Standing Up To State Farm

If A Tree Falls Through Your House, Will Your Insurance Company Hear You?

Imagine being on a mission trip in another country and getting a phone call that a 60 “ diameter tree has been blown over during a storm and has fallen through the middle of your house. Thankfully, family and friends join together to help save some personal possessions until you get home. And when you get home, you see the damage up close and personal and realize your home is worse than you could imagine. This is where you raise your children and have so many memories. And it is destroyed. The foundation is cracked. Family heirlooms are crushed or soaked with rainwater and now you have to find a place to live.

This is what happened to our newest client. And when she arrived home, she immediately called in her claim to her insurance company. Her insurance company sent out an engineer and an adjuster, but neither could finish their evaluations due to the tree debris. Four months later, the engineer and the adjuster still have not been back to the house. The engineer’s report and the adjuster seem to simply want to piecemeal the foundation back together. No contractor in their right mind would agree to rebuild a house on this type of fabricated foundation- –  or if they did they would not provide any warranties for the work.

We are thankful that this client has trusted The Flowers Law Firm in Tyler, Texas to help fight back against the insurance company. We hope to be able to update this story very quickly with a happy ending. But that will depend on State Farm.

Update (January 2017):

We are happy to report that State Farm FINALLY stepped up and paid our client everything she was owed. We ultimately had to file a lawsuit against State Farm for their bad faith insurance practices, breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing, and delays in payment. Once State Farm hired a lawyer, only then was a meaningful discussion able to take place.

Ultimately, our client got every dime she was entitled to recover to rebuild her home. Our client got every nickel of money she was owed for the damage to her personal property damage. Our client got every penny of money she was owed for her additional living expenses. She even recovered statutory damages for State Farm’s late payments and attorney’s fees.