Complaint Review: American Family Insurance - Madison WI

I would like to file a complaint against American Family Insurance with respect to a fire loss I had on July 5th, 2018. It’s been about 2 ½ months and they are now approving part of the claim. I have a large hole in the master bedroom celling about 100 square feet that is opened to the sky and elements. Winter is coming and I believe this claim should have been settled more than a month ago.

The adjuster John Haddad who has been very busy working on this claim as well as many hail claims Colorado has experienced working long hours. I first met him about a week after the loss at my home. I had just had hip surgery was just getting around to walking with a walker. I also met his supervisor ­­Joe Frinch. One of the questions I asked him did he think American Family Insurance would replace the whole roof. He said he was pretty sure they would as did his supervisor.

I explained to them that about 2 ½ years ago I had some wind damage that blew off some of the roof panels. The roof panels were about 4 foot long and 12 inches deep. The product was made by Woodruf a company owned by Masonite. Because of many lawsuits Woodruf went bankrupt many years ago. So if you lose shingles with this product it cannot be replaced with the same product. As far as I know there is nothing you can buy that would even look like the Woodruf product. The adjuster American Family Insurance sent up didn’t even inspect the roof at all. All he did was to take some photos with his camera using a zoom lens.

American family told me they would only replace one section of the roof and not the whole thing. About $2,000 in the claim but I had a $2,500 deductible. I talked to several other roofers who told me that American Family Insurance was wrong because most insurance companies will replace all the shingles on the roof if the original product could not be found.

John also felt the adjuster they used was not being professional in his assessment of the inspection of the roof. How can an adjuster inspect the roof by not getting up on it?

Anyhow John also said that I may have been able to have had all the shingles replaced if I had an endorsement to that fact on my policy. I told him I have only had two agents in 20 years of being insured with American Family and with the fire claim that was my 2nd claim in 20 years. Also in that 20 year period no one from American Family Insurance even told me that there was an endorsement that I could have added to my policy.

If I had been told that I would have wanted to add that to my policy since I knew for a fact I could never replace the Woodruf shingles since they were no longer available.

Yesterday John told me the managers at American Family Insurance told him they will not cover the whole roof. They will only cover 3 sections since I didn’t have that endorsement. I did talk to my agent Mary Stauffer and told her what John said and she thought the endorsement only covered siding and not shingles. She did say however that American Family would not guarantee a color match.

I explained to both John and Mary that a color match is different than a product match. What other product might look like Woodruf shingles? But again John said that management will only cover the whole roof if there is an endorsement.

This is a custom built home and too have two different types of shingles on my home would resemble a patch made quilt. Would defiantly lower the value of the home.

I’m asking American Family Insurance to do what is the right thing to do which is to replace all the shingles on the roof. I have paid them every month for 20 years.

Their ad on the internet says “Offering Business and Personal Insurance coverage options for your home, office, autos and life. Let us protect the dreams you've worked so hard to achieve.”

Well I can say that I designed my home as well as did a lot of the work in the building process. I want American Family Insurance to protect my dream home and do what is right.

Another thing I’m requesting is for them to increase the time for me to get paid for the depreciation they are holding back which is about $20,000. They make it very clear in the paperwork I received today that I must 1, replace or repair within one year of loss and 2. Submit a final repair bill.

I believe that the one year should be from the date I receive my first check not from the date of loss. I have lost about 2 ½ months because of American Family taking too much time on this.

Jan Gaudina