Flooded with issues

Tom Weisenbach, Executive Director of the Indiana Motorsports Association, and his family moved into the home of their dreams. They thought they'd be celebrating. Instead it became a nightmare...

We put a majority of our belongings in the basement because we thought that would be the dry, temperature controlled area. A few days later, we received steady rain throughout the day, and our daughter found five inches of water in the basement. The sump pump pit was filled with trash (left by the builder), not allowing the pumps to pump the water out. The water got deeper and deeper until we finally got the pit lid off and cleaned out the trash. In addition to the sump pump issues, the landscaping company also had the water flowing towards our house and not AWAY from our house so rain water was flowing back in to the house once it had been pumped out.

Our insurance agent went to work for us right away! They paid the restoration company and cleaner’s invoices, then provided us the balance of our max claim against our homeowner’s policy. Several months went by after we requested reimbursement from our builder’s insurance company, and we were forced to get legal assistance. The builder's insurance company questioned the list of our lost items and the replacement cost. EIGHT months later we finally got an "offer" to close out the claim - about 15 cents on the dollar for our remaining lost items! After our attorney went back and forth with them, we finally agreed to their final settlement offer - 40 cents on the dollar!

If we would have had a complete listing and photographs of our personal belongings, then perhaps the insurance people would not have hassled us so much on our lost items. Every home owner and small business should invest in the services of Hartman Inventory to protect themselves from the issues and hassles we experienced.