Complaints are flying against insurance companies following Hurricane Ida. Doug Quinn, executive director of the American Policyholder Association, attended a legislative hearing Wednesday.
“People are getting what they call slow-pay and no-pay on their claims, that the insurance carriers are dragging out the claims process,” said Quinn.
He tells LRN.com there’s also been the problem of multiple adjusters investigating damage to a single property which further complicates and slows, or derails, the payment of legitimate claims. Several major insurers say they have closed the majority of their claims, but that doesn’t confirm just how much money was paid out.
Quinn says one of the more significant problems with getting damage claims settled is when multiple adjusters show up to investigate.
“There are people who have had three, four, five, six different adjusters, we call it adjuster roulette, other people will call it churning which breaks the continuity of service and their ability to get a good claim.”
The insurance industry says there are not enough local adjusters after a major storm passes through and so they need to bring in out-of-state adjusters.
Quinn believes Louisiana is doing a good job in its oversight of the insurance industry, but there is something missing from the mix.
“There needs to be a task force to crack down on insurance carrier side fraud to go after the engineering firms that are willing to fake reports to help please the insurance carriers,” said Quinn.
Wednesday’s hearing was held before the Joint House and Senate Insurance Committee.
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