I made a posting some time back about the problems I was having with my insurance not wanting to cover some engine damage to my boat. The original posting is down below. My incident happened in January of this year. I happened to be in my local boat shop yesterday to pick up a small item and I ran into a guy who was given the same song and dance, verbatim, as me by the same insurance company (Progressive). The difference is his incident (his engine also ingested water) occurred last AUGUST!!

The story he gave me is that, after describing the incident to the insurance, they denied his claim because of “lack of maintenance.” Again, this is precisely what they told me. The problem is, they claimed this without even looking at his engine. The company told him that he could get a second adjuster but it would be at his own expense. The adjusters he contacted told him they did contract work for Progressive and did not feel comfortable coming out after another adjuster had already made his assessment. Is it just me or does anyone else smell a little B.S. coming from this company?

He eventually gave up and tried to pay for the repairs on his own. Now things are to the point that he’s out of money for all the necessary work. Basically, this guy is going to need a new engine. Having heard that I got the same insurance to cover me, he asked me for some advice. I told him to collect all of Progressive’s documents (stating how they determined their decision), get a statement from the mechanic (the guy who said no adjuster ever came out to look at the boat), and a copy of the original claim. I then told him to file a report with the state insurance commissioner and the BBB once he has a full account of what happened and the necessary documents to back it up. I figured that this will probably end up in court so I told the guy to also start shopping around for a lawyer. I figured that the state insurance commission could at least outline the business ethics that these guys are supposed to follow.

Can anyone else offer any suggestions on what other steps this guy should take? This seems to me a clear cut case of the insurance company trying to screw the guy just like they tried screwing me. It took me about six months to get my issue resolved, it seems egregious that Progressive uses these tactics. After reading about all the questionable tactics that Sport Chalet is using against dive boats, it is sadly not surprising that another big company is trying to push around the little guy.

http://www.diver.net/bbs/posts002/69499.shtml

Happy diving,
Jesse

• Original post was on 16Feb Jesse 10:54:57 08/02/07 (0)