re: NPR Podcast about Flood Insurance shorting homeowners following Hurricane Sandy

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You do realize that the National Flood Insurance Program is a federal government program right?

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I love all of you who act like there's no way for service providers to squeeze profits in respect of a government program. Do y'all believe in the tooth fairy too?

LM adjuster took to the ceiling.

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no way for service providers to squeeze profits in respect of a government program. Do y'all believe in the tooth fairy too?

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Why are service providers not supposed to be profiting off of their business and services performed? I mean, we both understand that they aren't the ones who are forking the check on claim payments.

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It looks like he razed the house before even getting his flood estimate. Based on the reporting it does not appear that he gave the NFIP the ability to have an engineer inspect the property before tearing it down.

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At the time of the settlement(2014) he had gutted the house to rebuild, it had not been razed.

He also received an additional 130K, making his total structure settlement 220k

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I don't think it's a uniform distribution.

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it's not, but it gives you a better idea of the exaggeration here.

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I don't think it's a uniform distribution. When I worked on a lot of these Sandy projects at least in Long Island they usually only worked with a couple of insurers.

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Probably depends a lot on what companies write homeowners in a particular state/area. If a company doesn't write homeowners in Long Island, its probably not likely they'll have a lot of flood policies in the area and the companies who write the most homeowner policies there would likely also have the largest concentration of flood policies too.

Probably depends a lot on what companies write homeowners in a particular state/area. If a company doesn't write homeowners in Long Island, its probably not likely they'll have a lot of flood policies in the area

exactly, and the "400 million) number is nationwide profit, not profit made from Hurricane Sandy victims.


Going back a lot of what you see is, "I have 250k in insurance, so where is my 250k" that's not how it works

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It is actually in the adjusters best interest to pay out more on a claim than less based on the claim pay structure

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From the same article linked

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Jeff Coolidge reviewed adjusters' files for multiple insurance companies after Superstorm Sandy. He says he quit his job in part because he was so bothered by what he was doing. The insurance firms he worked for used phrases like "pre-existing," "earth movement" or "ground settlement" to reject homeowners' claims of flood damage. "They use 'settlement' a lot. 'Sorry your house looks like it shifted to the left a little bit, but I think it was like that when you bought it,' " Coolidge said.

They told him to pay homeowners less than what they asked to be paid to rebuild, he said. He says that put pressure on him to get the independent adjusters in the field in line to back up these conclusions, or else their flat fee was at stake.

"I've told an adjuster that based on our guidelines that I need you to remove these items," he says. "I send it back for revision. He doesn't agree with that. He'll resubmit it. I'll reject it back."

If the adjuster wanted to pay the homeowner more, Coolidge would reject the adjuster's assessment until he got the answer his employer wanted, and in some cases he switched adjusters or threatened to do so. "'I'm going to take half your pay and give it to him," he recalls telling several adjusters.

Looking back, Coolidge says he regrets that behavior but at the time, he didn't feel he had a choice. "I feel bad every day for participating in that. It is what it is. [The insurance companies] had the upper hand. You either do it or they'll remove you."

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Something the insured gets and adjuster that isn't good at his job. After the floods in BR a friend of mine was presented a flood estimate for repair of $75k he thought it was low. I looked over the estimate and compared it to what was in the house and agreed. The scope of damages was not correct. He called the insurance company and after a quick review of discrepancies they agreed to reassign the claim to another adjuster. The new adjuster was more experienced and needed very little direction to see the issues. The new estimate was for double the original amount with the correct scope of damages...