Getting screwed by Liberty Mutual insurance after flood

[Edita D.]

Hey there!

All our policies (personal residence, auto and our rentals) are with Liberty Mutual.

We filed a water damage claim at our residence after the flood in our 2 bedroom 1250 sq ft house 1.5 weeks ago, and it's been awful ever since. Our insurance adjuster is completely unresponsive to direct questions, and considers our residence habitable when it is not. When confronted to make a comment on habitability when I bring up all the items that make the hosue inhabitable, she avoids answering.

I chose Liberty Mutual becuase it was very well rated on A.M. Best and other sites rating insurance companies, NOT because it was the cheapest. I am so frustrated with all the time it's taking me to deal with them chanigng their minds, referring and deferring me, and dealing with their vendors who don't deliver on time. The adjuster lies to us over the phone, but we have no proof of it, so yesterday we asked that all communication be via email.

Did anybody have a similar experience with Liberty Mutual? How do you go about negotiations so that both parties walk away satisfied? 

[Chris Mason]

Originally posted by @Dave Rav:

@Edita D.

Contact a public adjuster. They fight the insurance company for you (for a fee of course).

Exactly what I was going to suggest. It's not personal, but the person who works for Liberty Mutual... works for Liberty Mutual. They have a vested interest in writing the smallest check possible.

A public adjuster gets a cut of the action when the insurance carrier writes a check, so they have an incentive to get you the biggest check possible. 

(I'm sure no actual public adjuster would put it as bluntly as that...)

Someone explained it to me this way. You, acting in good faith like a normal reasonable person, tell the insurance company's adjuster you lost a toaster. They, doing only what is required by law, find the cheapest toaster on the entire internet, and send you a check for that much. The one they find toasts one piece of bread and has no adjustment settings. The reviews say the bread that comes out smells funny. You get a $9 check.

A public adjuster working on your behalf documents that you lost a 4 slice toaster with a setting to toast from frozen and a dial to adjust the power and it's self cleaning and it has a usb port and bla bla bla... the adjuster knows all the little things. You get a $45 check. Multiply that by an entire household. And there are entire other regimes of stuff to include on a claim, not just appliance features.