Carl Borsani - Beavercreek, OH

You Are Not IN Good Hands With Allstate
December 08, 2008

Sept 14, 2008: Hurricane blew through Ohio. I live in Beavercreek which is just east of Dayton Ohio. My house is two story with brick on the lower and aluminum siding on the upper half. The wind blew off half the siding on one side of my house. The siding is 20 years old and has faded a bit. Called several contractors and upon several visits they all had the same opinions. They all noticed roof damage due to the storm. I did not see it until they pointed it out. There were no missing shingles but many had blown loose and were not sticking anymore. They all also said that no matter what any siding they put in place of the old siding would not ever match. I have seen this time and time again and refuse to compromise my property value by accepting a patch job that will stand out like a sore thumb.

I submitted a quote for a new roof and new siding for the entire upper portion of my house. After wading through 4 adjusters to try to get this rolling a field adjuster finally came out. The field adjuster told me that while the roof may have loose shingles that it is not damaged in their opinion. They also tried steering me towards a website called sidingmatch.com to find a close match. I refused to pay the money to do this so he cut a sample of siding to have the report created by. He told me that a close match in design and color is acceptable. He also said that if they could not come close to the color that they would include money for painting. I contacted a professional painting company in town and they told me that no matter what they would never be able to match the color of my house even with custom matching the paint and that they would only guarantee the paint for a period of 2 years. My biggest problem here is that my siding was maintenance free prior to the storm and they want to leave me with siding that I have to paint over the years to keep looking decent. This is definitely not putting my house back the way it was before the storm.

Well, I had yet another claims adjuster come out last Sat and he said that the siding match report must have gotten lost. It has been 5 weeks since it was submitted and it should take less than a week. He took another sample of siding to have another report created. He told me that allstate was not necessarily concerned with the value of my property after the repairs were completed. Only that the repairs were completed under the rules in the policy. I threw the details of the policy on the kitchen table and asked him to give me his definition of the policy which states - In the event of a covered loss, we have the option to: a. repair, rebuild or replace all or any part of the damaged, destroyed or stolen property with property of like kind and quality within a reasonable time... My aluminum siding has a baked on factory finish yet they want to replace it with siding that has been hand painted. This makes the siding not of like kind and quality as far as I am concerned.

My realtor who has been in the business for almost 20 years informed me that my house value would be compromised by a “patch job” type of repair. If I decided to sell the house in the next few years I would have to disclose the repairs and the potential buyer would be made privy to the claim and what was done to patch up the home. They would likely decide not to purchase or would ask me to deduct the cost of a new roof and siding from the asking price of the home. Who loses here is me the homeowner. Not Allstate. It is now December 8th and I am still waiting on Allstate to get a siding report. To date they have paid me $4,600 towards a $27,000 repair estimate.

To date I have not gotten a breakdown as to what exactly the $4,600 is suppose to cover. They said something about putting in for a roofer to tar down any loose shingles found. My contractor said that this is not a warranted repair and doing a repair like this is at my own risk. After the storm I had three spots show up on 3 ceilings in my house. The first adjuster to come out was informed of the ceiling spots but chose to ignore them. Things I have done include contacting several executives in Allstate via email and actually had some dialogue going but they decided that they also were not concerned with the value of my property or leaving me with a maintenance exterior rather than a maintenance free exterior. Trying to get my agent to stand behind me. They are when I talk to them but they are doing nothing to help me resolve this. I am sure I am leaving a few details out but that is the gist of it.

MY POINT IS THEY ARE CORRUPT AND DOING PEOPLE WRONG.

If anyone has insurance with these people please cancel and help spread the word about their wrong doings. The only way to fight large companies is with the lose of accounts and money.

"There is no incentive for insurance companies to do what is right, such as live up to the promises made in their policies. Tort reformers fueled by insurance money think big business and the insurance industry need to be protected against "runaway juries." It's the other way around. Big business and the insurance industry have always been able to take care of themselves. The little people need protection from them. This country was founded on the common law right of the little guy to get into court with his hired gun to fight the oppressor, be it big government or big business. Take that away and we have nothing left. Look around. It's being whittled away, bit by bit, caps on damages here, restrictions on jury trials there. It won't end until we recognize the enemy and join together to take a stand against them. It will take the little people to do this together".

Louis G. Fazzi, Esq. Attorney & Counselor At Law