I hate to write another article bashing insurance companies, but this has got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve seen in a while, and I just can’t help it. Besides, it is a good lesson in “Read the Fine Print”.
Please bear with me; I have to lay a little background. My Mother passed away in 1992. Until mid 2000, my Dad had been living in the house they bought in 1970. I had often felt he was a little lonesome, but not unhappy. We have a family friend, a very nice lady that we had all known for at least 25 years. She is a widow, and happened to visit in 2000, and her and Dad hit it off. They married in November 2000. The catch was, she lived in Salt Lake City. She and Mom were good friends, but she did not feel comfortable living in the house that Mom had lived in. Therefore, they decided to live in Salt Lake City.
I had purchased a house the previous year, so Dad offered to rent his house to my sister and family with the option to purchase it in a couple of years when their financial situation improved. The house is on 2 ½ acres and came with a tractor and a variety of attachments, one of them being a 60 inch rototiller.
Because Dad was no longer living in the house, the insurance company made him change his homeowners policy to something called an "owned rental" policy. It was supposed to provide a similar coverage to the property as a rental and not a primary residence. Yeah, right. Read on and learn the lesson.
Skip ahead to June 2002. Dad had a small utility trailer that was at the house. I needed to haul some stuff, so I called my sister and made arrangements to pick it up. When I got there, we hunted all over the place and could not find it. While we were looking, she asked if I knew anything about the tiller for the tractor. I didn’t, and she said that it had gone missing the previous week. They had filed a police report, but had not known about the trailer.
There’s a couple of things to know. This tiller was a mid ‘70s Mitsubishi product, high quality and not cheap. According to the manual it weighs 700 pounds. This is not something that 2 or 3 guys could pick up and toss in a truck. Nor is it something that someone is going to take in dead silence. My sister owns two huge dogs, both of which weigh over 150 pounds. If someone was there in the dead of night, those dogs would have aroused the neighborhood. It had to have been taken during the day when no one was home and the dogs were locked up! I can’t believe the balls of some people. And they got away with it! Replacement cost: $4200. To replace the trailer is an additional $600.
Naturally, my sister and her husband filed a claim against the insurance policy. They don’t hear anything for several weeks. Finally, they called to find out what was happening and they are told that the claim has been denied on the grounds that there was no indication of forced entrance to the property. Further, since the tiller was not in a locked building, they were not obligated to pay the claim. I have not seen my brother-in-law so livid in my life. He gave the adjuster this rhetorical question: "Suppose the tiller had been locked in the barn. If the thieves came and cut the padlock, stole the tiller, and took the cut lock with them, there would be 'no sign of forced entry'. So, would they pay there?" The adjuster said, "no, based on the grounds that there would be no sign of forced entry". Good grief! You pay your premium every month, thinking you are covered if something happens, and when it does, they have some technicality to keep from paying? And you wonder why I don’t like insurance companies.
I got involved on August 21, 2002. The summer is running out fast and I’ve been waiting for 2 months for this thing to get resolved. I want to get my yard done before the rain falls, and I need a big tiller. Since the stolen one is still not replaced, I have to rent one. I called my agent, Dan, and asked him to give me an address where I could send the bill for the rental. He asked if I was joking and I told him I was dead serious. I needed a tiller, I needed one now, and I could not wait any longer for the insurance company to fart around with this claim that was approaching 3 months of age. He promised to find out if they could do that and call me back.
I will say this: I have known Dan for 25 years, and he is a good man. Say what you want about the company as a whole (and I will), this guy keeps his word. Dan called me the next day and took the half hour to explain what the situation was and why the claim was denied. Ready? It turns out that this "owned rental" policy only covers what is in a locked building. If there is something on the property that is not locked up, it is just not covered, and that was the basis for denial. As far as the company was concerned, it was a closed issue and no further action would be taken. They just never bothered to tell anyone. I asked the same rhetorical question about someone taking the lock with them, and he figured that would probably constitute a denial.
Now, the thing that sucks about this (besides the denial) is the fact that nobody had any clue about this stupid limitation in this stupid policy. In fact, Dan figured that 99 percent of his clients did not know exactly what their policies actually said, allowed or covered. That’s sad. I have a pretty good idea what my policies do and don’t cover, but I have taken the time in the past to try and figure it out, and Dan has taken the time to help explain various aspects of insurance with me. Dan said he had never come across a situation quite like this with this high of a dollar amount involved.
Here’s where it gets even more stupid. The insurance company is still going to replace the tiller. How? Dad still owns the property, right? Turns out he can file a claim against his homeowner’s policy where he lives (and he has a homeowner’s policy for his place in Utah, same company) and it will extend to the owned rental property. Since the homeowner’s policy does not have that locked building exclusion, the tiller and trailer are covered and they can issue the check right out Dad’s agent’s office in Utah the same day he files the claim. Now isn’t that just the stupidest thing you ever heard? I mean, I’m glad the items are going to be replaced, but why did we have to go through all of this horse manure to get there?
What it boils down to is this: READ THE FINE PRINT! If you don’t understand the confusing language (and you won’t, they make sure of that), ask. If you aren’t satisfied, ask again. And if you think you are being led down the garden path, go somewhere else. There is no reason to get screwed because of ignorance. In this case, it turned out all right in the end, but the only reason it did is because my agent took the time to figure it out and come up with an answer. If I had not called, or if he was unwilling to go digging, we would have been screwed and this article would have been substantially different. Oh yeah, and don’t leave $4200 rototillers sitting in your back yard.