The success or failure of your claim rides on the integrity of your insurance claims adjuster. He has ultimate power over your claim. He can do whatever he likes with your claim, including restricting who can see your claim file and interact with you, the policyholder.
If you live in California and you have filed either a property or auto claim in the last seven (7) years, you should check that your claims are recorded accurately in the databases that retain your claim history as received from your insurance company Claims department. In California, the databases are Verisk A- Plus and Lexis-Nexis. Of the two, Lexis-Nexis seems to carry more weight.
Verisk Consumer Inquiry Center
1000 Bishops Gate Blvd, Ste 300 PO Box 5404 Mt Laurel, NJ 08054-5404 1-800-709-8842
Lexis-Nexis Consumer Center PO Box 105108 Atlanta GA 30348-5108 1-888-497-0011
What you don’t know can hurt you, and the Department of Insurance will not help you. You will be forced to seek legal assistance to get the situation righted should you discover anything wrong. Why the consumer is required to spend money to prove the company “trusted” to insure your home has committed fraud is absurd. The fact that the Department of Insurance will not help consumers makes them appear complicit.
Beware of Safeco/Liberty Mutual Insurance. Those who have suffered losses in the recent fires should be extremely aware of their vulnerable state where insurance companies are concerned.
It’s funny, though not ha ha, that we learn through mistakes and experience. Recently after seeing a commercial with Tom Selleck about reverse mortgages, I tried to call up an article I read about a woman in San Francisco whose parents took out a reverse mortgage without consulting anyone in the family. She unsuccessfully tried to get the reverse mortgage reversed. She became an expert on the subject.
That is exactly what I think I am becoming, an expert in the claims process from the consumer’s perspective. There are so many rules and laws that affect the claims process, but consumers are kept in the dark with the allowance of confidential relationships between adjusters and contractors. Then, there are the rules and practices that are at work in our Public Works departments, known by contractors and building inspectors. This corruption is very widespread and paid for by the companies we pay premiums and expect that we can “trust” them to look our for our best interests.
Thank you for your insightful comment.
Nice blog
Thank you. Hope it is informative.