Hurricanes can be powerful, community-devastating storms.
Having your homeowners’ or business insurance policy may provide some peace of mind if the policy covers hurricane damage. But what if the insurance company denies your claim? You don’t want to be left with devastating damages and no help to rebuild.
You Bought the Insurance, Now Get What You Deserve
If you don’t feel your insurance company is helping, you may need a lawyer to help you get what you deserve. It’s easy for distraught hurricane victims to take the word of their insurance company and not question the funds they are proposing you deserve to rebuild. That may mean you walk away without enough money for repairs or nothing at all.
Underpay? No Way
Insurance businesses make money by taking in premium payments while paying out less in claims. When a hurricane hits, insurance companies are swamped with claims and may try to underpay or deny claims where they can. Don’t accept an underpayment or denial from your insurance company until you’ve had us review your claim!
Leverage Professional Experience
If your property is hurricane damaged and you are having trouble getting it covered, you may want to talk to an experienced hurricane insurance lawyer about legal actions available to you.
What Is Hurricane Insurance and What Does It Cover?
Hurricane coverage is included in most homeowners’ insurance policies and usually includes the following types of coverage:
Fence damage
Garage damage
Roof damage
Porch damage
Deck damage
Floor damage
Foundation damage
Major appliance damage
Interior property damage
Power line damage
Collapsed roof
Roof lifting
Water damage
Broken windows
Uprooted trees
Projectile damage
What to Do After a Hurricane to Help with Insurance Claims
DOCUMENT. Document all damages. Having a thorough photographic record is vital to prove losses when you file an insurance claim. Take pictures of outside your property, getting the entire home in each photo. Be sure to get a picture of all four sides and the roof if possible. Take pictures that show the yard. On the inside of your property take pictures of entire rooms and then individual possessions. Keep a written inventory of your damaged property.
FILE YOUR CLAIM RIGHT AWAY. Insurance companies expect you to act fast after a storm hits. The longer one waits, the more questions insurance companies will ask.
Bad Faith Hurricane Insurance
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there was an uptick in awareness of insurance bad faith after hurricanes. What is ‘Bad faith’? It happens when the company does not honor your fair claim. Thousands of hurricane insurance lawsuits have been filed by people whose insurance companies underpaid or denied their rightful claims.
Possible types of ‘bad faith’ claims:
- The insurance company says damage not entirely caused by the hurricane.
- They might say that some of the damage is not covered by your insurance policy.
- They may argue that the water damage is flood damage, which your policy doesn’t cover.
- The insurance company may delay the payments you are owed hoping the policyholder may take less money for desperately needed repairs.
How to Determine Bad Faith Insurance
Talk to an attorney if your insurance claims adjuster does any of the following:
- Offers undervalued estimates
- Requires a release of additional claims as a condition for insurance settlement
- Attempts to force you to settle under another insurance policy
- Tells you that you do not need an attorney to resolve your claim
Not every insurance claim delay or denial is bad faith. When a hurricane hits insurance companies get slammed with a lot of claims at once. Claims adjusters will arrive in affected areas and usually try to process claims quickly. However, insurance companies are in the business to make money, and insurance bad faith does happen after hurricanes. If you suspect that is the case, contact us for an attorney skilled in hurricane insurance litigation.
Wind vs. Flood
Many homeowners and business owners will be surprised to find that their hurricane insurance company might not pay for repairs when evidence of flooding exists. This is the harsh reality of a substantial number of hurricane claims. When an insurance company takes the position of denying a claim based on flood damage, it’s time to hire a lawyer. Most of these types of disputes require expert opinions from engineers experienced in the different types of damage caused by both wind and flood. Often these disputes require litigation, and we are here to assist in such cases.
Wind Claim vs. Flood Claim
After a Hurricane, property owners will oftentimes find themselves in the middle of a dispute between two different insurance companies. It is common for the Wind Insurance carrier to simply blame the entire loss on flood or “rising waters.” This is the Wind vs. Flood dispute. Typically, FEMA backed insurance policies through the National Flood Insurance Program, residences will be limited to $250,000 for structures and $100,000 for personal property. If the property is completely destroyed, obviously that presents a problem for the owner, who may have lost much more than Flood Insurance can cover.
This Wind vs. Flood dispute will be common in Ft. Myers, Naples, and surrounding areas due to Hurricane Ian and will require an experienced Hurricane Litigation Attorney to hold the insurance companies accountable. Insurance Companies make money collecting premiums, not paying claims. So, it is very common when rising waters can be blamed for an insurance company insuring against Hurricane Winds to blame the entire loss on the rising waters and simply deny the claim.
This happens in Hurricanes that have little to no flooding, like Hurricane Michael. Buildings in Mexico Beach, FL were completely blown away before the waters rose from the Gulf of Mexico. But even in the face of video evidence, insurance companies issuing multi-million dollar policies denied many, if not most, of the wind claims filed. Adjusters for the flood policies may have paid out some money, but the Wind Insurance carriers would often pay very little or even nothing to compensate the property owners for Wind damage.
Homeowners and business owners will be forced to sue their insurer for breach of the insurance contract, because that is what the policy is. It is a contract. It is common for the insurance company to simply refuse to pay the coverage of an insurance claim, especially if there is something else to blame, like a flood or a storm surge of water.
The Wind vs. Flood dispute has even been used by our clients to deny roof damage that was clearly not related to rising waters. In some cases, the Wind and Hurricane Insurer will hire an engineer who writes an “expert” opinion that blames damages on rising waters in spite of the complete lack of evidence of rising waters.
In many cases, lenders will not require flood insurance on properties. When there is zero flood insurance and the Wind Insurer blames the hurricane damage on rising waters the property owner has only one option. It becomes imperative to hire an experienced hurricane attorney. It becomes a fight, but hiring a team that has successfully fought that fight and won is the best defense against unscrupulous insurance tactics.
Call Bill Price today, and put the law on your side! We’ll fight for you!
