babsonnexus t1_j3wprr4 wrote on January 11, 2023 at 4:22 PM

Not trying to be confrontational, but I'm wondering why your insurance company is not handling this? They should have paid for everything (less deductible) and been working with the city to get themselves made whole; it is what you pay them for!

PetalPerfection OP t1_j3wvk2m wrote on January 11, 2023 at 4:58 PM

We agree but State Farm did not see it that way and this may have to do with the size of the claim (over $30k). From the insurance companies POV this is the city’s fault, and therefore the city must be the ones to pay out to us. Insurance gave us $5k, which is what we had for sewage coverage. That $5k did not even cover the hazard cleaning that was required, we still owe another $3k to that company. (Cleaning company has been amazing btw, can’t say enough good things about Clean Works who have been also calling the city lawyer on our behalf)

This is just one of many frustrating things that has occurred as part of this incident.

babsonnexus t1_j3wztrv wrote on January 11, 2023 at 5:24 PM

I'm sorry, I know you were trying to be a nice, reasonable, and logical person, but almost everyone else was out to screw you over and did so (it is their job to protect their company's interests, not yours). You never should have accepted or signed anything from the insurance company if that was the way they were acting and instead needed to get a lawyer involved. It might be too late because of the actions you have taken, but you should get a free consultation and see if one can do something for you. Even a lawyer just calling the City one time might make the check show up magically tomorrow, so the $300 would be worth it.

Just as an FYI, the amount is not the issue. I dealt with a $100K claim at an unoccupied property I was involved with and never touched the money myself; everything went between the insurance company and the contractors. I was lucky enough in this case that the contractors did all the battling with the insurance company so I did not have to get a lawyer involved myself. A lot of contractors don't like doing this, so YMMV.

PetalPerfection OP t1_j3xv7v5 wrote on January 11, 2023 at 8:34 PM

I appreciate the advice but we did get a lawyer involved at the start. Dealing with the city is not at all the same with dealing contractors.

First off, most lawyers didn’t want to touch this issue with a 10ft pole because it’s near impossible to challenge a city on these matters. We had to call the Rhode Island bar association to even get someone to talk to us about what our rights were and what we can do. If the city had refused to take responsibility that would have been different but they admitted responsibility from Day 1.

Secondly, we were basically told that the insurance company is under no obligation to chase the city on our behalf. Our policy allowed for $5k in sewer damages, and as noted, we were lucky we even got that. They denied us twice. Could we have kept fighting them? Maybe, but that would have slowed down this process even more. No one wants to deal with city claims because cities are slow to pay out.

And for the record, if we don’t get an answer from the city lawyer soon we will go the legal route again but that means losing money again and we don’t get to recoup those fees.

PetalPerfection OP t1_j3wx8uj wrote on January 11, 2023 at 5:08 PM

Oh, and fwiw, insurance companies not paying out for city damages is apparently a thing. We were told by our cleaning company, AND by various contractors that we spoke with for estimates that insurance companies almost always deny claims having to do with damage caused by the city. Apparently we were lucky to even get $5k. If anyone on here is an insurance claims specialist I’d love to know what that is about.