My wife and I had the unfortunate incident of having a sewer line in our condo break in the wall behind our kitchen sink. Our kitchen was flooded with sewage all the way into our living room. Water is one of the most damaging things that can happen in your house and when it is sewage, it is so much worse. We tried our best to soak up the sewage, but we had a laminate floor and liquid came up between the seams on every step. We needed help!
I called the Allstate claim line and one of the first questions asked was if we needed help and I said yes. They said that help was on the way and we'd have a call from an emergency water cleanup team within 2 hours. We were way in over our heads and this was such a relief to our ears. 2 hours later we got a call, but not the one we were expecting. Allstate called back and said that no one was coming. I asked why and they said until responsibility for the damage was established, they wouldn't be sending anyone. I needed to upload the HOA's covenants and insurance policy and they would be assessed on Monday. This was Saturday and my kitchen is covered in sewage. Every minute that went by was causing more damage as the sewage soaked into the subfloor, walls, and swelled the laminate & cabinets. I had no choice but to rip up the flooring and do my best to get the sewage sucked up. This was horrible and nasty work that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
Monday comes and nothing. No call from Allstate, no e-mail, no update in the online claim center. Midday I call my local agent and ask for help. I'm asking what to do, what to document, when an adjuster will be out. They're more or less helpless as it is being handled by a claims team in Kansas City. Tuesday morning comes and I finally get a call from a water recovery company that says they'll be coming out near the end of the day. I and my wife continue to strip the soaked kitchen and take pictures along the way showing everything. By the time they arrive with a crew everything is out of the kitchen down to the subfloor. They look around, snap a few pictures, and test for how wet things are. Yup, they're wet and all they can offer at this point is to leave a dehumidifier with the warning that Allstate has authorized no payment to them, so the bill is mine.
I call and leave messages for the claims team, but no response until Thursday morning. Claim denied.
What? No adjuster has been there, I have provided no pictures to Allstate and nothing more beyond the initial claim. I protested, how could they come to this conclusion with no inspection. The person on the phone stated that they looked at the pictures from the water recovery company and determined it was not a covered claim. The rationale was that there was some mold behind the cabinets, so the water damage was an ongoing condition and the flooring was already damaged before the flood. I argued that there was no mold on the laminate, under-layment, floor, or subfloor and I had the pictures to prove it. She wouldn't accept the pictures and said that an adjuster would have to come out to inspect. Great! Send them out. Ok, they'll be there in a week.
Can you imagine what it would be like to live with a kitchen soaked in sewage for nearly 2 weeks? I begged them to come out sooner, but she refused. I told them that I couldn't be without a kitchen for that long and had to continue to work on the kitchen as we had to have a place to live. They said there was nothing they would do and the schedule is the schedule. I agreed to the appointment, but told them that all there would be left to look at then would be pictures. She then summarily closed the claim.
I escalated to her supervisor and he was no help. He said the claim was already closed and would not be reopened because I refused to allow an inspection. I told him that was a lie and I would meet the adjuster, but there would only be pictures to review by that time. He said that was the same as refusing. I asked if this had happened to his own home, would he leave sewage soaking for 2 weeks while waiting for an adjuster to show up? He said no, but that was what he was asking me to do.
My local agent assessed my pictures and agreed that the mold and the water damage were two different incidents. He escalated and tried to have the claim reopened, but after a full month, the response was if the damage couldn't be inspected, the claim would remain closed.
I'm not as upset about the claim denial as I am the lack of service that I thought I was paying for. I always justified paying the higher premiums for Allstate because if something big happened, they'd be there to help. The only thing the "good hands" at Allstate are for is collecting your premiums.
Prior to this incident I had been an Allstate Homeowner customer for 25 years and had never had a single claim. This is how Allstate treats their long-term customers, look for other reviews with similar stories. I won't be a customer for much longer. read more