This all started with a puddle on the floor. Since then, my husband and I have been working our way through the claims process with our homeowners insurance company. Recently, they sent us three letters in the mail. I’ve blogged about two of them. Here is what the third letter was about.
It is nice to have homeowners insurance because life can be unexpected. One day, I noticed a puddle on the floor where water had seeped in from the rain. My husband and I filed a claim about it with our homeowners insurance company.
I’ve been blogging my way through the entire claims process. Recently, we got three letters from the insurance company. I’ve already gone over the first two, so, here is what the third one said. This one was long enough to require two whole pages of text. It seems that in California, the insurer is required to send information about the Fair Claims Settlement Practice Regulations, by mail, to policyholders who make a claim on their homeowners insurance.
The entire second page lists off Insurance Code 790.03. What is that? The first line explains it pretty well: “The following are hereby defined as unfair methods of Competition and unfair deceptive acts or practices in the business of insurance”.
I’m not going to list out everything that this Insurance Code gives details about. Instead, I will pick out a few that sounded the most interesting to me. Most of the things on this list fall under (h) which reads “Knowingly committing or performing with such frequency as to indicate a general business practice any of the following unfair claims settlement practices:”.
Number 7 reads: “Attempting to settle a claim by an insured for less than the amount to which a reasonable man would have believed he was entitled to by reference to written or printed advertising material accompanying or made part of an application”.
Number 14 reads: “Directly advising a claimant not to obtain the services of an attorney.” This could, perhaps, relate to number 10, which reads: “Making known to insureds or claimants a practice of the insurer of appealing from arbitration awards in favor of insureds or claimants for the purpose of compelling then to accept settlements or compromises less than the amount awarded in arbitration”.
Or, it might relate to the wording in number 8. That one reads: “Attempting to settle claims on the basis of an application which was altered without notice to, or knowledge or consent of, the insured, his or her representative, agent, or broker”.