N.Y. Agents Tell Senate Panel of Flood Insurance Claims Hassles

March 16, 2012

  • March 16, 2012 at 2:16 pm
    bob says:
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    Flood claims are handled by a variety of 3rd parties. This article points out weak and anecdotal reasons for being irresponsible. It is like not ever watching the Super Bowl again because your TV didn’t work properly or not saving anything for retirement because the interest rate was too low.

  • March 16, 2012 at 2:21 pm
    CT Agent says:
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    I have relatives who live in Upstate NY and I visited them shortly after Hurricane Irene. There were homes ripped off their foundations, and you can see the water line on the trees that were still standing. That area was completed destroyed. I went back this past weekend and we went through the devastated area again, and guess what?? IT’S STILL DEVASTATED! The people who applied for FEMA aid were originally told that they would get a FEMA trailer to put on their property so that they can (if they were the lucky ones and could afford it) rebuild. Well, when their applications came up, they were told that they didn’t qualify for a FEMA trailer because their property is in a flood zone. People have just walked away from what was left of their lives and homes there–what an absolutely sad situation–and, I’m sure it’s not only in Upstate NY…this is STILL going on in New Orleans and who do we have to thank for it all? You guessed it..the federal government…they SUCK!!!

  • March 20, 2012 at 9:59 am
    Another CT agent says:
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    Bob- agreed, this article is too vague. However, my experience with the NFIP and FEMA has been the same. They were great in getting the third party vendors out there. However, most came from areas far from the afflicted zones. Thus they came with a complete misunderstanding of local costs. Even when the client gave multiple estimates for the cost to repair, they still refused to pay anything but what came from their computer program. This set of vendors, the appraisers were not properly prepared. The second set, the clean up companies, also were not prepared….oh, they had equipment and manpower, but they had no official knowledge of how to clean up a loss according to the NFIP’s policies. Too many clients got clean up and found out FEMA didn’t cover large portions of what was done. When i asked them if they interfaced with FEMA or knew what the NFIP covered, they really didn’t. The last party, isn’t the vendor its fema. They offer advice on how to properly cleanup after a flood loss but don’t cover everything they require. The claim payment process is by far the worst part. Even the most simple claimant had to wait weeks if not months to get paid because the “check processing center” was deluged and there was no way to know when a check would come. In the interim, if something had to be adjusted, you got sent to the back of that check cutting line. In general, too many people were left having to pay for costs that should have been covered in addition to their deductibles.

    The System is broken….



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