On Aug 15, 5:19 pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,

"Toller" wrote:

Your problem is that you are continuing to fight for the higher amount
eventhough you are not having it fixed. Never thought I would ever say
this, but I am on the insurance company's side here; you can't
simultaneously say the amount is inadequate, but you don't want to have
anything fixed anyhow.

Of course you can. Whether anyone has anything fixed or not is
largely irrelevant as to whether the payment is reasonable. The
purpose of insurance is to make someone whole. In this case, that
would be to pay a reasonable amount to cover the cost of the repairs,
whether she has it fixed or not. Suppose a car is totaled in an
accident? Should the person have to repair it to get the actual
value? Or suppose I have her damaged house and hire the most
expensive guy around, who charges $100 an hour and takes twice as long
to fix it? Should the insurance company pay for that, just cause
that's what it cost?

What should have been done was to get several estimates from
contractors to do the repair. Then look at the range of estimates
compared to what the insurance company is offering, and the terms of
what the policy says. If the offer is way off from an average price,
or better yet below the lowest price, then she has a legitimate beef.
She can show the quotes to the insurance company and if they still
won't budge, then small claims may be an option. Doubt the insurance
company is gonna get scared by a lawyer's letter, cause they know it
would cost so much to sue them that it's only a bluff.


Again that would depend on the contract. When I had my roof repaired
last summer, they held out money until the job was done, but that was to
give me an incentive to either get the work done or sign off on
something that I was not going to get it done. This was to make sure the
insurance company did not give me the money, me not do the work, and
then try for another full claim the next time it hailed, or at least
that was how it was explained.
However, if I wanted to release them from liability, then I could
get the whole thing right away. They owed it to me either way. At least
IIRC how it was explained.