If your house was damaged or completely swallowed by a sinkhole, once again you risk having your claim unfairly denied.
Did you know that West Palm Beach is considered a very high risk area for hurricanes? In the past 90 years there have been 83 recorded hurricanes in the area. If you’re thinking about 2005, when Katrina and Tammy hit Florida only two months apart, those weren’t even close to the devastation brought by a hurricane in 1933, a time when hurricanes did not get cute names.
The West Palm Beach area is also at high risk for tornadoes and sinkholes. Anyone living here needs to have a good home insurance policy to cover the considerable damages bad weather can cause to their property. What if you do have home insurance, but the company denies your claim? That’s a nightmare scenario you’d never thought possible. And yet, the insurance adjuster just told you that you are mistaken and your policy doesn’t cover the kind of damage you’ve sustained.
It is indeed a desperate situation and your only hope is to find skilled West Palm Beach insurance lawyers to solve your problem. As a rule, most of these situations can be solved as they’re usually based on lies and deceit. You shouldn’t be surprised. Insurance companies are for-profit businesses and to make the huge profits they make they naturally try to take advantage of you and pay as little as possible in damages. Or nothing at all.
Let’s have a look at some of the tricks they use.
For instance, when you make a claim for hurricane damages, they might argue that your house and everything in it were destroyed by flooding, not by the windstorm. And your insurance doesn’t cover flooding. You can tell them that it was the wind that tore your roof and broke the windows allowing the water to come crashing in until you’re blue in the face. By the way, don’t be surprised if they alter your policy unilaterally soon after you file a complaint. Or right before a major storm is announced and they know it’s gonna cost them millions in damages. Such practices are against the law, and they constitute bad faith. Experienced insurance denial lawyers can sue them under the Unfair Insurance Trade Practices Act.
If your house was damaged or completely swallowed by a sinkhole, once again you risk having your claim unfairly denied. There have been many cases where homeowners saw their claim denied because, according to the adjusters, they did not have specific sinkhole insurance. This is simply not true. Until 2007, yes, you were supposed to get additional sinkhole coverage, but the law was changed. Basic home insurance now covers sinkhole damage even if the insurance company will tell you otherwise.
Once you get some skilled lawyers working on the case, they will have a look at the reasons the company invoked to deny your claim and tear them apart. When they’re caught red-handed, insurers back off rapidly. They don’t want to have their tactics exposed during a public trial and they sure don’t want to pay punitive damages. Your lawyer will be able to negotiate a reasonable settlement out of court and you’ll finally get the money you need to fix your house.
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