by gertes » Mon Nov 22, 2010 12:33 am
Before anything else, thanks to the owners and operators of this forum, that I am to the present still writing here, even though some people are not happy with me.
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My two homes in the Philippines, specifically located in Provident Village, Marikina City, Metro Manila, the worst hit area from last year's typhoon and flooding, had been devastated by typhoon Ondoy and its consequential massive flooding, on Sept. 26, 2009.
The two homes (for more on these two homes, you can do searches on my messages here in this forum, look up the search words "posts of Gertes") were insured by a local insurance company (LIC) to 3 million pesos (US$1 = roughly more or less 43 pesos) each on the structure and .5 million pesos each on the contents.
The period insured was from Sept. 1, 2009 to Sept. 1 2010.
No, I never asked the insurance agent serving me every year how much I wanted my homes to be insured for, and never bargained at all about the premiums I had to pay; I always told him to give me the best protection.
Now that I am working on my claim I came to the knowledge that my agent had insured or sold me a home insurance policy on actual cash value basis, as distinct from replacement cost basis.
What is the difference?
I might be mistaken -- and I wished I could come to a website which is into all the concepts and terms and theories and practices of home insurance (if anyone can refer me to such a website, I will be most obliged), but in a home insurance on actual cash value basis when claim time comes the claim will be reduced by depreciation, not with a replacement cost policy; so a bigger claim can be made with a replacement cost policy.
This matter will be taken up again later, I will just say now that the agent serving me (ASM) was not honest, because he never ever told me about the two kinds of home insurance policies: the one based on actual cash value and the other on replacement cost value; although I always told him about giving me the best safety, the best protection, the best remedy or compensation from the LIC if and when I would suffer a calamity on my two homes -- never bargaining with him about premiums to pay.
What I want to learn from everyone here who has dealings in home insurance as buyers and also of course as sellers of and specially as loss adjusters of...
What is the meaning of insured coverage of 3 million pesos on the house and .5 million pesos on the contents?
Until I am now into the claim process and it is still not over, I had previously the idea that the LIC would pay me as much as 3 million pesos on the house and as much as .5 million on the contents; so that if the losses would be more than 3 millions on the house and more than .5 million on the contents, then the LIC was only obliged to pay me 3 millions on the house and .5 million on the contents, after factoring in of course all the reductions allowable to the LIC.
In this connection, how does the LIC reach the amount of 3 million pesos coverage for the house and .5 million on the contents?
By the way, I know that in the US, insurance companies don't go into selling policies against flooding, it is the government who will assist homeowners who suffer the devastation of their homes from flooding.
Is my information correct.
This is my attempt to get the whole big picture and the small pictures of everything -- in a systematic and holistic manner, that should be of concern to homeowners buying home insurance policies, in particular so that they will not encounter any dismaying discoveries when claim time comes.
Gertes
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My two homes in the Philippines, specifically located in Provident Village, Marikina City, Metro Manila, the worst hit area from last year's typhoon and flooding, had been devastated by typhoon Ondoy and its consequential massive flooding, on Sept. 26, 2009.
The two homes (for more on these two homes, you can do searches on my messages here in this forum, look up the search words "posts of Gertes") were insured by a local insurance company (LIC) to 3 million pesos (US$1 = roughly more or less 43 pesos) each on the structure and .5 million pesos each on the contents.
The period insured was from Sept. 1, 2009 to Sept. 1 2010.
No, I never asked the insurance agent serving me every year how much I wanted my homes to be insured for, and never bargained at all about the premiums I had to pay; I always told him to give me the best protection.
Now that I am working on my claim I came to the knowledge that my agent had insured or sold me a home insurance policy on actual cash value basis, as distinct from replacement cost basis.
What is the difference?
I might be mistaken -- and I wished I could come to a website which is into all the concepts and terms and theories and practices of home insurance (if anyone can refer me to such a website, I will be most obliged), but in a home insurance on actual cash value basis when claim time comes the claim will be reduced by depreciation, not with a replacement cost policy; so a bigger claim can be made with a replacement cost policy.
This matter will be taken up again later, I will just say now that the agent serving me (ASM) was not honest, because he never ever told me about the two kinds of home insurance policies: the one based on actual cash value and the other on replacement cost value; although I always told him about giving me the best safety, the best protection, the best remedy or compensation from the LIC if and when I would suffer a calamity on my two homes -- never bargaining with him about premiums to pay.
What I want to learn from everyone here who has dealings in home insurance as buyers and also of course as sellers of and specially as loss adjusters of...
What is the meaning of insured coverage of 3 million pesos on the house and .5 million pesos on the contents?
Until I am now into the claim process and it is still not over, I had previously the idea that the LIC would pay me as much as 3 million pesos on the house and as much as .5 million on the contents; so that if the losses would be more than 3 millions on the house and more than .5 million on the contents, then the LIC was only obliged to pay me 3 millions on the house and .5 million on the contents, after factoring in of course all the reductions allowable to the LIC.
In this connection, how does the LIC reach the amount of 3 million pesos coverage for the house and .5 million on the contents?
By the way, I know that in the US, insurance companies don't go into selling policies against flooding, it is the government who will assist homeowners who suffer the devastation of their homes from flooding.
Is my information correct.
This is my attempt to get the whole big picture and the small pictures of everything -- in a systematic and holistic manner, that should be of concern to homeowners buying home insurance policies, in particular so that they will not encounter any dismaying discoveries when claim time comes.
Gertes
Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 11:39 pm Post Subject:
How is the situation in the US for home insurance buyers?
Here, read about it, just in case you are so innocent in your ignorance; what is that saying, "Ignorance is bliss"?
[...]
...thousands of people in the U.S. who already knew a secret about the insurance industry: When there's a disaster, the companies homeowners count on to protect them from financial ruin routinely pay less than what policies promise. Insurers often pay 30-60 percent of the cost of rebuilding a damaged home--even when carriers assure homeowners they're fully covered, thousands of complaints with state insurance departments and civil court cases show.
Paying out less to victims of catastrophes has helped produce record profits. In the past 12 years, insurance company net income has soared--even in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Property-casualty insurers, which cover damage to homes and cars, reported their highest-ever profit of $73 billion last year, up 49 percent from $49 billion in 2005, according to Highline Data LLC, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm that compiles insurance industry data.
The 60 million U.S. homeowners who pay more than $50 billion a year in insurance premiums are often disappointed when they discover insurers won't pay the full cost of rebuilding their damaged or destroyed homes. Property insurers systematically deny and reduce their policyholders' claims, [...] and they sometimes ask their adjusters to lie to customers, [...] insurers make low offers--or refuse to pay at all--and then dare people to fight back.
... the company doesn't want to pay. The first commandment of insurance is, 'Thou shalt pay as little and as late as possible.'"
[...]
When a policyholder files a claim, first make a low offer, [...]
"If you don't take the pittance they offer, they're going to put on the boxing gloves and they're going to batter injured victims," [...].
By postponing payments, insurance companies can hold money longer and make more on their investments--and often wear down clients to the point of dropping a challenge.
[...]
They awarded prizes such as portable refrigerators to adjusters who tried to deny claims by blaming fires on arson without justification, she says. "We were told to lie by our supervisors," says Katzman, 49, who quit by taking a company buyout in 2003. "It's tough to look at people and know you're lying."
[...]
The Insurance Hoax
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nw&pname=mm_0907_story1.html
I think in my country things can only be worse.
Anyway, that is some consolation for myself, as the saying goes, misery loves company.
Gertes
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:18 am Post Subject:
Well, none of that addresses your situation, does it. You simply did not want to itemize your loss for the insurance company. You thought they should take the height of your home, divide it by the depth of the flood water in the home and apply that percentage to your coverage and hand over a check for that amount.
Where is the story about insured's who simply don't get how anything works in the real world?
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2010 02:49 am Post Subject:
We spent countless hour with this already. Not worthy of any new effort. Same tired, old story of an uncooperative insured who should have bought his policy at Burger King, so he could have it his way.
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 12:44 am Post Subject:
That is not true.
I have submitted a better listing of my losses and my destroyed items as regards contents of the homes.
But they used all kinds of shenanigans to bamboozle me into accepting their adjustment as equitable whereas it is very inequitable, iniquitous.
Okay, I ask you about the deductible, where is it going to be computed on and deducted from:
2. computed by multiplying 2% on the ultimate computation by the adjuster, and then this resultant amount is deducted from the ultimate computation, which is now the final end amount payable by the insurance company.
Here, read my previous post on this concern:
[quote=Gertes]Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 12:31 am
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Now, all people interested and specially people in the insurance business as operators of insurance companies, and sales agents, and loss adjusters, in regard to home insurance, please examine the summary adjusted payable money from the insurance company servicing my two homes, devastated by the fierce typhoon and flooding of Ondoy on Sept. 26, 2009.
I will just present below the summary computations of one house, the more expensive one, first of the company's adjuster, then of the good Samaritan adjuster.
Summary of computation for payable by the insurance company from the company's appointed adjuster (CAA).
1. Insurance 3,000,000.00
2. Sound value (FTAO) 3,000,000.00
3. Deductile (2% of 3,000,000.00) 60,000.00
4. Total reconstruction/repair cost 905,657.00
5. Less: depreciation (60%) 543,394.20
6. Net of depreciation: 362,262.80
7. Less deductile: 60,000.00
8. Insurance company pays (Please See Attached) 302,262.80.
(See attached.)
Summary of computation for payable by the insurance company from the good Samaritan adjuster (GSA).
2. Cash value/sound value
a. Replacement cost 3,100,000.00
b. Less depreciation (30%) 930,000.00 = 2,170,000.00
3. Deductable amount
Flood loss (2% x 2,170,000.00) = 43,400.00
4. Loss and damage
a. Repair cost 1,748,000.00
b. Less depreciation (30% x 1,748,000.00) = 1,223,600.00
5. Policy liability
a. Loss and damage 1,223,600.00
b. Less deductable 43,400.00 = 1,180,200.00 (payable by insurance company)
(See attached.)
Everybody, please pay attention to No. 3 of the CAA's computation and No. 3 of the GSA's computation.
What do you say about their respective mode of arriving at the deductile or deductable to be shouldered by the policy holder?
[ http://www.ampminsure.org/start/about14697-2.html ]
[/quote]
Yes, insurance adjusters employed by insurance companies are certainly into shenanigans to defraud home policy holders.
Gertes
Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 05:07 pm Post Subject:
What is the doctrine of "utmost good faith" in insurance?
It means that there should be no act which can be a concrete deed or an omission undertaken by one party against another, between the insurance company and its personnel like their sales agents and their adjusters on the one side, and the insured or policy buyer-holder on the other.
The more I examine the actuations and behaviors of the insurance company that sold me the home policy covering my two houses devastated by the worst typhoon ever in the last fifty years in the Philippines, the more I am of the certainty that they are into a lot of utmost (no, not good faith) bad faith.
I show people more knowledgeable than myself the computation of the company's adjusters, who came up with a measly 610,333.80 pesos for both homes as regards their structure and their contents, when the coverage the company committed itself to is 3 million on the house each and .5 million on the contents of each, totaling 7 millions, and everyone tells me that it is very grossly and intentionally low, achieved by juggling of numbers.
And practically all of them tell me that the adjusters employed by the insurance company had been given instructions (against the doctrine of utmost good faith) to bring down the claim payable to be very low, so that if one is not conversant with claim adjustment one would not be able to see anything questionable.
One informant even told me, himself also an independent adjuster, that that insurance company is notorious for dictating on adjusters they hire to do their bidding, otherwise no jobs for them.
By bringing down to a very small estimate, there is now the burden almost impossible to bear, must less to overcome, from the part of the insured party to raise it to a truly realistic value.
So that whereas honest adjusters come to the figure of 2,437,500.54 pesos (one US$ = roughly more or less 43 pesos), these adjusters hired by the insurance company, in putting their adjustment to just 610,333.80, imposed an almost impossible task for me to work my way up from that low level to the realistic level, which is the consensus of honest non-compromised (by insurance companies) adjusters.
I will post other messages to show the deeds and the omissions of insurance companies and their personnel against the doctrine of the utmost good faith, all because they are motivated by overwhelming greed to make money -- and to the dogs (apologies to dogs for they are a noble breed in themselves) with honesty, fairness, and public service.
Gertes
Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 06:06 pm Post Subject:
I will post other messages to show the deeds and the omissions of insurance companies and their personnel against the doctrine of the utmost good faith
Please don't do that here. This is not the place for your personal vendetta against an insurance company you refuse to cooperate with in the pursuit of a claim.
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