Thomas D. Horne, FF EMT wrote:
Robert Allison wrote:

Thomas D. Horne, FF EMT wrote:

Charles Spitzer wrote:

snip

I gave a deposition in such a case were the homeowner was the one
that did the work. I was the layout man on the second due engine for
his basement fire and it was rockin. We made a good stop but his
insurance carrier walked away from the loss because it was directly
caused by his incompetent electrical work.



Sure. I have done extensive insurance work with several major
companies (State Farm, Allstate, Providence, etc.) where the
homeowner actually caused the damage and the insurance paid (or I
would not have been there.) There is no insurance clause against
stupidity.

I have heard these tales often and I know that they are bull. I have
asked several of the adjusters about this and they all say the same
thing; If we cannot prove that it was done to intentionally cause
damage, then we have to pay. One is stupidity and one is insurance
fraud.


How pleasant to be called a liar. So you have access to every refused
claim from every insurance carrier in the US both stock and mutual and
you know for a fact that no claim is ever declined for reason of the
insureds unlawful act being the cause of the loss. It must be wonderful
to have so much information at your command.

And it must be incredibly frustrating to need every bit of
information available on any given subject to be able to come
to an informed conclusion.

I was careful not to call the previous poster a liar. He may
just be mistaken, he may have the details wrong, etc. I can
only tell you what my 22 years of dealing directly with
insurance claim losses and adjusters on a daily basis has told
me. Now if you want to take the evidence of one anecdote and
use that to base your conclusions on, fine with me. That
would, however, violate your apparent need to have access to
the data for every single claim on hand in order to come to a
conclusion.

When you get all that data, and spend all the time necessary
to parse the info, I would be curious to know what percentage
of homeowner claims are denied for this reason. I know it
probably runs between .1 and .3 percent, but I would be
curious to know the exact percentage.

As for me, I can continue to operate knowing what little I
know, based on my experience. If you are going to try to
convince me that homeowners need to fear making a mistake lest
their insurance claims be denied, then you are going to have
to come up with a little more than one anecdote, because I
know that that is bull.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX