Considering an apartment insurance claim settlement offer?
Most apartment building owners lose tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars by accepting the insurance company’s initial damage estimate and offer.
Hail claim denied, now what?
In Texas, roof damage from hail is common. In fact, according to the Insurance Information Institute, Texas lead the nation in 2016 with over 830 hail events.
Unfortunately, it's also common for insurance companies to deny homeowners' hail damage claims. These denials are referred to as "bad faith," meaning that legally the insurance company should not have a reason to deny your claim. The big insurance companies figured out that when they deny your claim, there is only a small chance that you will fight the denial. Even if you are one of the few that fight them and they end up paying your claim plus attorney's fees, they still come out way ahead and pocket millions of dollars extra each year. There is even a book about Allstate's intentional across-the-board claim denial and underpayment strategy called "From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves."
Whatever you do, DO NOT give up if your valid claim is denied - dispute it!
Contrary to popular belief, Ben Franklin (founder of my alma mater, Go Quakers!) never said, "A penny saved is a penny earned." However, had he lived to see the sneaky ways insurance companies deny or underpay claims, he very well may have.
With numbers of policyholders in the millions, insurance company windfalls from the underpayment of covered claims add up fast.
The following are five insurance carrier tactics they use to keep money in their pockets and out of yours.
A continuation on our previous post highlighting steps that insurance carriers take to keep claim benefits to themselves. In Part 1, of 5 Ways Insurance Companies Pocket Your Money we addressed sneaky depreciation and skimping on roofing components. Add the following to your list of sneaky insurance carrier tactics to watch out for.
