Fla. Official Urges Patience in Filing Insurance Claims

After preparing for recent hurricanes, then living through them, the last thing shell-shocked Osceola County, Fla. residents want is difficulty in filing claims with insurance or government agencies. Some homeowners are finding such help hard to obtain, while others say it came too fast.

While some homeowners are frustrated that they have not yet received checks from their insurance companies for Hurricane Charley, which hit Aug. 13, at least one Kissimmee homeowner said she wasn’t ready when the Federal Emergency Management Agency knocked on her door.

Insurance agents say they are proceeding as fast as possible. It hasn’t been easy. Including Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan, more than one million claims have been filed by Florida policy holders this year, compared to 700,000 for Hurricane Andrew in 1992, according to the Hurricane Insurance Information Center.
The total for this year is likely to increase to 1.25 million claims after figures for Jeanne are included.

While some homeowners feel they are being treated well by their insurance agencies, others say they are being let down.

Rick Wood, who lives on Sylvan Court near Poinciana, in Kissimmee, patched his roof “for the third or fourth time” Monday. Wood was upset that he did not receive a check from his insurance agency to pay for Charley damage to his roof until Wednesday.

Wood’s home sustained damage from the first two hurricanes, and now Jeanne as well. He filed his third claim before he received the check for the first one.

“I’m very frustrated, very upset at the insurance company,” Wood said. “I’m ready to take whatever measures I need to get some satisfaction.”

Sam Lupfer, division president of the Lupfer-Frakes Insurance Agency in Kissimmee, which did not handle Wood’s claim, said insurance agents are making varying degrees of contact with customers right now. Anyone who hasn’t received a response needs to press his agent, he said. But there is a general need for patience, not just with insurance agents and adjusters.

“There are probably more claims adjusters in Florida than there are roofers today,” Lupfer said. “Undoubtedly there are some people who have had delayed contacts by the adjusters, but I feel the biggest frustration is finding people to do the work.

“I know of a number of people who have money in their hands and no roofer.”

Not all complaints stem from inaction. Sandra Bronson lives on Vintage Street in Kissimmee. She doesn’t have any insurance on her mobile home, which was condemned by the county, so she contacted FEMA.

Bronson said she didn’t have any problem “getting FEMA’s attention” but a representative for the agency came out right away. A single mom, she had been hoping for more time to gather paperwork, such as the title to her home, and to ask for time off from her job at a local childcare center.

“It’s not as simple as people think,” she said of the FEMA registration process. “You think you have all your affairs in order and (then) they need this, they need that.”

After Bronson took a day off, she said the agent met with her for 10 minutes and said he would have to come back later.

He said, “‘You’ll need this and you’ll need that,’ Of course. That’s why I needed the time,” she said. “I’m not in a rush, and they are wanting to rush.”

FEMA has processed 611,249 registrations for Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.

“Believe it or not, the average turnaround on all four of the disasters to date is 4.12 days, so she was really contacted early,” FEMA spokesman Kim Pease said of Bronson.

“This is an unprecedented disaster, not only for FEMA but for the state of Florida,” Pease said. “In the past six weeks, we’ve had four presidentially-declared disasters. At times the 1-800 registration line (800-621-FEMA) has been really clogged with callers and we’re urging people to be as patient as they can. “We’re trying as hard as we can to meet the needs of the victims.”

Topics Florida Catastrophe Agencies Claims Hurricane Homeowners