"Nationwide Insurance - "Not ", On Your Side: Nationwide Insurance (Allied Insurance) Claim - How You Too, Will Likely Be Treated

Insureds' of Nationwide Insurance or Allied Insurances,

I wanted to share what my son and I have been through since submitting our first insurance claim, with Nationwide (Allied Insurance), recently. I want anyone who is considering them as an insurance carrier to know how I was treated - and likely - you too - if you submit a claim with them. I want anyone considering Nationwide or Allied Insurance to review our treatment by them.

I have been treated as if, I, was a criminal under investigation after submitting my almost six months of food bills and misc. costs. They actually had the audacity to send an investigator to my house to interrogate me for 1 1/2 hours, after they received my receipts and treat me as if I were a criminal, instead of an insured person making a claim - the first one ever in their life - I'm 50 and have owned homes since I was 27 - and a customer for many years with Nationwide, previous to the claim.

At this point, of writing this, I have waited almost three months for my reimbursement check. I had my hot water line, that was embedded in the concrete pipe burst and cause damage to my home. After my leak was discovered the Nationwide adjuster contacted me and, immediately, arranged to come over and interrogate me, initially, on tape regarding the damage. This may be standard and I wasn't offended at that point...

Since, I did not know any contractor to immediately select, my adjuster, Andre Radzik wrote down the name of two contractors "she liked to work with" and encouraged me to call the top one. She and the subsequent Nationwide representative, Stephanie, both said "This isn's so bad" (regarding my damage). This statement led me to believe three to six weeks at the outside to fix the damage.

While the adjuster was at my home (Andre Radzik), I also asked her two times, for the information or criteria that showed what we were elgible for regarding our insurance coverage. I had no experience or knowledge of this happening to anyone. She responded the same, both times - "Just keep your food receipts and don't forget to include the beverages.

We were never invited to move out, or offered or given upfront compensation to pay for the high cost of buying food out. I called the top, suggested contractor, and proceeded with the job. Andre Radzik never contacted me during the six months the claim has been open, after the first week of the incident. I understands she lives near by and passes my house on the way to drop off her daughter at school. I work out of my house then and now, every morning, until 1:30 PM and could have seen her, almost any day, during the interum.

Her "suggested" contractor took almost six months to do the $20,000+ job that should have taken about a month to six weeks. Andre never contacted me during this six-month period. I repeatedly begged, pleaded, urged, etc. the contractor to hurry up. My business closed during the interum and I needed the space that my furniture was occupying in my garage for my business equipment. The contractor would not hurry my job up and ignored my requests to do so. We had to move everything from the business, here, and cram the equipment in over here where ever we could.

Andre Radzik or the contractor, turned in a premature notice of completion according to a letter sent to me with the inference that "I needed to work with them in a timely manner regarding finalizing the costs." At this point, I still had no sink and a notice of completion had been filed on my behalf? By who? The contractor pleaded ignorance to the filing of the Notice of Completion, when questioned by me about it. He claimed Andre Radzik must have closed the case.

July 28, the sink went in and I proceed to sort and mount each receipt by each day on a separate sheet of paper - one for each day. I added up each day and added in mileage for the trips made specifically for food, only. I did not count in stops made along the way to somewhere else for food, along the way in any form. I fax the following letter to Andre Novemeber 8, 2005 and waited for a response.... -----------------------------

Linda Ramsay claim: 84n77597

August 8, 2005

Dear Andree Radzik,

Please advise where you would like the almost six months of food receipt copies and other costs. I have included the totals for the food costs, extra mileage, and my time spent. I would think my time is at least worth $15.00 per hour. I have spent 48 hours of my time, as broken down, below.

We did not get our gas range and sink hooked up in our kitchen until July 28th. I understand Dennis Francies, contractor, turned in a notice of completion on his own, prematurely.

I have included mileage for trips from our house specifically to get food. The closest place to eat is 4 miles, round trip from our house. Trying to be fair, I did not count mileage to pick up food on my way home from work or on the way to, elsewhere. Since we did not want to further inflate the ridiculous costs of buying and eating food out, most of the beverages came from the supermarket. We also did not have access to our filtered water and therefore had to buy bottled all these months (we normally use filtered and have never had this cost, previously, in our food bills). All these receipts are included in the tally. Since you are going to deduct $200 for food per month, all receipts should be included and added in, before you start deducting. Before the flood, I have always been a grocery bargain hunters/coupon user and shop at discount sources planning our meals around a healthy diet, fresh in season, sale, fruits and vegetables. I would spend about $200 for our grocery part of our bill, but shop three stores every week for the deals. To replicate our diet during the construction, was not possible and most of the take out/delivery food was of poor quality and always, overpriced. We always tried to pick the specials and better deals to keep the food prices down.

I have also spent 38 hours spread out over several months, shopping for tile, carpet, paint, granite, Corian, Home Depot, Lowes, various carpet and tile and granite stores, etc. I have included the mileage for the numerous trips back and forth to San Marcos on the mileage page.

I have also enclosed the copies of my SDGE bill which you can see was almost $100 difference for the electricity to run the blowers.

It took me ten hours to arrange the receipts, add them up, add in mileage, add them up, make copies and color code them so you could dccipher them.

Andree, you recommended "the contractor" for us to hire. You wrote his name and information down for me. You must have had an idea of how long he takes to do his jobs, based on your experience working with him. I had no clue that it could go beyond a month to six weeks, from anyone, I had no idea that we would be miserable for the next six months and have to live in the conditions we have endured. We are still not finished.

I like Dennis and his crew, but he has been “suggested” for too many jobs and is not handling it. For the past six months, generally only one of his men would come here at the most for one half of a day, once every other week. At one point, three weeks passed without hearing from him. Many times, a couple of weeks would pass without a word from him. Everyone he subcontracted with, treated us like the leftover job and squeezed us in. They came at the end of the day or filled us in only during odd hours, extending us months longer by holding Dennis’s crew up on the jobs they needed to do here.

My mom thought I should kill the contractor, she was so mad about our living conditions, the length of time he was taking and his attitude about it! I understand all his customers are angry. We have and are tired of being strung along by him. As I write this, he has stood me up on the work promise for, today. Billy (his main guy), ran in here last Monday to get a tool and promised me he would be back here, today, one week later. He is a “no show” as of 12:30 PM. Dennis has never given any regard for the fact that we had company coming, that we needed to actually use our house to live in and my garage for storage let alone park our cars, that I needed to set up my business in the living room that was packed, with everything else from the rest of the house and customers actually needed to come here, that we were living in unsanitary conditions (using the sink in the bathroom for our kitchen sink and sharing it with bathroom users), that we were miserable and tired of sitting only in our desk chairs, etc.

Do you think it is fair for a family to lose the use of their full downstairs for six months without compensation? Our upstairs is our bedrooms and two bathrooms, only. They were also packed full of boxes from downstairs. How do you compensate for this loss? None of our friends or colleagues could ever come over - even if they had a place to sit down - which they didn’t, the place looked like a filthy disaster. The carpet was used as a drop cloth, and was filthy from all the mess and the flood that we got to stare at for five months. We almost completely lost the use of our house and completely lost all enjoyment enduring the conditions we have had to endure.

Our kitchen cabinets are still mostly empty and under construction and the boxes of pots and pans are still sitting around in the breakfast room and family room waiting to be put away. I have a list of unfinished items that are still undone that are preventing me from hanging my top treatments, put away things in drawers, cabinets, etc. This job has taken a ridiculous amount of time and was a completely miserable living experience for us. Not even one other spot to sit down, downstairs, other than our desk chairs due to every room distroyed or having the contents of the other rooms packed into them. The only other place to go in the house was to bed. Everything was continously made filthy due to the dust and debris.

We have been unable to garage our two cars, now for six months, due to the mess. My car had never spent the night outside, previously. I need the money from the receipts right away as I have had to prepay for all of these bills and still owe Dennis money. All my extra money has gone for our food bills and extra gas for six months.

Sincerely, Linda Ramsay

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I waited 10 days and received absolutely no response.

I then refaxed the letter to Andre and waited another 8 days.

I then phone Nationwide and finally got through to a supervisor's voice mail and left a message asking if Andre Radzik still worked for the company or was she on vacation - I hadn't heard from her in six months. Andre calls the next day and tells me she will pick up my bag of receipts off my porch when she drives her daughter to school several days later. Finally, five days later she picks up the receipts and then lets me know that she was suppose to sort them, etc.!!! Anyway, Andre did not do a thing, and all the while time is ticking off for me, my bank account is low, and I am asking for my money at every opportunity and the contrator if on my back for his money, now, Nationwide/Allied are saying no Starbucks receipts!

They decide to tell me the rules after they fact. They make them up after they look at your receipts and whatever you did a few times as far as eating or drinking goes under complete scrutiny. Why did you go there? How did you pay? What is your routine? etc. - all recorded while you are interrogated.

Anyway, they sent Andre to "help" the Katrina victims and gave my thick pile of receipts to audit to another adjustor, Grace Lee. She seemed so nice at first and now is trying to get out of paying. She is trying to chisel each item away.

The new adjuster, Grace Lee (who acts fakely sweet, nice at first and then quickly moves to the nasty, liar mode, repeatedly tried to twist and trap me into making statements to suit herself as she went along - while saying I said it! She said it, you mean), doesn't believe that we like clean, fresh, wholesome, homemade food and never hardly went out (only if I was taken out) - it wasn't in the budget and my son likes my home cooking. Since there are only the two of us, anything I practically make, has several meals times left over, I make Latte's with my cappuccino maker, and have a healthy diet that is planned around the peak fresh fruits and vegetables and their cheap prices at our local Farmer's Market-type grocery store.

I had never been to Starbuck's in my life and did go since we found we had the opportunity. I had previously made latte's daily, some days twice, at home for years to drink with our meals. I am on my third cappuccino maker at this point. I had no idea that I wasn't elgible with my insurance coverage to go there.

However, they are treating me like a liar. I am a middle-aged business professional with a clean police, insurance, and all other records. This is one of the rudest things I have ever experienced. I have now been without the first part of my money, nine months. Grace Lee, the adjuster, just called, today, and will not pay Starbucks receipts -Latte's that you can no longer make at home are no different than food you can no longer make at home in my opinion and this is not right! These drinks were to go with the meal we picked up - receipt on the same page as the Starbucks, receipts. These were not coffee break drinks - but drinks picked up at the same time as dinner, nearby. What makes them any different or exempt??? To save money for Nationwide, we bought almost all the drinks at the grocery store, instead of gouging the insurance company and buying cokes with the meals at a much inflated cost.

I had no sanitary or bare spot available in my house, let alone a sink, other than the unsanitary sink in the bathroom everyone including the workers were using. Everything was a total disaster for months and months.

The adjuster, Grace Lee, finally after three months and one week, broke out a check that is more than $3200 less than it should be and no supplement. She took off all Starbucks receipts (we went two to three times a week only, for lattes), gave us only five miles a day for mileage (we live eight miles round trip from the closest place, Jack in the box - which is non-nutritious in my opinion), and clearly subtracted much more, and, both of the adjustors (Grace Lee and Andre Radzik) got together and outright lied that, Andre Reznik, the first adjustor, said we went out to eat and spend all this money for eating out and more for our groceries than we ever buy or told her. She fabricated a story to suit them and wrote a check that is short $3200.

I am beginning to think that they are trained to treat the customers like this as they both treated me badly and refused to supply asked for information and do not want to correspond in writing. I believe that they are trained to ignore the requests for information on what customers are qualified for at the time of the loss - when the customer makes an inquiry. The adjustors then collect your receipts that you have thrown loose in a bag - so you don't know what you have - they do not want you to organize and tally them up. They you know how much you are owed. They then proceed to analyze and scrutinize all receipts and pick and choose them as they like on what they will pay. They do this all while questioning your every comment, while twisting remarks you make, around - and fabricating and adding in things that never were said or happened.

We have had $3200 stolen from us from Nationwide plus the $700+ supplement the contractor turned in. This is money we laid out during our flood six months to repair ordeal and are entitled to recover per our insurance. Andre Radzik, the adjustor, told me to pick that contractor and I just followed her direction. "He is so nice for her to work with, he understands her software, he makes her job easier for her."

With my short check came a letter stating when my cut off period will be to bring suit against them. I believe they short check everyone, and then invite you to sue if you don't like it. They know that suing costs lots of money and is no guarantee to win. I think they will put you through it and then make a quick settlement with the ones that take it all the way - almost to court date.

I had to repeatedly prove by bank statement and actual receipts for groceries, what I spent before the flooding incident and after, and since. I saved all this was able to proove my position with evidence, and then Grace Lee and Andre Radzik fabricated lies that contradicted what was said by me. All of this digging around, takes time - the insured's time - they ask for documentation most people do not keep - grocery receipts - and I think when you can't supply something - they are off the hook. However, I had everything they asked for and told Grace Lee, that once, again, I was going to prove her wrong, and what was she going to pay me for the hours spend getting it together. Her response, it is your obligation.

The two adjusters simply outright, lied. They got together and confered on the situation. Grace Lee did not appreciate being saddled with a pile of six months of receipts to scrutinize. They had to bring the expenses down - since Andre Radzik did not do her job and "our contractor" let this job go on for six months - she forgot I was kitchenless - and got my letter at a very inconvenient time since she had plans in the works, already, when she got the letter. My letter arrived at an inconvenient time for Ms. Radzik.

Andre, you should have worked with me in a professional manner, and actually did your job. I will fight back with a public forum. I am now telling, what I know, and suspect about you and Grace Lee and the way you both have treated me. How dare you say I spent that much on groceries and eating out, monthly. You blatantly lied to make the claim look better for you. I realize most people eat out - we cook fresh - here, every day and eat leftovers.

The Internet allows all people to fight back. We are placed on a level playing field. People that are being taken advantage of, don't have to hire a Nationwide level lawyer to fight for what is rightfully theirs.

Nationwide just sent the notice that I have been raised 50% with my premium and I want everyone considering Nationwide or Allied in the US to realize that they are probably going to get the same treatment if they choose Nationwide Insurance or Allied Insurnace.

Andre, I also want to let you know that the man from the flood company who came out the day of the flood, told me you said "It couldn't have happened to a nicer person" to him about me. You called my house, when five men were literally tearing apart my house and I had projects stacked all over the living room, that they were scrambling, together.

You asked me on the phone, what they were going to do - I put the man from the flood co on the phone to tell you. After your conversation, which I did not listen to, as I was directing traffic and grabbing stuff, while everything was being thrown in boxes and my house was being dismantled - I got back on the phone with you and you asked me exactly the same question, you had asked me before, "What are they going to do". I was very stressed out at that point and abruptly said, "He just told you what they are going to do - I don't know anything about this - I will put him back on the phone and he can tell you, again. I didn't pause and handed him the phone and got back to directing traffic with my possessions." The flood man got back on the phone and your first remark to him was, "It couldn't have happened to a nicer person". Both me and the flood man found this to be very unprofessional on your part, Andre. The flood man and I were getting along fine - I just didn't know what they were doing as he hadn't really explained and were tearing apart as they were going along. This is not my area of expertise - it is yours. I didn't know what they were going to do... And I apologized to you the next day for being abrupt with you when you arrived. You must have held a grudge...

Nationwide, Andre Radzik and Grace Lee, I am not going to let this go. Grace, you claimed I held up the carpet. You just don't stop talking while making your wild accusations long enough to listen - that carpet was in the contractor's wherehouse for at least three months. Ask to see the receipt. You always point the finger in the wrong direction. I am duely owed this money, and been treated unprofessionally by you, and will publically let anyone who cares to question, whether they should select Nationwide to trust with their insurance for their home. They just sent a statement that my insurance has now been adjusted up, 50-percent since I have had this claim. I have never had any homeowner or even anything but a minor auto (another insurance co) claim in my life and have always had insurance. How dare me have a claim and turn it in and expect to be covered for what they said I was covered for...

Nationwide, I will file a complaint with the insurance commissioner regarding your treatment if I don't immediately get all money owed to me, and, now, will add damages for the suffering endured, while waiting to be paid (temporarily, completely ran out of money due to this situation, was and is still hounded by the contractor, the many delays from Andree Radzik and Grace Lee, while taking more than three months to pay me and then grossly short checking me when they did cut a check, not offering me upfront living expenses, the criminal investigation I had to endure, the condescending attitude by both adjustors, and the overall low treatment). This and the website will remain up and running as long as I am around. I have been building websites and publishing on the web for 15 years, and am not going, anywhere.

You will lose customers when the truth gets out.

The website url is http://www.elists.com/nationwide/

The blog to add your own Nationwide or Allied Insurance experience is: www.nationwide.blogstream.com

Nationwide, You do not treat insured's like you are on their side as your logo states and you need to spend your time investigating your own employees - I (who is not in the business, does not know much about your business, and others who I have discussed this with), find it very suspect that, "ironically," Andre' Radzik, the Nationwide adjustor who didn't do her job when it came to my claim - remember her - nor did she turn in the supplement from the contractor, and my six months of food bills - I heard has had a burst pipe at her house that has caused major damage. And guess which contractor got the job - I heard it was the very one who she "suggested" her claimaints' choose - even, after just reading my letter and knowing the unsanitary, unlivable conditions we were left to live in for six months, and how much time he took to do a $20,000 job! Would you have picked him, if you had just read my letter - that is extremely telling, you figure it out.

P.S. We were never offered to move out of the unlivable premises, or given any upfront money for living expenses. I think most people would agree, after reading this, or anyone who dealt with me during this period - especially - if I allowed them to come to my house, it was bad mess, I even had to borrow money from relatives - and still owed the contractor. Grace Lee knew this, and was told this repeatedly, and asked repeated to hurry up, and had my situation explained over and over to her, and had the obvious attitude - she could care less. I hope the Nationwide adjustors can sleep at night after they abuse the insureds who have legitimate claims.

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