Insurance Agents vs. Flood Victims

flood june 4 2008 030 Boy what a couple of week this has been.  It was one week ago today that we woke to 3 feet of water in our basement that increased in depth throughout the day.

Those close to me have kept my spirits high by allowing me to joke about the possibility of hidden cameras and the fact that I must be getting Punk’d.  There’s no way this much crap could happen to one person or one family and there’s really no way a person could make this stuff up.

Knowing the situation a bit further south of my area, I took it upon myself to get as much done as possible to save my agent a great deal of legwork.  We took pictures and immediately kicked into preventative mode to keep from having the situation get any worse.

After enduring some of the most stupid excuses I’ve ever spewed from one mouth, I can’t urge people enough to check your policies.  I explained to my agent that there was water everywhere.  The flooding was terrible and we were experiencing structural damage.  He informed me that I had a special clause in my policy that would pay out for sump pump backup and that was it.

I asked him to please explain why he hadn’t made it perfectly clear to me that “flood coverage” as such didn’t really mean flood - because in my book all that water we had looked a lot like a flood.  He went on to say that it didn’t qualify as one.

WTF qualifies as a flood?

I further explained to him that I find it hard to believe anyone could be proud of their job as an insurance agent when they had to be as deceptive as they are.  He told me the government restricts them on what they can say and how they sell their coverage - again, can I get a Dubya - Tee - Eff?  And if that wasn’t enough - this MoRon was dumb enough to respond to my wish of drying up, cleaning up and selling with a little story of his own where he had battled termites several times.  He said he got rid of them that last time and put the house on the market.

I have to wonder if the new buyers were informed about the tendency?

Then, with my blood already boiling - I went on to explain to him that I’d been in contact with my local FEMA Office and they were coming out to assess my personal situation and see what they could do.  He laughed!  Yes, HE Laughed.

He told me FEMA told them what they were restricted to and what they could cover so they sure as heck weren’t going to see my situation as a qualifying disaster.

I thanked him very much for his time and told him “You’re doing a heck of a job Brownie.”  Albeit in my case, it’s not FEMA that seems so ill prepared, it’s the local agents who seem to be a bunch of lazy asses who are trying to cushion their bonus for minimal payout during a time when state of emergencies have been listed in 41 counties.

I’m sure there are plenty more people in and around the Indiana flooding who are having similar tales - I’d love to hear them.  Do you have stories and pictures to share?  I’d be happy to share them here with my readers.

    June 12, 2008 | Filed Under Indiana, Random Rants 

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    One Response to “Insurance Agents vs. Flood Victims”

    1. Forget Texas - Don’t Mess With Indiana : Not Before Coffee on June 12th, 2008 11:33 pm

      […] did forget to mention one little detail in my rant earlier - while speaking with my insurance agent, I did stress to him that I’d been in touch with […]

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