Extortion and intrigue

10. October 2009 by admin.

Here is the latest news. I am still trying to wrap my head around this one.

We requested an advance on our contents money this past Monday, October 5. Their answer, which came late on Friday, gave us two options.

1. We take an offer that is not as much as what we are owed by them.
2. We make a sworn statement in front of a lawyer about the contents list and their value

Yet one more stage of bullying by Preferred Mutual Insurance. This process is just getting ridiculous.

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Just another brick in the wall

28. September 2009 by admin.

Well, we have some more information on why they aren’t paying our living expenses. This is of course as relayed to me through the adjusters. The insurance company has not given us any written communication EVER.

Are you ready? You are going to love this one.

They are not paying because we aren’t building.

FABULOUS!!! So let’s trace this one back a bit.

Dec-Apr: Waiting for money to build
Late April: Get money and send it to Mortage Lender
May: Design house
June: Schedule demolition, but have to wait for permits and National Grid
July: Demolition should take two days, takes two weeks; the demo team is less than stellar in performance
August: Start building.
Mid August: Builder needs more money to continue. Demolition and 9 foot tall cement walls used up money
Mid August-Sept: Beg Mortgage lender to release funds. Won’t until more building is done. Insurance company won’t pay Code upgrade money or remaining holdback amounts that could get us moving forward on the house, construction cannot continue. They won’t pay rent that they owe us because we aren’t building.

Looking back over the past 9.5 months I just can’t imagine what I was thinking. It wrong of me to feel we weren’t being treated well. This all makes so much sense. If we cannot finish building our house, we’ll just give up and not ask for anymore money. It is very unfair of me to expect my insurance company to uphold it’s end of the contract. I’m a jerk for trying to make them. (For those of you that didn’t get it, that is what we call SARCASM!)

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The Investigator Meeting is Next week

25. September 2009 by admin.

I had misunderstood when I was told we were to have a meeting on Thursday. I thought that meant today. It is next week, Oct 1. So, we get to stew over this for another week. YAHOOO!

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Meeting with Insurance Company Investigator

23. September 2009 by admin.

I am so upset right now I am shaking. Apparently, Harry Talmon, Preferred Mutual’s adjuster feels that we didn’t own everything that we listed. We are meeting tomorrow morning with our Public Adjuster, Harry and a Special Investigator from Preferred Mutual. For some reason they don’t think that people married for 9 years with three children will have any possessions. Never mind the years that we lived together before we got married and then the separate lives before then. I’m guessing that we shouldn’t really own anything.

These guys are just way too much.

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This is an impressive amount of not caring.

16. September 2009 by admin.

Our Public Adjuster has been talking with Preferred Mutual’s adjuster, Harry, everyday. Now today, without mentioning it earlier and with full knowledge of the problems we are facing, Harry has a message today on his voicemail that he is on vacation. Our Public Adjuster has no idea when he will be back.

The Public Adjuster then called Preferred Mutual directly. They are closed for a company function.

The company function can’t be helped, it is just one more event related to this company that sucks. The lack of notice that the only person working on our case for the insurance company is going on vacation, can be helped. That is poor customer service. That is poor business. That is just another case of how poorly we have been treated by this insurance company.

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Is Preferred Mutual still being a pain?

15. September 2009 by admin.

Yes.

The latest news. Our builder is going to be ready to work on our house this Thursday. That would be September 10, 2009 for those with a time machine and are reading this from the future. If they cannot work on our house, they will have to find some form of work to keep the team busy. This would mean our project gets pushed off.

We have tried calling Preferred Mutual to find out what is the problem. The agent there, Herb, would not talk with me because we have a Public Adjuster. Even though, when we spoke with the NYS Insurance Board, we were told that the insurance company must speak with us. I tried to ask him questions and I was told flat out that he would not speak with me.

What have we done this week?

1. Spoke with the insurance board and learned they are useless.

2. Spoke with a lawyer and learned that he could take the case, but the standard rate is 20% of the settlement. The insurance company will not pay this over and above the settlement. It comes right out of the claim funds. We need every penny we are getting. A court battle might even slow things down. If we lose the house because of this, you better believe I am willing to make it a fight then and make them buy us a new house in a place as cool as Alplaus, or maybe in Barbados, that would be a close second.

3. Spoke with Preferred Mutual, had the door slammed in my face.

4. Spoke with our Public Adjuster, they have gone around the insurance company adjuster and spoke directly with the insurance company. Everything is falling on the shoulders of the biggest penny pinching, slowest moving insurance adjuster ever created.

5. Spoke with Bank of America. I asked if there was any way they could use our funds to pay our loan and then start a new home loan. I talked with every home loan department in the national call center. No one could help from the national level. The customer service rep gave me the names of some local representative that could be more creative than the national group. I spoke with one of the local reps and she said she is only a loan originator and has very little leeway in opening loans. She said I should call the National Offices, they can be more flexible in their offerings.

The insurance adjuster is still working on it.

It is now Tuesday and we are back to ground zero. Yesterday, I finally lost hope in this process. I had always believed that we would get our house built on-time. I now believe in the possibility that this will not happen. I feel that without some massive cosmic intervention we are done. I have no idea how we can tell the girls that they will not get to live in their house again.

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Another day NOT in paradise

11. September 2009 by admin.

We met with our builder today to discuss how we might move forward. As you all know the earlier bits, I don’t need to go into that. We shared our conversations with Bank of America and how they won’t give us anymore money. We discussed the money that is still owed to us by Preferred Mutual for structure holdbacks, code upgrades and contents. We then mentioned our case with the NYS Insurance Board and how Christine left a message at Hugh Farley’s office.

I spoke with the insurance board today. One of my favorite statements of the day is paraphrased as follows:

Those regulations are for insurance companies but they don’t really apply to housing insurance. They are more for auto insurance claims.

The regulation title is:

11 NYCRR216.5

11 N.Y. Compo Codes R. & Regs. 216.5

OFFICIAL COMPILATION OF CODES, RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

TITLE 11. INSURANCE DEPARTMENT

CHAPTER IX. UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES

PART 216. UNFAIR CLAIMS SETTLEMENT PRACTICESAND CLAIM COST CONTROL MEASURES

I don’t see where this says, “oh sorry just for Auto though”.

The case worker had a number of loosey goosey answers and mentioned that our Public adjuster was a problem in how they are dealing with the Insurance company. I asked for the documentation they received from Preferred Mutual. I read it over and no where do I see our Public Adjuster as a problem.

We went to the bank to try and get a loan to float us until the Contents claim is settled. We told our story. They said they can’t help us with this situation and can’t think of any other bank that would be able to help either.

We are down to two more options, a lawyer and the news.

I think I will post links to the Rules and Regulations a little later. Plus our comments on these Rules. I have a feeling that you might be able to find the errors there as well.

“the battle rages on” - Deep Purple

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“No new tale to tell” - Love and Rockets

11. September 2009 by admin.

Well, I guess it is a new tale, it just sounds similar to the older tales. It is a tale of desperation, betrayal, procrastination, and parsimony.

The background, we have until December to get an appreciable amount of the house completed. Our house is located in a Land Conservation region and flood plain. Due to an existing structure, we are able to rebuild our house, just so long as we get it done by December. After December, if we don’t have enough done on the house, construction stops. We then will own a piece of land that cannot be built on and no one will purchase.

What does this do for us? Well, we walk away from that parcel and let Bank of America foreclose. They can own a large block of concrete.

We absolutely love living in Alplaus. We love living on the river. We have a great piece of land. This is where I have wanted to live my whole life. If this is true, why am I saying such horrible things? Funny you should ask.

We are stuck in a vicious circle. The builder will not work anymore until they get some more money. The mortgage holder, Bank of America, will not release any more money until more work is done. If these were the only two players in the scenario, I would have no hope. But thankfully, our insurance provider, Preferred Mutual, is involved. They have been helpful to the point of encumbrance. I just don’t know how I could practice patience and inner serenity without the help of Preferred Mutual.

They are still processing our contents claim. If you may recall fair reader, back around May 5, we submitted our contents list. It took about 4 hours per night every night from January to April to create a list of almost everything we own. That was gathering photos from backups, recalling things from memory and getting all electronic receipts we could track down. Then we typed up the list and gathered the prices for the objects. We didn’t start until late in January, for argument’s sakes lets count the whole month anyway. So, four full months to type a list. It is now September. Oh, wait I forgot, it took Preferred Mutual over fifteen days to figure out they are a little Excel challenged and could not print the list out properly. So, May 23, 2009, we printed out the list, hand signed all 52 pages, and then submitted it. Now, it is September. June, July, August, September. How long does it take to read a list?

52 Pages of content. May 23 to September 10 is 109 days. That comes to 2.1 pages per day. The last 5 pages were blank, I assume they are pretty easy to check. Given the current competency of this company, the blank pages might need a half day a piece as well. So, we will go with 2 pages per day.

How does this all fit into the house? We plan to use two-thirds of our contents claim to pay for our house. We need to do this for a number of reasons.

1. We were under insured by over $40,000. This is based on the lowest estimate done by Preferred Mutual. Although, they tried really hard to make it lower.

2. We live in a flood plain and need to get the house high in the air above the big water. The code upgrade funds help. As helpful as ever, Preferred Mutual is holding this money until we get farther into the process.

3. We are building as environmentally responsible as possible. This makes the house cost go up a smidgen.

Where do we stand? Bank of America does not have all the money to rebuild the house. They have questioned this repeatedly. I have given them documentation explaining that they have not received all the money. They want me to come up with money out of pocket. OK, I will, just let me get it from my bank account. Oh, right I can’t because Preferred Mutual has not yet given me the contents money. Since, I will be getting more money, Bank of America might consider paying more out to the builder, if the structure is halfway done. The building won’t be halfway done until the builder has money to buy the materials. The initial deposit was used up for demolition and concrete for the foundation walls. This whole thing is outrageous.

What have we done? We have a public adjuster. They are trying to help. We have opened a complaint to the New York State Insurance Board. This was done in March. They have been useless. Christine spoke to someone last week that at least pointed us in the direction of where to find the NYS Regulations. Preferred Mutual has broken a number of them. Just today, Christine left a message with Hugh Farley our New York State Senator. Hopefully he can put some teeth into the limp mouthed Insurance Board. We have two more courses of action, a lawyer and the news. News channel Nine did a small story on us back when some good friends put together a benefit for us. This can be the follow up piece.

Where do we go from here? No where. We either get some money from somewhere and continue the house or we don’t get money and Bank of America gets a big concrete wall. Rather grim but that is all we’ve got.

Oh, I could start a Facebook group, Preferred Mutual isn’t a big help on my insurance claim.

Did I mention we totaled our minivan?

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First Day of School 2009

10. September 2009 by admin.

Today was the first day of school. Fiona had her Rose Ceremony today. We tried to escort her to the bridge but she just took off. So we waved as she crossed over, she never looked back. As another friend put it, she “strode” over the bridge like she owned the school. It was great to see her so ready. I never really doubted it. It was just really powerful to see her cross the bridge and join the school community.

Rory started today as well. She is now a big Third grader. She has been offering pearls of wisdom to Fiona over the last few weeks. Fiona was nervous and Rory really took on the Big sister role. I am so proud of her. This year is going to be Big.

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What progress have we wrought?

21. August 2009 by admin.

The house has been completely knocked down. We have uploaded some videos to YouTube. Check them out at http://www.youtube.com/drtw2w

There are photos on our site http://www.taylorx.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=5820

The knock down took a lot longer than the two days that the Demo team said it would. I actually took about two weeks to get everything out of there. Our builder, that hired this other company to do the demo, was a little miffed by the broken promises and the missed time line.

July 20, 2009

I woke the girls early. Let me rephrase that, I carried them asleep to the car to get to Alplaus by 7:30am. Rory woke in the car while I was getting her sisters. Trinity woke as I was putting her in the car. Fiona woke as I was getting her out of bed. They were all groggy and grumpy. We got to the house around 7:45. Why get there so early? The demo team was supposed to arrive then.

I spoke to Josh, site manager, around 8am to inquire what was going on. He had called earlier to ask where the team was and they were loading the machine.

Long story shortened.

9am Josh calls: Oh yeah, they had to drive 40 minutes south of Albany to get the machine. Be there around noon or after.

9:30 The girls go to stay with my parents up at the lake.

A little after Noon Josh calls: Oh yeah, he is loading up right now.

3:00 Driver arrives with machine on truck.

3:15 Takes machine off truck.

3:20 Says “See you tomorrow.”

3:21 Our jaws hit the ground.

3:22 Flabbergasted looks and vapor lock continue

3:23 We ask “When tomorrow” He answers “Fairly early” “What does fairly early mean?” “Around 8”

July 21, 2009

I get there around 8. My version of around 8 was 7:55am.

Josh gets there around 8:15, while also suffering car problems. I still call that around 8.

The demo guy arrives at his version of around 8, 9:15

Shortly thereafter the destruction begins as chronicled by the videos and pictures.

We owned a pile of rubble for the next week and a half. The septic system and a surprise well (didn’t even know it was there) were left in place for the next few days until Josh was able to convince them that removing these things are also part of tearing down and removing of all remnants of the old house.

Once the demo team took care of these last little bits and removed the equipment the hole for the footings and frost wall was dug out.

August 12, 2009

The footings were poured.

August 13, 2009

The frost wall was poured

Now we are waiting on the Building Inspector of Glenville to come look at the footings. He should be there today, August 21. Tomorrow the mortgage holder inspector needs to come by and look at the footings. Once these inspections are done, we get to back fill tamp it down and have the garage walls poured.

Once this is done, the build team can totally rock the house!

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