If Federated National (also known as FedNat) denied your property claim or is otherwise treating you unfairly, you have options. You may want a lawyer to help you get the situation resolved. The property damage lawyers at the Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine might be able to help with your denied FedNat property claim.
We go the extra mile for our clients. Call us today at 1-800-747-3733 for a free consultation.
Unfair Handling of Property Damage Claims
Sometimes insurance companies respond promptly and pay your claim right away for the full amount of your losses. At other times, however, an insurer might not act in good faith when handling your property claim. In these situations, the actions of the insurance company typically fall into one of these three categories:
Unreasonable Delays
You submit your insurance claim after an event like a hurricane or burst pipe. The insurer leaves you hanging without a response to your claim. You call and email the insurer. The adjuster does not take your calls or respond to your emails. Finally, you learn that the insurer wants to have more information from you. You send in the requested data, and again, nothing happens. By now, weeks or months have gone by since you sent in your original application.
Just when you think that the process is nearing the end, the insurance company stalls again. The insurer might say that it needs to send a specialized appraiser or adjuster to look at the damage to your property. Another common excuse is that the insurer received hundreds or thousands of claims at one time, so an adjuster tells you to be patient while they work through all the claims.
Sometimes these delays are simple disorganization with the insurance company or a failure to adequately plan for foreseeable events that can cause many claims at one time. Another reason that insurers delay payments of claims is that the company does not have the money to pay all the claims at once, so it strings people along, paying the claims it can afford and making the others wait.
Refuses to Pay the Full Amount of Your Claim
Instead of refusing your claim outright, the insurance company might send you a check, but not enough to cover all the damage. The insurer might claim that either you or the adjuster omitted something from the claim form. If losses are not on the claim form, the insurance company will not pay for them. Make sure that you do not agree to accept the partial payment as full payment for your losses.
You can file a supplemental claim with the information about the damage that did not get included on the original application. If the error was on the part of the insurer’s adjuster, you can submit your evidence that shows the damage was present and the adjuster should have noted the items on the report.
If the insurance company refuses to resolve the situation to your satisfaction, a property claim lawyer can work directly with the insurer on your behalf.
Denies Your Claim Entirely and Will Not Pay You Any Compensation
The insurer might say that your losses were from an event that your policy does not cover. For example, the company might say that your property sustained flood damage, not direct storm damage, and your policy does not pay for flood damage. Sometimes this result is correct, but you should have someone who understands insurance policies read your document. If the insurer is wrong, a property claim lawyer can help you go after the policy proceeds you deserve.
Insurance companies sometimes deny claims on procedural grounds, rather than on the merits of the claim. In other words, you have a loss that your policy should cover, but the insurer says that you used the wrong claim form, did not submit to an inspection, did not provide timely notification of the damage, or other technical reasons that violate the Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights. In these circumstances, you might want a lawyer to work through these issues and try to get you the insurance proceeds for your loss.
Lawsuit for Bad Faith Refusal to Pay a Claim
If an insurer does not act in good faith when handling a claim for payment under an insurance policy, Florida law lets you file a lawsuit. We will have to give written notice to the insurance company and the state department of insurance before filing the lawsuit. If FedNat did not act fairly and honestly toward you, the court can award you damages and make FedNat pay your court costs and reasonable attorney fees.
Get Legal Help with Your Denied FedNat Property Damage Claim
We can try to resolve your denied FedNat property claim without a lawsuit first, but in some cases, the best way to get your claim paid is to go to court. We investigate our clients’ situations and collect the evidence to prove your right to get paid. Once we have the proof we need, we can send a demand letter to the insurer for payment of your denied FedNat property claim.
The proof can be things like repair estimates from contractors, bids for replacing ruined items, purchase records, receipts, invoices, appraisals, photographs, and videos. We might use other types of evidence as well, depending on the facts of your case.
We can negotiate directly with the insurance company on your behalf so that you do not have to deal with them. We can take that unpleasant task off your hands.
Call the Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine today for a free consultation at 1-800-747-3733.
We Can Help.
