Two weeks ago I filed an insurance claim with Allstate.
My 3 season porch had leakage coming from the roof. Inside my porch I have new carpet which was put in last spring. I also have knotty pine going throughout my porch including all of my ceiling. My porch is about 20x18.
I filed a claim with my insurance agency which also handles my car insurance. Allstate was slow to answer my claim. They sent a claims examiner to my house 2 weeks after my initial claim. Their reasoning was they were "busy". In the meantime my roof continued to leak inside my 5 year old porch addition and the brand new carpet was getting ruined by this.
The week before the examiner showed up, I had a construction company come to my house to tell me why I was having leakage. I was told that one of the vents on top of the porch roof was gone and rain was coming in through the vent. They said I needed a new vent and some new shingles to surround the area of the vent. They put a new vent on and shingles that I had extra in my garage. They said this should stop the leakage problem. They also stated the vent was probably blown off from wind or other weather conditions.
When the examiner showed the next week, he was a fast talking Allstate company man who talked so fast he sounded like he had 2 pots of coffee in him. I had to keep asking him to repeat himself which he did but my questions never got answered.
The Allstate examiner claimed the vent was gone because of a maintenance issue and that the leakage had been coming through for a long time because some of the nails in the ceiling were darker then most of the other ones. I told him nobody has gone on my roof to destroy the vent and that weather conditions caused the problem.
The examiner said I do not agree with you and on behalf of Allstate the examiner denied my claim. He said if I wanted to fight the company it would cost me $500.00 for arbitration with them and I would probably lose anyway.
I asked him to leave because I had heard enough of his garbage.
I called my insurance agent and complained and he called one of the chiefs of the claims examiners department, an office person who would talk with me about the situation.
We talked together today and the office examiner claimed Allstate will not pay for something the homeowner made happen. I asked him what he meant by that and he claimed the vent came off the house because of improper maintenance by the homeowner and that wind or any other weather condition couldn't have caused the vent to come off. He also claimed the leakage was probably there for over a long period of time even though I told him I saw the roof leak only once and would have notice the leak because our family uses the porch immensely.
The office examiner ended our conversation with "Our office does not agree with you and you don't agree with our office so we will never reach a conclusion to this issue.
He then abruptly hung up on me.
What kind of an insurance agency is this that won't take care of their high premium paying customers when they have a catastrophe happen to their dwelling. Why even have house insurance and pay these high premiums when the company you are insured with doesn't honor their contract or what they are suppose to.
I am writing this in my blog so other people will see this and think twice about signing up with Allstate insurance. Allstate insurance will not stand up for you or anyone else. They will rob you blind and when you really need legitimate assistance with your home, the company will ignore the situation and say the problem was caused by the homeowner.
Sure....I was really walking on top of my roof and monkeying around with the air vent. Made it break off and the rest is history.
Dream on Allstate. I've got news for you. I would never even go on top of my roof. I have a multi level dwelling and a steep roof and would never go on the roof to walk around.
This was a weather accident that was reported to your company in good faith. This is just another dissatisfied customer who will tell her story to whoever will listen and will start off with the story here.
Are you happy now Allstate?!
