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Hurricane Sandy homeowners being screwed

what a surprise insurance companies not paying out on claims.

structural damage? it's only a foundation.

im sure if they were about to go bankrupt they'd scream and cry if the governemnt put the screws to them in their lowest moment.

you know the exact thing they do.
 
Genx87 said:
Did anybody see this last night? This crap infuriates me beyond belief. The fraud and lack of oversight by FEMA is inexcusable. I hope people go to jail over this.
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Nothing to see here, move along.

Insurance companies are going to protect their interest. Why is this even news worthy?
 
Texashiker said:
Nothing to see here, move along.

Insurance companies are going to protect their interest. Why is this even news worthy?
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You got yours, right? So fuck everyone else?

Stories like this are absolutely outrageous. Especially the stories where engineering reports were allegedly changed to make the damage seem less severe. The insurance companies that are changing reports or downplaying damage to skirt out of their obligation deserve to get sued and face some severe punitive damages.

To add, after watching part of the 60 Minutes episode, I hope the NY AG nails these companies to the wall with criminal charges.
 
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Brainonska511 said:
You got yours, right? So fuck everyone else?

Stories like this are absolutely outrageous. Especially the stories where engineering reports were allegedly changed to make the damage seem less severe. The insurance companies that are changing reports or downplaying damage to skirt out of their obligation deserve to get sued and face some severe punitive damages.

To add, after watching part of the 60 Minutes episode, I hope the NY AG nails these companies to the wall with criminal charges.
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Well considering that FEMA would be a co-defendant that might be difficult. Sovereign immunity and all.

Again this is another example of something which sounds good on the surface but ends up being trouble because of government conflict of interest. Things always start off with good intentions (help more people get flood insurance, student loans, etc.) and inevitably seems to end up with those same people worse off due to something bad happening and the subsequent government efforts to "safeguard taxpayer funds." Instead of being the watchdog with regulatory authority over some private company, the government is put into a role where they have a fiduciary duty to taxpayers that's opposed to the interests of the customer getting screwed.
 
It is a hard situation. You have some people that had 80 year old homes that were wiped out or extremely damaged. An insurance company is only going to give you the cost of that particular house, not the cost to build a brand new house. Another issue is determining if the house already had foundation damage. How many people with cracked basements prior to the storm have been trying to claim it was flood damage? Flood damage only covers water damage, not trees falling on your house or wind damage or other types of damage caused by hurricanes. It is up to the home owner to make sure they have full coverage for all possibilities.

It is extremely hard to report on issues like this without looking at 100's of individual cases to try to establish a trend.
 
Subyman said:
It is a hard situation. You have some people that had 80 year old homes that were wiped out or extremely damaged. An insurance company is only going to give you the cost of that particular house, not the cost to build a brand new house. Another issue is determining if the house already had foundation damage. How many people with cracked basements prior to the storm have been trying to claim it was flood damage? Flood damage only covers water damage, not trees falling on your house or wind damage or other types of damage caused by hurricanes. It is up to the home owner to make sure they have full coverage for all possibilities.

It is extremely hard to report on issues like this without looking at 100's of individual cases to try to establish a trend.
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In the video one engineer had 175 of his reports altered(96% of his reports). The only ones that werent altered were the ones he suggested no repairs needed. Is that a good enough start of a trend?
 
Genx87 said:
In the video one engineer had 175 of his reports altered(96% of his reports). The only ones that werent altered were the ones he suggested no repairs needed. Is that a good enough start of a trend?
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Depends. Curious to see the alterations. Perhaps he made errors in his reports and was using an incorrect methodology? Of course no repairs needed wouldn't be changed to repairs needed. Why would they compensate a perfectly fine house? Obviously some policy changed or his assessments were wrong, but that doesn't mean it was nefarious. What were the alternations? I didn't watch the entire video because I don't want to watch 15mins+ of family interviews and such. I read the NPR article and it doesn't seem damning at all. If you have something I can read that has more details on the reports then I'd be happy to.
 
Subyman said:
Depends. Curious to see the alterations. Perhaps he made errors in his reports and was using an incorrect methodology? Of course no repairs needed wouldn't be changed to repairs needed. Why would they compensate a perfectly fine house? Obviously some policy changed or his assessments were wrong, but that doesn't mean it was nefarious. What were the alternations? I didn't watch the entire video because I don't want to watch 15mins+ of family interviews and such. I read the NPR article and it doesn't seem damning at all. If you have something I can read that has more details on the reports then I'd be happy to.
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They literally changed every one of his reports to reduce the payments. And he isnt the only one this happened to. When a house is knocked off its foundations. There is no going back on that. Changing the report to show little to no repairs needed is fraud. Watch the segment and let us know what you think.
 
Genx87 said:
They literally changed every one of his reports to reduce the payments. And he isnt the only one this happened to. When a house is knocked off its foundations. There is no going back on that. Changing the report to show little to no repairs needed is fraud. Watch the segment and let us know what you think.
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I'll try to get to it tonight. The issue I could see happening is that the house being knocked off the foundation was not due to flooding, but to wind which would not be covered. I suspect they changed the reports to reflect flooding instead of other damages.
 
Brainonska511 said:
You got yours, right? So fuck everyone else?

Stories like this are absolutely outrageous. Especially the stories where engineering reports were allegedly changed to make the damage seem less severe. The insurance companies that are changing reports or downplaying damage to skirt out of their obligation deserve to get sued and face some severe punitive damages.
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Kinda like cigarette companies downplaying the dangers of smoking?

Kinda like car companies ignoring safety concerns of their vehicles?

Kinda like the FDA ignoring the dangers of BPA in plastics?

The government ignoring the dangers of burning coal?

Welcome to capitalism.
 
Texashiker said:
Kinda like cigarette companies downplaying the dangers of smoking?

Kinda like car companies ignoring safety concerns of their vehicles?

Kinda like the FDA ignoring the dangers of BPA in plastics?

The government ignoring the dangers of burning coal?

Welcome to capitalism.
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fail.
 
Don't expect FEMA to bail you out. If you let your house decay and don't do anything and a storm comes up and causes a lot of damage, maybe you are at fault. If you live next to the ocean and a wave damages it, didn't you take on the risk involved by living next to the ocean?
 
If the reports of one particular engineer were changed a lot, perhaps that engineer was padding the reports to try to help the families get a little extra money for their troubles. That video is blocked for me here; I'll have to watch it later.
 
piasabird said:
Don't expect FEMA to bail you out. If you let your house decay and don't do anything and a storm comes up and causes a lot of damage, maybe you are at fault. If you live next to the ocean and a wave damages it, didn't you take on the risk involved by living next to the ocean?
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You took on the risk when you bought the house. But then, you paid for flood insurance. Someone else was willing to take the risk that your premiums and the premiums of everyone else with flood insurance was going to result in more money than they would have to pay out.
 
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I see this a lot in towns that are next to the Mississippi river. They want to bailed out every time the river floods. I have zero compassion for these people.

Flood insurance and normal insurance for a home are 2 different things. If you live in a flood plane you better have flood insurance.

One solution is for all the banks to require flood insurance or no financing. This was kind of a 50 year storm event. If they did not have flood insurance that is their problem.
 
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What did the state of New York do with that 50 billion?

Sometimes the federal government and the state needs to step in and tell people you can not live that close to the ocean or right on the bank of a river.

Just because you can do something, it does not mean it is a good idea.
 
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Subyman said:
It is a hard situation. You have some people that had 80 year old homes that were wiped out or extremely damaged. An insurance company is only going to give you the cost of that particular house, not the cost to build a brand new house.snip
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I pay x premium for y coverage. If my house is a complete loss they have to pay up to y. They cannot collect premiums for y then decide to prorate my structure for a lesser amount than my policy. Do you have homeowners insurance that works the way you described? What you describe sounds more like auto insurance.
 
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piasabird said:
I see this a lot in towns that are next to the Mississippi river. They want to bailed out every time the river floods. I have zero compassion for these people.

Flood insurance and normal insurance for a home are 2 different things. If you live in a flood plane you better have flood insurance.

One solution is for all the banks to require flood insurance or no financing. This was kind of a 50 year storm event. If they did not have flood insurance that is their problem.
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They had flood insurance from a private insurer that was backed by FEMA. Their house was destroyed by tidal flooding from a hurricane. Then the insurer altered the engineering reports to not pay out as much or sometimes not at all.
 
Jerem said:
I pay x premium for y coverage. If my house is a complete loss they have to pay up to y. They cannot collect premiums for y then decide to prorate my structure for a lesser amount than my policy. Do you have homeowners insurance that works the way you described? What you describe sounds more like auto insurance.
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The insurance companies will pay up to Y or the cost to replace the unit; which ever is less.

By tweaking the reports; the cost of replacement becomes less. Value is reduced.

some policies will automatically increase the coverage value, others do not.

Also, one can feel that the house is worth X dollars; when to actually rebuild is Z. but the policy is not written for Z only up to Y
 
Flood insurance is different.

So where were you during the flood and hurricane in Louisiana?

Did you watch the news about the flood of 93?
 
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