This is just the beginning of much more serious issues concerning this program supported by premiums paid for by policyholders. Many conflicts of interest have been identified and discussed with Congressmen, Congresswomen, and Senators over the past month. One that was in the story printed here but excluded is that Isabel Review Team was made up of adjusters who worked the claims after the storm. In other words the same adjusters rechecked their own settlements with material misstatements of facts. Another is the conflict of interest between the Law Firm who represents the WYO Carriers, the National Flood Insurance Program, CSC. A much more serious issue since the Law Firm conflict involves training the agents, adjusters, CSC General Adjusters, lobbying congress for changes in the the laws, and training Inspector General Agents. And for those who don’t know, the Inspector General Office’s duty is to investigate the programs wrongdoing but they were trained by the very people who are involed in the wrongdoing.
Thank you to the desperate yet diligent flood family that sent this story to me. As an Isabel recovery and rebuilding volunteer, I find the situation more miserable with each passing long day that turns into weeks for these resilient families. I also find it increasingly difficult after putting my own business and family aside for over a year to continue to offer hope to these broken spirits. They are not statistics and I can assure you, there are more than handfuls. There are backpacks filled with folders of cases that are still in need. We are talking about regular people that are used to lending a hand in their neighborhoods, now needing a hand from our groups of volunteers due to insufficient settlements. On one street alone, the percentage of residents even partially back to normal is ZERO. It seems the ones without Flood insurance are faring better than those with full “coverage”. For some it is already too late, the financial burden was too heavy to carry. My heart feels the strain of their weight but they are so grateful and gracious we care, it regenerates the energy needed to continue to help. If anyone can offer assistance or information to keep our families in these communities and return the hundreds living miles away back home, please come forward. Imagine paying a premium price and going away on a disastrous vacation for just two weeks with only the clothes on your back. You no doubt would be looking forward to coming home to your own bed and familiar surroundings, feeling assured you would be compensated for not getting what you paid for. Now imagine the stress on the elderly and children after 14 months. They just want to get what they paid for to rebuild their homes and hopefully their lives. The inconsistency in payments and unanswered questions has been the most consistent chapter in this horror story. This is the first time in 14 months of recovery work I have felt so compelled and totally dismayed to publicly speak out about this. I know I cannot make much of a difference,other than our volunteer efforts, but I will continue to pray for these families that someone out there can. There have been many individuals in various agencies that have gone above and beyond to try to fill in the gaps and huge gaping holes in Maryland. On behalf of the hundreds of lives we have been able to help, thank you. If anyone reading this has the ability to encourage change that has affected generations with this financial and emotional burden, I beg you on behalf of the children too young to understand and the seniors too distraught to carry on.
I have lost all faith in my government. I
did not realize there was so much evil in high places. My whole family has suffered
at the hands of liers and crooks. A whole
year of life has been stolen from my family. It is hard to enjoy your family when you are wondering where the money is to rebuilt your home. Why doesn’t my
flood insurance policy cover my losses?
What was the $200,000 policy for?
yes we are still homeless after almost 14 months! national flood refused to pay for covered loss after insurance cat adjusters
told us our home was twisted. the first floor soaked in heating oil buckled walls and floors and foundation damage.the floors were raised up in the middle 3 inchs. the county said the home had substantial damage. we had 4 contractors with an engineer,and house lifting guy, said the house was over 90% damaged. we were told sign the proof of loss or get nothing. our review gave us 19,000 on top of the 50,000 we got so far. who can rebuild for that?
why did the same group review our claim
the second time . i seems to me that they were covering the first guys butt. maybe if they were subject to fines like in florida we would be made whole. pre flood condition without having to live with in a fema trailer or temp housing.
They say when it rains it pours. Well my family and I have learned that when it floods it becomes a tidal wave….
One year after Isabel, I watched the poor folks in Fla. as they were hit with storm after storm….each time I said–those poor people. They think this is the worst of it..Just wait until they begin the paperwork/insurance/FEMA/NFIP nightmare that has become a way of life for us now.
After paying HUGE flood insurance premiums for years, I still find it unbelievable that we have been treated as unfairly as we have. What the heck were we paying for?
Our County said our home was Substantially Damaged (72.8%), yet insurance only gave us (even after appeals) 31% of the damage coverage we had on the house. As a result, we have had to put ourselves in a very precarious financial situation to bridge the gap and rebuild our home. We felt we had to take this action because we needed to be able to live in our own home again and it seems as if we will never receive a FAIR damage settlement.
My family and I have (as well as MANY other families) suffered untold stress as a result of the entire Isabel ordeal and we are now being treated for our stress related illnesses. My son, who prior to the storm, was a very happy, well adjusted, excellent student, has suffered under the strain and as a result is now struggling in school. So many times he has saidâ€â€I just want our old life back. After the storm when I should have been spending time with him and assuring him, etc., instead I spent nearly a year telling him “I’m sorry but I have to go to an Isabel meeting” or “Sorry but I HAVE to get all this paperwork done”. Our jobs have suffered. Our relationships have suffered. MUCH of this could have been avoided if we would have received the insurance damage money we deserved in a timely manner and could have begun to rebuild right away.
Thank you for the article regarding the problems we face with the National Flood Insurance Program, CSC and their adjusters…not to mention the lawyers and administrators who are complicit in this effort to shortchange the policyholders.
We have been living in a FEMA trailer for over a year now, with no end in sight. We were promised repeatedly that we would receive just compensation for the damage, compensation paid for by our premiums for over 16 years! We have complied repeatedly with requests and demands, only to be ignored and denied for the legitimate claims and items which need to be repaired or replaced.
When the review was announced, we all thought that help was on the horizon. However, when we learned that the same adjusters were being used, along with the fact that the review was shut down in mid-stream, this quickly dashed our hopes.
The hope would be that the insurance industry and the agents who sell these policies would help to enforce what is rightfully due us under the law. I am appalled to see the lack of involvement on the part of the insurance providers to intervene on our behalf, and on the part of the adjusters to do do what is right.
I applaud the efforts underway in Florida and hope that their proactive steps will prevent these injustices from happening there.
The entire program needs a major overhaul and it is long past the time to do so!
I guess I am only a statistic to some..but I am a very weary and heartbroken woman…I TOTALLY renovated a very small shore property investing my life savings and was a week away from moving in when Isabel hit and damaged everthing on my first floor…I thought would be in good shape since I have 154,000.00 in flood insurance..I pay my taxes, my house payments..my FLOOD insurance and Home Owners Insurand..I’m a good citizen.. WRONG…when I FINALLY got a contractor to provide me with a proof of loss it was submitted and because we had the NERVE to include costs for painting the ceilings etc my claim was held up for MONTHS then I was given 50 cents on the dollar….the proof of loss was for $95,484.00 to date I have received $43,856.43..thats a difference of $51,627.57…I have been paying for my repairs out of my pocket..My credit cards are maxed out…the outside of my home is not finished.. and winter is comming on soon..I have written many requests for assistance made hundreds of phone calls and I am so tired of being denied what I know is due me…and its my own Government that is working against me..I feel betrayed and weary of it all
Omaha insurance refused to pay for mold and anything connected with areas of the house not touched by water.They also withheld depreciation which we never received back from them. I know they did not follow the procedures mandated by Mr. Shortley in his memo of May 7, 2004.
They would only cover and review estimates for repair even though the county said our house was worth $10 and we demolished it.
Our home also had 550 gallons of our neighbor’s heating oil wash over and under our 1-story home. Our house, which we renovated for over 4 years,is gone and Omaha had rejected everything we sent and made us feel like criminals.
We recently moved out of our trailer and into a small rental house.
To me it is very simple. We paid for $220,000 in coverage plus contents and they finally paid us half. They constantly threatened us with deadlines and notices about losing all of our coverage if we did not comply with deadlines and submit exactly what they requested.
They robbed us of our coverage that we paid for and no one seems to care.
It’s been over a year and we still are having these discussions.
Is there anyone out there who will do the right thing for the citizens of Maryland?
If Congress states that the purpose of flood insurance is to bring people back to their ‘pre-flood’ condition, and FEMA contradicts this by saying that ‘flood insurance is a form of aid’, then how can anyone put their life back to where it was? The insurance companies(Omaha in particular) is guilty of FRAUD and if the government doesn’t do something about it, then they are guilty as well. What does this say about justice in this country? We had FULL coverage and we can’t rebuild.
we had three rooms damaged by Isabel. Also our foundation, Prudential insur didn’t cover any thing but our fence that was blown down. we are 64 and 61 we thought that prudential would take care of us. We were wrong ,we even had foundation insur. we found out later that our furnace doesn’t work and we have elec. problems also If we don’t get a loan we will have to just accept it. the way things are
I too have been in a trailer for over a year, with 190,000 coverage i only received 83,000.00, which left a shortage of 74,000.00 for repairs. i own a grocery store and have taken every penny i have out of there so i could provide a home again for my children. Now I am almost certain thati will have to close my store as i no longer have any money to continue on. This was a life long dream for me and thanks to nfip they ruined my life. Something is terribly wrong with our government to allow this to happen, we get up everyday go to work pay taxes and insurance, dont ask for any handouts,but yet the good people have to suffer.
There’s a movie about an insurance company who keeps denying a medical procedure to save a man’s life when all of the time it is a “covered” cost. They keep rejecting the procedure till the man dies. That was how they handled all of their claims.
When I first saw it, I thought that this was a total fabrication and could never happen in the real world.
I was so wrong.
Please review the web site- FEMAINFO.US and refer to “Legal Actions” and go to the “Class action lawsuit” section. Read the list carefully of the companies that are listed and avoid them at all costs.
There’s no point on purchasing flood insurance that denies coverage and puts people through this nightmare that never ends.
How do you insurance people sleep at night after what you put us all through?
Have you no conscience?
Bottom line is this. I bought protection against flood at the highest level offered by the NFS program. The description of protection as “Replacement Settlement” taken directly from the FEMA document for the Standard Flood Insurance Policy reads.
“Replacement Cost settlement applies to a single-family dwelling provided it is your principal residence for the preceding 365 days prior to the loss and was owner occupied at least 80% of the time.” “At the time of the loss the amount of insurance on this dwelling was 80% or more of the replacement cost prior to the loss”
With those requirements met, this is the settlement I should have received, again taken directly from the FEMA document.
“We will pay to repair or replace the damaged dwelling after application of the deductible and without deduction for depreciation, but not more than the least of the following amounts.”
(1) The building limit of the liability shown on your Declarations Page;
(2) The replacement cost of that part of the dwelling damaged, with materials of like kind and quality, and for like use; or
(3) The necessary amount actually spent to repair or replace the damaged part of the dwelling for like use.
With that said, can someone tell me why, I have received $53,000 less than any of the above conditions direct I will be paid, while spending an amount greater than $53,000 above the amount paid to me to bring my home back to pre-flood condition with one less fireplace than I had and a lesser quality kitchen in the house after the rebuild?
This program is broken and people are suffering. I have not lived in my home since September 19, 2003. My home is not completely rebuilt to the point where I can move back in more than 13 months after Isabel took it from me!
Theis comment “In March the U.S. Senate took the unprecedented step of directing FEMA’s NFIP to reopen 24,000 flood claims and conduct an independent review – the largest such event in FEMA’s history.” should continue to say that many of the same adjusters and adjusting firms worked on the review. As such I would not call this an indepentent review.
This is just the beginning of much more serious issues concerning this program supported by premiums paid for by policyholders. Many conflicts of interest have been identified and discussed with Congressmen, Congresswomen, and Senators over the past month. One that was in the story printed here but excluded is that Isabel Review Team was made up of adjusters who worked the claims after the storm. In other words the same adjusters rechecked their own settlements with material misstatements of facts. Another is the conflict of interest between the Law Firm who represents the WYO Carriers, the National Flood Insurance Program, CSC. A much more serious issue since the Law Firm conflict involves training the agents, adjusters, CSC General Adjusters, lobbying congress for changes in the the laws, and training Inspector General Agents. And for those who don’t know, the Inspector General Office’s duty is to investigate the programs wrongdoing but they were trained by the very people who are involed in the wrongdoing.
Great article on NFIP fraud. See http://www.femainfo.us for more information.
Thank you to the desperate yet diligent flood family that sent this story to me. As an Isabel recovery and rebuilding volunteer, I find the situation more miserable with each passing long day that turns into weeks for these resilient families. I also find it increasingly difficult after putting my own business and family aside for over a year to continue to offer hope to these broken spirits. They are not statistics and I can assure you, there are more than handfuls. There are backpacks filled with folders of cases that are still in need. We are talking about regular people that are used to lending a hand in their neighborhoods, now needing a hand from our groups of volunteers due to insufficient settlements. On one street alone, the percentage of residents even partially back to normal is ZERO. It seems the ones without Flood insurance are faring better than those with full “coverage”. For some it is already too late, the financial burden was too heavy to carry. My heart feels the strain of their weight but they are so grateful and gracious we care, it regenerates the energy needed to continue to help. If anyone can offer assistance or information to keep our families in these communities and return the hundreds living miles away back home, please come forward. Imagine paying a premium price and going away on a disastrous vacation for just two weeks with only the clothes on your back. You no doubt would be looking forward to coming home to your own bed and familiar surroundings, feeling assured you would be compensated for not getting what you paid for. Now imagine the stress on the elderly and children after 14 months. They just want to get what they paid for to rebuild their homes and hopefully their lives. The inconsistency in payments and unanswered questions has been the most consistent chapter in this horror story. This is the first time in 14 months of recovery work I have felt so compelled and totally dismayed to publicly speak out about this. I know I cannot make much of a difference,other than our volunteer efforts, but I will continue to pray for these families that someone out there can. There have been many individuals in various agencies that have gone above and beyond to try to fill in the gaps and huge gaping holes in Maryland. On behalf of the hundreds of lives we have been able to help, thank you. If anyone reading this has the ability to encourage change that has affected generations with this financial and emotional burden, I beg you on behalf of the children too young to understand and the seniors too distraught to carry on.
I have lost all faith in my government. I
did not realize there was so much evil in high places. My whole family has suffered
at the hands of liers and crooks. A whole
year of life has been stolen from my family. It is hard to enjoy your family when you are wondering where the money is to rebuilt your home. Why doesn’t my
flood insurance policy cover my losses?
What was the $200,000 policy for?
yes we are still homeless after almost 14 months! national flood refused to pay for covered loss after insurance cat adjusters
told us our home was twisted. the first floor soaked in heating oil buckled walls and floors and foundation damage.the floors were raised up in the middle 3 inchs. the county said the home had substantial damage. we had 4 contractors with an engineer,and house lifting guy, said the house was over 90% damaged. we were told sign the proof of loss or get nothing. our review gave us 19,000 on top of the 50,000 we got so far. who can rebuild for that?
why did the same group review our claim
the second time . i seems to me that they were covering the first guys butt. maybe if they were subject to fines like in florida we would be made whole. pre flood condition without having to live with in a fema trailer or temp housing.
They say when it rains it pours. Well my family and I have learned that when it floods it becomes a tidal wave….
One year after Isabel, I watched the poor folks in Fla. as they were hit with storm after storm….each time I said–those poor people. They think this is the worst of it..Just wait until they begin the paperwork/insurance/FEMA/NFIP nightmare that has become a way of life for us now.
After paying HUGE flood insurance premiums for years, I still find it unbelievable that we have been treated as unfairly as we have. What the heck were we paying for?
Our County said our home was Substantially Damaged (72.8%), yet insurance only gave us (even after appeals) 31% of the damage coverage we had on the house. As a result, we have had to put ourselves in a very precarious financial situation to bridge the gap and rebuild our home. We felt we had to take this action because we needed to be able to live in our own home again and it seems as if we will never receive a FAIR damage settlement.
My family and I have (as well as MANY other families) suffered untold stress as a result of the entire Isabel ordeal and we are now being treated for our stress related illnesses. My son, who prior to the storm, was a very happy, well adjusted, excellent student, has suffered under the strain and as a result is now struggling in school. So many times he has saidâ€â€I just want our old life back. After the storm when I should have been spending time with him and assuring him, etc., instead I spent nearly a year telling him “I’m sorry but I have to go to an Isabel meeting” or “Sorry but I HAVE to get all this paperwork done”. Our jobs have suffered. Our relationships have suffered. MUCH of this could have been avoided if we would have received the insurance damage money we deserved in a timely manner and could have begun to rebuild right away.
Thank you for the article regarding the problems we face with the National Flood Insurance Program, CSC and their adjusters…not to mention the lawyers and administrators who are complicit in this effort to shortchange the policyholders.
We have been living in a FEMA trailer for over a year now, with no end in sight. We were promised repeatedly that we would receive just compensation for the damage, compensation paid for by our premiums for over 16 years! We have complied repeatedly with requests and demands, only to be ignored and denied for the legitimate claims and items which need to be repaired or replaced.
When the review was announced, we all thought that help was on the horizon. However, when we learned that the same adjusters were being used, along with the fact that the review was shut down in mid-stream, this quickly dashed our hopes.
The hope would be that the insurance industry and the agents who sell these policies would help to enforce what is rightfully due us under the law. I am appalled to see the lack of involvement on the part of the insurance providers to intervene on our behalf, and on the part of the adjusters to do do what is right.
I applaud the efforts underway in Florida and hope that their proactive steps will prevent these injustices from happening there.
The entire program needs a major overhaul and it is long past the time to do so!
I guess I am only a statistic to some..but I am a very weary and heartbroken woman…I TOTALLY renovated a very small shore property investing my life savings and was a week away from moving in when Isabel hit and damaged everthing on my first floor…I thought would be in good shape since I have 154,000.00 in flood insurance..I pay my taxes, my house payments..my FLOOD insurance and Home Owners Insurand..I’m a good citizen.. WRONG…when I FINALLY got a contractor to provide me with a proof of loss it was submitted and because we had the NERVE to include costs for painting the ceilings etc my claim was held up for MONTHS then I was given 50 cents on the dollar….the proof of loss was for $95,484.00 to date I have received $43,856.43..thats a difference of $51,627.57…I have been paying for my repairs out of my pocket..My credit cards are maxed out…the outside of my home is not finished.. and winter is comming on soon..I have written many requests for assistance made hundreds of phone calls and I am so tired of being denied what I know is due me…and its my own Government that is working against me..I feel betrayed and weary of it all
Omaha insurance refused to pay for mold and anything connected with areas of the house not touched by water.They also withheld depreciation which we never received back from them. I know they did not follow the procedures mandated by Mr. Shortley in his memo of May 7, 2004.
They would only cover and review estimates for repair even though the county said our house was worth $10 and we demolished it.
Our home also had 550 gallons of our neighbor’s heating oil wash over and under our 1-story home. Our house, which we renovated for over 4 years,is gone and Omaha had rejected everything we sent and made us feel like criminals.
We recently moved out of our trailer and into a small rental house.
To me it is very simple. We paid for $220,000 in coverage plus contents and they finally paid us half. They constantly threatened us with deadlines and notices about losing all of our coverage if we did not comply with deadlines and submit exactly what they requested.
They robbed us of our coverage that we paid for and no one seems to care.
It’s been over a year and we still are having these discussions.
Is there anyone out there who will do the right thing for the citizens of Maryland?
If Congress states that the purpose of flood insurance is to bring people back to their ‘pre-flood’ condition, and FEMA contradicts this by saying that ‘flood insurance is a form of aid’, then how can anyone put their life back to where it was? The insurance companies(Omaha in particular) is guilty of FRAUD and if the government doesn’t do something about it, then they are guilty as well. What does this say about justice in this country? We had FULL coverage and we can’t rebuild.
we had three rooms damaged by Isabel. Also our foundation, Prudential insur didn’t cover any thing but our fence that was blown down. we are 64 and 61 we thought that prudential would take care of us. We were wrong ,we even had foundation insur. we found out later that our furnace doesn’t work and we have elec. problems also If we don’t get a loan we will have to just accept it. the way things are
I too have been in a trailer for over a year, with 190,000 coverage i only received 83,000.00, which left a shortage of 74,000.00 for repairs. i own a grocery store and have taken every penny i have out of there so i could provide a home again for my children. Now I am almost certain thati will have to close my store as i no longer have any money to continue on. This was a life long dream for me and thanks to nfip they ruined my life. Something is terribly wrong with our government to allow this to happen, we get up everyday go to work pay taxes and insurance, dont ask for any handouts,but yet the good people have to suffer.
There’s a movie about an insurance company who keeps denying a medical procedure to save a man’s life when all of the time it is a “covered” cost. They keep rejecting the procedure till the man dies. That was how they handled all of their claims.
When I first saw it, I thought that this was a total fabrication and could never happen in the real world.
I was so wrong.
Please review the web site- FEMAINFO.US and refer to “Legal Actions” and go to the “Class action lawsuit” section. Read the list carefully of the companies that are listed and avoid them at all costs.
There’s no point on purchasing flood insurance that denies coverage and puts people through this nightmare that never ends.
How do you insurance people sleep at night after what you put us all through?
Have you no conscience?
Bottom line is this. I bought protection against flood at the highest level offered by the NFS program. The description of protection as “Replacement Settlement” taken directly from the FEMA document for the Standard Flood Insurance Policy reads.
“Replacement Cost settlement applies to a single-family dwelling provided it is your principal residence for the preceding 365 days prior to the loss and was owner occupied at least 80% of the time.” “At the time of the loss the amount of insurance on this dwelling was 80% or more of the replacement cost prior to the loss”
With those requirements met, this is the settlement I should have received, again taken directly from the FEMA document.
“We will pay to repair or replace the damaged dwelling after application of the deductible and without deduction for depreciation, but not more than the least of the following amounts.”
(1) The building limit of the liability shown on your Declarations Page;
(2) The replacement cost of that part of the dwelling damaged, with materials of like kind and quality, and for like use; or
(3) The necessary amount actually spent to repair or replace the damaged part of the dwelling for like use.
With that said, can someone tell me why, I have received $53,000 less than any of the above conditions direct I will be paid, while spending an amount greater than $53,000 above the amount paid to me to bring my home back to pre-flood condition with one less fireplace than I had and a lesser quality kitchen in the house after the rebuild?
This program is broken and people are suffering. I have not lived in my home since September 19, 2003. My home is not completely rebuilt to the point where I can move back in more than 13 months after Isabel took it from me!
Theis comment “In March the U.S. Senate took the unprecedented step of directing FEMA’s NFIP to reopen 24,000 flood claims and conduct an independent review – the largest such event in FEMA’s history.” should continue to say that many of the same adjusters and adjusting firms worked on the review. As such I would not call this an indepentent review.