Insurance Soap Opera

It really does feel like I should be on a soap.  The level of drama involved is just ridiculous.

I had a horrible phone conversation with our adjuster this morning so put together an email and sent it off to his boss.

Here’s the email I sent…I need your feedback.  Do I come across as a drama queen?  Too whiny?

Hi Boss,
My name is Sabrina Lawrence and my family and I have a claim with “Your Horrible Insurance Company” for our house that we lost in the tornado of June 6th 2010.  That claim # is *****.
I had an unsettling phone conversation with “Your Horrible Adjuster” this morning.  We received an advance payment of $**** towards the content that we lost.  I called him to let him know that we had spent that money and I had dropped the receipts off this morning at the “Local Broker’s” office since he does not have a location that I can drop them off directly for him or access to email.  I asked that he review the receipts when he had a chance and that if everything was in order we were requesting another advance cheque.  He actually got upset that I dared to ask this of him.

He told me that Your Horrible Insurance Company was not our personal bank and was not here to fund our shopping.  I told him that I didn’t understand and asked how we were to replace our items then.  He went on to say that we had to take an Actual Cash Value settlement and then submit receipts to him for approval and we would be paid the difference after that.  This is in direct contradiction to a letter that we received from him dated September 30th that says we have only two options regarding our content claim submission as follows:

Option 1 – you can elect to replace each item and submit to my attention the replacement cost invoices for reimbursement accordingly.  We will pay up to the amounts submitted plus applicable taxes as per your Schedule of Loss submission.

Option 2 – you can elect a cash value settlement.  This settlement is a lump sum settlement.  Depreciation is applied to each item in accordance to the age and material construction of each item.

I received this letter on October 15th and called Your Horrible Adjuster that day and said that we would be going with Option 1 and that we would need some money to get started on buying items.  He said this was no problem and requested that day that a cheque be sent to us.  He and the letter he sent never once indicated that we would have to take an ACV settlement.  During our conversation today he questioned why I was in such a hurry to replace things.  I said to him that we have lived for 5 months with 2 small children without appliances, beds for our children, toys and winter clothing.  His response was that we’ve lived for 5 months without them so they shouldn’t be a priority now.  I asked why I wasn’t told about the ACV when I first requested a cheque and his response was “Fine Sabrina, I take full responsibility.  The situation you’re in and everything that has happened to you is all my fault.”

He is behaving like a spoiled child and I am extremely upset with his unprofessional behaviour.  Your Horrible Adjuster said today that it would be close to a month before we saw that ACV settlement and that by that time our 180 days to submit items against our claim would have run out but that he MIGHT be able to get us an extension.  We have also run out of living expenses money to pay our rent in our current house but I am afraid to ask Your Horrible Adjuster for another cheque.  Every time I dare to ask him a question he immediately gets on the defensive and does not provide any real answers.

I called you a couple months ago when we were having some other problems with Your Horrible Adjuster and you were very helpful.  When Your Horrible Adjuster found out about this he told me I should watch what I say and who I talk to because he could make this a difficult process for us.

So I have no idea what to do now.  Please advise me if you can help.  All we are looking for is the replacement of the items on our content list in a timely manner.

Regards,
Sabrina