btw, you really have to improve your reading skills. I said I had no problem with my insurance company from beginning, but everyone I knew had problems with Allstate, State Farm, and Nationwide.

Really? I heard that State Farm was great to deal with after the hurricaines last year. We have them for insurance, so I hope that that's correct.

As for homeowners' premiums going up in FL, I just assumed that they would rise annually no matter what.

 

[MizBlu]

Really? I heard that State Farm was great to deal with after the hurricaines last year. We have them for insurance, so I hope that that's correct.

As for homeowners' premiums going up in FL, I just assumed that they would rise annually no matter what.

I can only relay what happened here after Charley. And as far as I know, I'm the only who lives in my little section of SW Florida that took a direct hit from Charley.

A word of advice: if a disaster should happen to you, do not depend on the generousity and largesse of State Farm or Allstate or Nationwide. Get yourself a public adjuster. My sister's house was severly damaged by Charley. Allstate offered her $75000 to replace the roof, the pool cage, the pool, the interior walls, the windows, etc.

She hired an adjuster, took Allstate to arbitration and ended up with $110,000 over and above the original $75000 offer made by Allstate.

Now, I know this may not be quite up to TM's standards of "personal experience", but that's the way it happened.

 

[chrissyk]

I can only relay what happened here after Charley. And as far as I know, I'm the only who lives in my little section of SW Florida that took a direct hit from Charley.

A word of advice: if a disaster should happen to you, do not depend on the generousity and largesse of State Farm or Allstate or Nationwide. Get yourself a public adjuster. My sister's house was severly damaged by Charley. Allstate offered her $75000 to replace the roof, the pool cage, the pool, the interior walls, the windows, etc.

She hired an adjuster, took Allstate to arbitration and ended up with $110,000 over and above the original $75000 offer made by Allstate.

Now, I know this may not be quite up to TM's standards of "personal experience", but that's the way it happened.

That sounds like good advice. Where does one find a "public adjuster"? Are some more reputable than others?

 

[MizBlu]

That sounds like good advice. Where does one find a "public adjuster"? Are some more reputable than others?

They're in the yellow pages, and as far who's reputable and who isn't, you've just to ask around in your area.

I hope it never happens to anyone, but if disaster strikes, the insurance companies, for the most part, are looking out for themselves not the policyholder.

 

[mickeyfan2]

I said I had no problem with my insurance company from beginning, but everyone I knew had problems with Allstate, State Farm, and Nationwide.

You only gave one example (Allstate) and yet you state you have evidence for three companies. What is your other evidence?

 

[chrissyk]

They're in the yellow pages, and as far who's reputable and who isn't, you've just to ask around in your area.

I hope it never happens to anyone, but if disaster strikes, the insurance companies, for the most part, are looking out for themselves not the policyholder.

I believe it. It never hurts to hire an advocate, even if you're dealing with a reputable insurance company. When you're talking about that kind of money, you have to assume that the insurance company is going to try to pay as little as they can get away with. I don't know if everyone gets the kind of settlement that your sister got, but I don't think that it hurts to hire an advocate. I'll definitely keep that in mind should we ever have the unfortunate circumstance of having to use our homeowners' insurance.

BTW, how much did it cost to hire such an advocate? I wonder if it would be impractical for a relatively small claim (like a 20K roof claim or something).

 

[MizBlu]

You only gave one example (Allstate) and yet you state you have evidence for three companies. What is your other evidence?

This ain't a courtroom and I'm not on trial. The evidence you see is the evidence you get. This is one of those "take it or leave" situations.

 

[MizBlu]

I believe it. It never hurts to hire an advocate, even if you're dealing with a reputable insurance company. When you're talking about that kind of money, you have to assume that the insurance company is going to try to pay as little as they can get away with. I don't know if everyone gets the kind of settlement that your sister got, but I don't think that it hurts to hire an advocate. I'll definitely keep that in mind should we ever have the unfortunate circumstance of having to use our homeowners' insurance.

BTW, how much did it cost to hire such an advocate? I wonder if it would be impractical for a relatively small claim (like a 20K roof claim or something).

My sister said the bill was 10% of the final settlement. She also said it was money well spent.

 

[zalansky]

We live in Tampa, fl. We were non-renewed this year by our homeowners insurance carrier, Tower Hill. They said they were pulling out of Florida completely as are many other carriers. We were paying $917.00 a year.
I shopped around and we went with USF&G and are now paying $2050.00 a year.
We can afford it but I am not happy about it. Who would be?

 

[mickeyfan2]

This ain't a courtroom and I'm not on trial. The evidence you see is the evidence you get. This is one of those "take it or leave" situations.

Since you only have proof of one (Allstate) and not more I will leave your opinion of who is a bad insurance company.

 

[mickeyfan2]

We live in Tampa, fl. We were non-renewed this year by our homeowners insurance carrier, Tower Hill. They said they were pulling out of Florida completely as are many other carriers. We were paying $917.00 a year.
I shopped around and we went with USF&G and are now paying $2050.00 a year.
We can afford it but I am not happy about it. Who would be?

I would not be happy either. I would be concerned if I lived in FL and have Tower Hill right now.

 

[Tigger_Magic]

This ain't a courtroom and I'm not on trial. The evidence you see is the evidence you get. This is one of those "take it or leave" situations.

Basically, you have no evidence and just want to engage in a "bash" session. Thanks for admitting as much.

 

[MizBlu]

Basically, you have no evidence and just want to engage in a "bash" session. Thanks for admitting as much.

And basically you are just another individual sitting on the sidlines with a knee-jerk reaction of running your mouth off over a situation you know nothing about living in an area hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from hurricane Charley country.

I thought you were smarter than this, but at 51 years old, I've made my share of mistakes before. What's one more.

For me, this ends right here. No need to continue..........you've already provided me and few hundred of your closest friends with enough information to connect the dots.

 

[mickeyfan2]

And basically you are just running your mouth off over a situation you know nothing about living in an area hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from hurricane Charley country.

And this makes your case stronger?

 

[MizBlu]

And this makes your case stronger?

Case???

Who do you think you are, Perry Mason?

Btw, given the premise that you don't live here and did not experience the situations after Hurricane Charley, I'd say my "case" is a helluva lot stronger than yours.

Now, you wouldn't think you'd have to spell that out for someone, but........

Case...............

 

[LindaG4458]

Sorry I missed this discussion while it was happening - we just got back online this morning from Wilma.

With regard to shopping around in FL for homeowners insurance:
Our policy is up for renewal in mid-November. We are insured with a B-rated company because it is the only one our agent handled that would cover our condo if it was unoccupied for more than 30 days (yup, beware part-time residents). We wanted an A-rated company.

Before Wilma we went to two independent agents. The first agency could not write a policy on a part-time residence. The only insurance company that was writing for condos at all was only writing for full-time residents. They were afraid that, when you returned in 5 months or so, you would find damage and file a claim. The second agency was not writing for any new customers at all. We went home, wrote a check to our old company, and were happy to be able to get that.

This isn't fun. We would like one of the "champagne" companies but they won't even discuss writing a policy. And we had NO CLAIMS from any hurricanes!!!

 

[mickeyfan2]

Who do you think you are, Perry Mason?

Nope, he is a fictional character. As a infamous member would say, "You can't make this stuff up.". How do you know where I live and what proof do I have for where you live? BTW I am not the one making blanket claims about insurance companies like you are, so the burdon of proof is on you and not me.

 

[MizBlu]

We live in Tampa, fl. We were non-renewed this year by our homeowners insurance carrier, Tower Hill. They said they were pulling out of Florida completely as are many other carriers. We were paying $917.00 a year.
I shopped around and we went with USF&G and are now paying $2050.00 a year.
We can afford it but I am not happy about it. Who would be?

Right before Charley, we were told our policy wasn't being renewed because the agent, Countrywide, was no longer carrying Tower Hill. We then made arrangements through another agency which had arranged to write a new policy with Tower Hill. Tower Hill then gave us the same spiel about not writing anymore new policies in Florida. Soon afterwards, the FL legislature stepped in and we were able to renew our policy with Tower Hill through Countrywide. We just renewed again in September.

So I really don't understand what happened in your case, but it seems like we had a very similar situation with a completely different outcome.

 

[MizBlu]

Nope, he is a fictional character. As a infamous member would say, "You can't make this stuff up.". How do you know where I live and what proof do I have for where you live? BTW I am not the one making blanket claims about insurance companies like you are, so the burdon of proof is on you and not me.

That infamous member was right..........you can't make this stuff up!