Homeowners Be Aware

From Confusion to Clarity: Insurance Insights Unveiled with Dick Tutwiler

• George Siegal • Season 2 • Episode 137

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May 28, 2024

137.  From Confusion to Clarity: Insurance Insights Unveiled with Dick Tutwiler

Unravel the mysteries of homeowner's insurance with industry expert Dick Tutwiler. This conversation empowers you with critical knowledge, guiding you from confusion to clarity. We explore the evolution of insurance contracts, especially in Florida, where policy changes often disadvantage homeowners. Dick, a seasoned public adjuster, shares essential steps for mitigating damage and navigating the insurance claim process post-disaster.

We address the challenges posed by inexperienced adjusters and insufficient state resources. Legal complexities and the importance of working with licensed professionals are discussed. We also delve into legislative changes in Florida that favor the insurance lobby, affecting homeowners' rights. The discussion includes the impact of AI and drones in damage assessment and the implications of building practices and code changes on insurance coverage. 

Concluding with advice on hiring private insurance adjusters and maintaining crucial records, this conversation aims to protect your most valuable asset.

Here’s how you can follow or reach Dick:

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dicktutwiler

Website: www.PublicAdjuster.com

Email: tutwiler@publicadjuster.com

Important information from Homeowners Be Aware:

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeownersbeaware/

Website: https://homeownersbeaware.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/


If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact

Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Thanks for listening!

George Siegal:

If you've ever had to file a homeowner's insurance claim, you might have learned how it can be a very challenging process, especially in the wake of a major disaster. Well, today you're going to learn how to make the best of a bad situation. My guest is Dick Tutwiler, founder and CEO of Tutwiler Associates. With a distinguished career that started at Travelers Insurance Company, dick brings deep expertise in the claims settlement process. His journey from an industry insider to a dedicated public adjuster highlights his commitment to advocating for policyholders. Join us as we delve into Dick's wealth of experience and uncover crucial insights for property owners and business professionals that are navigating insurance claims.

George Siegal:

I'm George Siegal, and this is Homeowners Be Aware the podcast that teaches you everything you need to know about being a homeowner. Dick, thank you so much for joining me today. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me Now. You ended up being a big player in our documentary film Built to Last Buy or Beware. I know it's not out yet, so you haven't seen it, but you said some very important things and I came away from the film with a sense of insurance is not really the insurance that I think it is. Tell people why they need to really be concerned about that policy that they think is going to be their stopgap lifesaver.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, first of all let me just say this. I would say 99.9% of people don't read their insurance policy, don't understand what's in it. And if they read it five or 10 years ago and they were fortunate enough to stay with the same insurance company, very likely what they had five or even three years ago is not what they have now. So insurance is drastically changed in Florida over the years and it's not none of that change is beneficial to the policyholder. They call an insurance contract a policy of adhesion. They wrote the policy so they put the stuff in the policy. Now in certain cases, if they want to change endorsements to the policy, theoretically they're supposed to get it improved by the folks up in Tallahassee. But who reads that stuff? Nobody reads it.

Dick Tutwiler:

And I know very I've had very, very sophisticated clients over the years commercial and homeowners and they have no clue what's in that policy. And even worse is their agent and broker. Typically, unless they have some sophisticated risk management people which most people don't have, they don't know what's in that policy. They don't know the dynamics of what happens after a loss. You know what happens, who does what, who has the authority to do what. You know what happens, who does what? Who has the authority to do what? So you know, people are totally blind when it comes to insurance, in this state and in every other state, in my opinion.

George Siegal:

So whenever I'm signing something whether it's at the doctor's office, whether it's an insurance form, whatever it is and I'm always thinking, ok, if I question this, they're not going to rewrite it for me, they're not going to change anything. So even if I question this, they're not going to rewrite it for me, they're not going to change anything. So even if I read that policy and I found out how bad it was, what are my options? Because I know here in Florida there aren't a lot of them. So if I read that policy and it says you're not covered for X, y and Z, where am I going to find coverage for X, Y and Z? That's going to make me happy.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, you got to understand what you don't have. You got to understand that this policy doesn't cover things. And you're not going to know that because and here's a prime example Insurance over you know several, I would say 100 years went from a policy which was called the New York Fire Policy and it had 100 and I think 59 lines of coverage and it was all geared for fire losses and it stated very clearly what was in the policy. A common man, if he could read 100 years ago, could read that and probably understand what it says. Over the years the insurance industry realized that, hey, you know, this is a great business, you know we can take all this money in and we only have to pay out a little bit of money, drips and drabs as we go along. So guess what? The competitors figured that out. So then they started adding things to policies, to policies, and you know it went from ACV coverage, which means you want to get the actual cash value coverage, to replacement cost coverage and they started insuring this and that and all that was pretty much favorable to the policyholder until Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. And I hate to keep bringing that up, but the fact of the matter is that was a sea change in the world of insurance. Because insurance companies suddenly realized they had all this exposure and they had all these policies with these terms out there that were somewhat favorable to the policyholder. And they did that. Why? Competition? All state wanted to beat state farms, state farm wanted to beat metropolitan, and so on and so on. But Andrew changed all that. So then the insurance companies started looking at well, first of all, we don't want to be here anymore. That was their first out. And they created what's called pup companies. And not to get too far in the weeds, a pup company still had the name State Farm, but the lawyers drew up contracts that said the pup company is not really the main headquarters. I'll say State Farm because they still have a pub. The headquarters up here are really not responsible. If the pub companies go broke, we're only responsible for the. You know the pub companies are responsible for their own losses, not the big company, because we get wiped out. So all these things changed after Andrew and they continued to change and we had no storms for a number of years after Andrew and then all of a sudden we had a lot of storms and insurance companies same thing. You know this is ridiculous. What are we doing insuring this?

Dick Tutwiler:

And then the dirty word mold came out and that went nuts I mean literally nuts all over the country. And that started in Texas. A Miss Ballard out in Texas claimed that she got sick from mold and I gave a speech at a conference down in the Fountain Blue in Miami some years ago when the mole issue was, you know, at its zenith, at its height, and I said, ladies and gentlemen, I handled claims on a lot of buildings 10 miles from here, 20 miles from here. We never had one mole claim, not one. No insurance company paid a mole claim. But this thing took a life of its own when this ballard said she got sick and she got a lawyer and convinced a jury and she was awarded millions of dollars you sound like a mold denier, so I mean it is a problem no, it is a problem, but you know there are.

Dick Tutwiler:

There are ways to fix that problem, but the real problem was that nobody understood what mold was. Mold is everywhere. It's ubiquitous in society. You're sitting in a room full of mold right now at your house, as am I, and most of it is not harmful, but there are a few strains of mold that is harmful and to some people it's not, but to others, yes, you can get very sick. But the restoration people jumped in on this. Oh, we got to get this mold out of here. And you know, we got to do all this kind of stuff and we have to set protocols and we have to bring in the guys with the white suits and up went, up went the cost, up went the premium.

George Siegal:

Yeah, that seems that seems to be the case and anytime something you know becomes trendy like that, they're going to make us pay for it and and because they're not going to continue to eat it. I'm reading this book Delay, deny, defend and it's fascinating to me that the efforts the insurance company makes to not pay us and I think most people don't know that you assume, hey, I'm paying this hefty amount.

Dick Tutwiler:

You said in the film there's to some degree of confidence you're going to get something, but it may be nothing near what you need in order to go on with your life, that's true, and a lot of that has to do with the body of the policy. There are different policy forms and there are different companies. You know, I will tell you one of the best companies and I have have it and I'm very comfortable with, I'm going to get paid by them because I know them, I know their reputation. But there are other companies out here, particularly some of these companies, and I just read, literally yesterday or the day before, that eight new companies are coming into the state. Okay, well, who are they and what's their background, what's their financial strength? So people say I have an insurance policy. Do you really understand who they are? Have you checked their ratings, those kinds of things? And it gets into what's in their policy.

George Siegal:

Now, when a big hurricane blows through and all of a sudden, a whole community is devastated through and all of a sudden, a whole community is devastated. That's really the toughest time to need help, and we keep hearing stories about people that get stonewalled for months, if not years. One of the gentlemen we featured in our film it took him seven years to get back in his house after Hurricane Sandy, and it just makes you wonder what do we need to do as homeowners to have protection?

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, first thing you need to do is take I call it personal responsibility. It's almost assumed it's. If you have no insurance and I know that's a hard thing to say, and people, you know people would not want to hear that I bought this policy. And what are you telling me? Assume I have no insurance. Well, you may not see an adjuster out there for a month, two months, or you may see three or four adjusters in two or three months, none of which has authority. So what do you do? Sit in a lawn chair in the front yard? No, you need to take personal responsibility and, to the best of your ability, mitigate the damages and try to get on with your life.

Dick Tutwiler:

Now you cannot go in and do things that would raise prejudicial issues with the insurance industry. An example of that would be you would completely gut your house. That may not be the correct thing to do in your situation, but you know, if there are four feet of, let's say, three feet of flood water in your house, you certainly should take the first four feet of drywall out immediately, as soon as possible. And if the insurance company would raise prejudicial issues, you'd say well, what do you want me to do? Leave it in here and then the whole house is full of mold. So a homeowner has to use some common sense. Unfortunately, common sense is not so common and it's particularly not common for people who've never had a loss before, but still they have to bind you.

Dick Tutwiler:

An example of that insurance companies typically send out somebody to gather information.

Dick Tutwiler:

That information is then transferred back to somebody else and, depending on what they think the exposure is, it goes to somebody else.

Dick Tutwiler:

And then it may go on up the food chain to say, well, wait a minute, we need to send a guy or a girl out that really has the authority to deal with this loss because it's going to cost us a lot of money. But the first people you get out there typically no authority, probably not very experienced, particularly when you're talking big cat events and we call them cat in our industry, cat events. So they'll sweep them in from all over and you know an example of this is there was a big uproar recently about local insurance companies I don't want to say local, I mean state bonded or licensed in our state using unlicensed adjusters from other states Came out. Where'd they get them? Guys with a mechanic, refrigerator repairman or whatever, but they sent them in just to initially report back. Well, that's not good, but you know the people don't know that. They're thinking that person that's coming out is the person my person that's going to stay with me, and very few times does that ever happen.

George Siegal:

Yeah, they seem to shift that around. A lot was that the state touts an 800 number that they have that they claim can be a liaison between the insured and the insurance company. You were not a big admirer of that in the film and, interestingly, we reached out to CFO Patronus's office numerous times and they never got back to us with any kind of comment or statement about. We just wanted to know how successful that has been. Is that truly a help? Because if it is a help I want to tell people to go there and take advantage of that, but we couldn't even get any information out of them about it. That was very disappointing.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, george, here's where common sense comes into play again. Now you think about this. You get a major storm into Florida. You think they have people up there. Either they have them there or they're going to break and bring them in manning the phones telling people what to do, telling people we're going to send them checks. That's not going to happen. That's a smokescreen. Now, I didn't test this myself, but I was told that that 800 line was only operational like three or four hours a day.

George Siegal:

I called the number because I couldn't get through to the.

Dick Tutwiler:

CFO's office.

George Siegal:

I got somebody to answer and I told them why I was calling. I gave them all my information and said can somebody please get back to me? Because I want to promote you guys in our film as being an asset to Florida residents. Nothing, Nobody got back to us. That was very disappointing.

Dick Tutwiler:

I think I mentioned this to you in our prior conversation. There was a case I think it was in the four storms of 04, one of the other prior big hurricane events where a guy, a public adjuster, went out and he had people calling him and he had gotten some people to come in. They were licensed as apprentices, so they had some other protocols that they had to do in order to actually sign somebody up and it'd be legal, and one of the things was that they could go out and meet with the people and the contract could be signed, but they had to have a fully licensed public adjuster sign the contract. Well, they didn't do that. You know, they went out and met with the people, signed a contract, apparently, walked it back to the guy's office who had a full license and he signed it. Well, something blew up. Department of Insurance got involved in it and the public adjuster said well, I called up the Department of Insurance and they told me that we could send people out and they could sign the contracts. In other words, I didn't need to go out and see them, they could do it and sign the contracts. And he relied on that.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, whatever happened, the department got involved in it and says no, you cannot do that. You had to send somebody out with the apprentice. You have to sign the contracts so that you've got a fully licensed person to do it. They proposed a big fine and the guy says no, I'm not going to do it because I got this information over this 800 line. I called this person.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, it ended up in court and the Department of Insurance attorneys says well, you cannot rely on anything. Anybody tells you in Tallahassee regarding insurance. You cannot do that because they don't have the authority. And it makes very good sense to me, because how are they going to tell somebody sitting up there in a phone bank about what you need to do or not do, or when we're going to send you money and so forth? They can give you some general guidelines, but they're not the final arbiter over the phone to tell you what to do. Well, the guy lost the case. You know he ended up losing his license or he got suspended for a while. So the bottom line that 800 number. Maybe you'll glean something out of it. But unless you're dealing with somebody that has the authority and you know they have the authority you can't really rely on anybody.

George Siegal:

Now why aren't they more forthcoming and transparent up there? They should. In theory, they should be representing us. As Floridians, we should have somebody watching out for us on our side. Does the insurance industry have such a powerful lobby that it's just not going to happen for us? I mean, how do we turn this back so the homeowner has some kind of heavyweight on our side?

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, that's a good point, and I think the heavy lifters up there, so to speak, is on the insurance company side. They're the people that go in and lobby to get the right contract in place, the wording that their client wants. But when you get into a claim situation where people are coming at you for money in all fairness to the insurance industry, it's a fact-driven thing Each person's loss is different. So it's very difficult to have somebody sitting up there monitoring what their person is, telling them and giving them advice. It's not going to happen.

Dick Tutwiler:

And to give you a good example of how this works, particularly in this last storm we had down in Fort Myers, you had a lot of flooding and you had a lot of wind. So which came first, the wind or the flood? And they're two separate, completely different policies. The flood policy, I mean, it's very unique and you have to read it and understand it. Well, nobody up until and that's a federal program, by the way Good luck getting hold of the feds. So you know, in all fairness, it's hard to imagine how that would ever get sorted out. Now it's been brought to my attention and I'm sure you heard a lot about it. We have this new thing called AI and I suspect the insurance company is going to try to rely on that to a large extent. And how that's going to play out I'm not sure In the last big hurricane.

Dick Tutwiler:

they were using drones, which is very helpful, because how do you scan a big building? You know you got to put lifts, high lifts or something to get up there to see it. So they started using drones. But a drone is, you know, only as good as a picture it sends back. Then you still have to distinguish old damage versus new damage. But that was kind of the new thing that came into the industry this last session. So now we have this AI thing out here and how is that going to work? I'm not sure how that's going to work. It's been told to me that insurance company is going to call the person up when the person has got a phone and say we want you to send us pictures and we will plug them into a program and spit out you a check. Now I don't think that's going to work.

George Siegal:

There's already companies that are doing that, that are mapping out entire neighborhoods. I heard of a company that's doing that to look for roofs that have problems so he can then sell that information to roofers. So there's an entire industry that will be developed from that. I have an ongoing running debate with with Lisa Miller up in Tallahassee about SB2A and the legislature. The governor ramrodded through legislation that if you have to sue your insurance agent because they're not making a claim, you have to pay your own attorney. You no longer get attorney's fees. She thought that was fair. Why should the insurance company have to pay it? I think that's one of the most outrageous things I've ever heard personally, because if the insurance company stonewalls me and I have to pay a third of my claim to my lawyer, I can't fix my house. I'm screwed. Why would they take away the one right? It seemed like we had to at least hold their feet to the fire when we were mistreated least hold their feet to the fire when we were mistreated.

Dick Tutwiler:

I agree with that. And Florida was unique and there are a lot of states in this country who did not have provisions for attorney's fees and it's called in a first party contract dispute, like Georgia doesn't have that, florida had it. It's been in existence for I don't know going back tens and tens of years and I think there was a lot of abuse with lawyers, quite frankly, lawsuits that were not valid, so to speak. On top of that, you had Florida had a bad faith statute that says if you sue your insurance company and you get one dollar more than what they offered, then you have a right to file a separate lawsuit for bad faith. And what is bad faith? You know that's not a measurement of the sticks and water and whatever you had in your house.

Dick Tutwiler:

It's some subjective thing that you have been harmed in some way and you know there's nothing bad about that. You know it's not. You know it's like pain and suffering. You know you had an injury, you had a pain, you have pain and suffering, you have lots of consortium with your wife, those kind of things. So it's not in and of itself bad. But I think lawyers in Florida took this back and I can tell you this right now. You know, I've been in this business 50 years and we never had an environment where people were suing insurance companies, making bad faith claims on property claims. It did not exist, and I was with one of the major carriers that nobody had any issues with property claims, so to speak. We didn't have that many of them. Of course, during my tenure, which is 10 years, we didn't have very many hurricanes.

George Siegal:

Because they weren't sticking it to us, then Maybe they were paying claims better, and maybe so. I mean, it's easy to say that lawyers have ruined the system by going in there.

Dick Tutwiler:

I'm saying there were some abuses to it and I listened to Mr Boyd, senator Boyd, who put that bill together, and I knew this was going to. You know was coming. You know we have a red state legislature. You just knew this was going to come. So I agree with you and disagree with Ms Miller that they probably went too far. People cannot afford to go out and hire their own lawyers, you know, after their house is destroyed and they're sitting in a trailer or something. They can't do that. So there has to be some recourse, some method that allow them to deal with the big guys. Who's got the big money, so that at some point there has to be something worked out where it's fair to both sides. Now they've, you know, they've just threw the baby out with the bathwater.

George Siegal:

Yeah, they could have cleaned it up other ways, I think, without completely taking that away. I just didn't think that was good, and Lisa also suggested that in that wind versus water scenario you get both adjusters together. We kind of shot that down as being unrealistic because you can't get one person out there, let alone two. That's a tough spot for homeowners. I've heard a lot of people really suffer when there's that fight on who's responsible.

Dick Tutwiler:

Exactly and there is no science about which comes first. I've heard every argument that could be made and I have made a lot of them myself about which came first wind or water. And in Florida we enjoy something called the broad evidence rule and every adjuster insurance company is responsible to apply that. And basically what that means is you take all the factors into consideration on a loss to determine what happened at a particular location. So you would have a house that you know well. I can give you an example where there was nothing. The whole house was washed away.

Dick Tutwiler:

But just to give an example, where a house is flooded, the easy way to do it is a high water mark. You know when the water comes up it's going to leave a debris line around there. But the water just doesn't rise up in a hurricane. It sloshes around everywhere and as it goes down it may leave a water mark. So you can't use that old way, the simple way of the high water mark. You've got to take into consideration all the factors and they're arguable and they're subjective.

Dick Tutwiler:

But you make the point that I would make you're not going to get the wind adjuster and the flood adjuster out there at the same time. That's not going to happen. Same thing happens with the flood people. They bring people in from everywhere. That same flood adjuster that went out the first day is not going to be the same flood adjuster that's going to handle that claim throughout. Now I've seen them say no, we're going to revise that, we're going to change that, we're going to make them do it Not going to happen? We're going to make them do it Not going to happen? And I'll give you a practical reason.

Dick Tutwiler:

Down in the Keys we've had hurricanes down there and it's very, very expensive to operate as an adjuster in the Florida Keys. Number one housing is expensive Gas. All the things that you've got to do to do your job is double what it is in other parts of the state. So what the flood people did in one instance that I'm aware of, they handed out a bunch of flood claims, the adjuster, and they get paid on a scale that goes up. It's kind of a percentage scale. It's a basic amount, and then they get it goes up to I've forgotten the top amount, but so they do have a little incentive in there. But when they went down there they said wait a minute, we can't make any money here and they just threw all the files back on the desk, walked and went home back to Oklahoma or Texas. So these are real world examples. Now what really should be happening in the perfect world, particularly in Florida, is that the policy should cover wind and flood at the same time had a loss out here, measure the loss.

Dick Tutwiler:

Doesn't matter whether it's wind or flood, but that would make Florida property policies very expensive.

George Siegal:

As if they're not already. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous.

Dick Tutwiler:

You throw a flood in, but in the perfect world that's the way to do it. But the National Flood Program is one entity, florida insurance companies another entity. Different rules, different languages in the policy, different adjusting practices. It's a nightmare, truly a nightmare practice. It's a nightmare, truly a nightmare.

George Siegal:

Now another thing we talked about in the film building codes and the way they're building. Especially here in Florida there is a lot of wood apartment buildings going up everywhere. There's a lot of houses that are concrete block on the first floor but wood on the second floor and people I've interviewed say that's just nowhere as strong as building an all concrete house and those apartment complexes on the water, four or five stories made out of wood. Sure, the garage is concrete, the slab is concrete, but the rest of the structures are wood and you seem to think that was kind of crazy, like most people would.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, you know, I come from an era where we had something called collapse in policy and collapse caused by certain things, and this all came about because the way it was written there was an ambiguity in it, so it ended up going into court and the courts came back and made some very substantial rulings on this. It opened up the door for us and I take credit for this, and I think a lot of insurance companies don't like me for that, but I figured it all out could get insurance companies to pay for hidden wooden structural damage caused by hidden decay termites, and those were the two primary things in the collapsing world. Now what's that mean? All these wood buildings that are built out here, and I just cringe when I see them. I see them going up all the time. I know what they're going to be like in five years. If there's no hurricanes, that's fine. Water's going to get in there and termites will follow and the wood will be eaten up, literally eaten up.

Dick Tutwiler:

I have seen it over and over and it takes basically five years for this to happen. And the reason it does happen is because of the poor workmanship when they build these buildings. They don't caulk and they don't seal it up, water gets in it. We're in Florida, high humidity. It's just a disaster waiting to happen. Now, as Warren Buffett said, you're going to find out who's swimming naked when the tide goes down. So here's what that means to this world. When the siding gets blown off, the insurance companies are going to come out and say wait a minute, we don't cover this stuff, this is rotten wood that's not covered in your insurance policy. That's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars, theoretically, if it hits in the right spot. When the stuff gets blown off and the woods all riddled and eaten up, huge, huge deal, the elephant in the room that nobody really talks about and, quite frankly, I don't think they understand the exposure.

George Siegal:

Yeah, we were shocked to see in Mexico Beach everything is being rebuilt with wood, other than a house I featured in my last film. That was concrete poured in place walls. It was concrete block, the entire house. At least the forms were concrete. Now they're doing all wood. And one of the things that amazed me when we talked about building codes Mexico Beach actually made their building code stronger after Hurricane Michael, but then they rescinded it and they went back to free Michael hurricane levels. That's amazing to me. When you get wiped out by a disaster and people complain that the building code is now too tough and they want it relaxed. That's just. I don't know how you could even get insurance for that.

Dick Tutwiler:

Politics, lobbyists, those kinds of things. I mean I don't know specifically what the conversations were up there, but I mean obviously it deals with money. It's cheaper to not do the right thing, to fix, you know, put them back right. And people say, okay, well, we've had our hurricane, we're not going to have another one in my lifetime, so let's just save some money and rescind that building code.

George Siegal:

I don't know how an insurance company would insure it, though is, I guess, what my point is. If you know a hurricane, if you know a Category 5 hurricane wiped you out, that means it's certainly possible for another Category 5 hurricane to hit you. You're not invincible. I would think you would have to raise the building code, not lower it invincible.

Dick Tutwiler:

I would think you would have to raise the building code, not lower it. Well, they did do that and most. I mean Florida has a pretty strict building code. Now people change you know their laws to get around it. You know when it comes time to make a claim, the insurance company may not pay the claim. Yeah, south.

George Siegal:

Florida seems to have the toughest standards. Everybody else.

Dick Tutwiler:

They do now. They absolutely do. But you know, look around the state of Florida how much of this stuff is on the ground and been here before the building codes were changed. The majority, I would say, of the properties in Florida are old properties. Just look what's happening to the condominium world right now. You know you had the collapse of that Surfside building down there. You know, I've seen that. I can't tell you how many places where the rebar gets saltwater in it it rusts and you know, over time things fall down.

Dick Tutwiler:

Insurance companies kept insuring the buildings. They never said anything about it. Now they have put some very strict rules that they have to have the building recertified in a certain amount of time and they have to. The condominium associations have to have the reserves fully funded and it's causing havoc in the condominium world. We can't afford to pay for the reserves and we cannot afford the insurance premium. So what's going to happen? From what I'm reading, developers are going in there and trying to dissolve the old condominium, get the people out, pay them some amount of money and then put up new buildings that they can make more money in. But you know, surfside thing, it was an eye-opener. It shouldn't have been, because you know it's pretty clear that I've seen it all over the state. You build on the water concrete, you put rebar in there, water gets in there over the years, the concrete spalls, it starts cracking, the rebar keeps rusting. It's a prelude for a disaster and we had that disaster happen with the surface matter down there.

George Siegal:

That was awful. I can't even imagine what that was like to be part of that. Now, at what point should somebody consider getting a private insurance adjuster? That's kind of your wheelhouse? Now, At what point would somebody want to say, all right, I can't rely on company X. You know we were using Allstate or State Farm or whatever. I'm going to hire my own person. When should you do that?

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, again it gets back to common sense. I think people when they have a big loss, they look around. They were busy before. They had all kinds of stuff going on in their lives, you know, whatever it may be medical, business, families and now they've got this and they have duties and responsibilities. It says in the policy their duties and responsibilities. Now, most people don't understand that. What does that mean? So a smart person would say can I do this? Is somebody else going to do this for me? Or should I get somebody that knows what they're doing? And to me it's a simple thing. I would get somebody that knows what they're doing to handle this. Now, and what I think is a terrible thing, is what's happening with surplus lines carriers, which is primarily Lloyds and a few here in the country. They're putting in anti-public adjusting clauses in it. They're taking away from the policyholder the same thing they did with the lawyers. They do not want the policyholder to hire public adjusters and they're putting anti-public adjusting clauses in some policies. Can't hire a lawyer, can't hire a public adjuster.

George Siegal:

That seems kind of rough. I mean, you know, because it's less expensive? Isn't it less expensive than an attorney? You guys are what? At 10% of the claim.

Dick Tutwiler:

Typically 10%, 15% and it's all negotiable. You know the statute in Florida on non-emergency is 20%. Emergency claims are capped at 10%. On the 20% daily claims, I'll call them those are all negotiable. There's a lot of competition. So you know you can negotiate a fee that's fair for both parties. But you know, with this anti-public adjusting thing in the policies, I mean the policy owners are going to be standing out there in their shorts and they're going to have to read the policy and figure out what they're going to do, because there's not going to be any help out there Now would I want to first have my insurance company come in and give me their valuation of my loss and then go to the public adjuster?

George Siegal:

I think I said private adjuster, so public adjuster or would I call in the public adjuster first so I know what the base level should be when my insurance company comes out? I mean, a lot of people don't say they might not want to pay for that.

Dick Tutwiler:

That's true, and I would tell a person first of all if it's obvious that your property is a total loss, you don't need to hire me or an attorney. Why should you have us go to the bank with you to get our fee out of the insurance company's check? You don't need somebody.

George Siegal:

The other issue.

Dick Tutwiler:

There's two parts to that question you asked. The other issue is, as I said before, there are things that you are required to do. You cannot just sit down and say okay, mr Insurance Company, you do it all, come up with my loss and tell me what it is. They're not going to do that. You have to do things. So you have to ask yourself can we do this? Do we know how to do it? What are the rules? That's a question you need to ask. The other question, the other issue, is well, I'll sit and wait and see what they do. Okay, how long are you going to wait? Who's going to tell you on the insurance company side what their loss is? Now, if an insurance company has a good and qualified adjuster says I'm going to have somebody out next week, take their word for it, we're going to tell you what we're going to pay you, I'd say, fine, sit down and wait for the guy to do it, but that's not likely to happen Now.

George Siegal:

People also along the whole process, really need to keep very accurate notes of who they spoke with, what was done, because what we found out from attorney David Murray, who we interviewed here in Tampa, that the insurance company doesn't have to give you all those we're recording this conversation to have accurate records. If you end up in a court with them, they don't have to share that with you.

Dick Tutwiler:

And here's another thing they don't have to share with them. If they bring in their when I say experts, such as engineers that they hire, they don't have to give you those reports, and those are very, very critical reports in some cases, you know, do we have to replace the whole roof? Is the building condemned? I mean, the engineer will go in and write a report for the insurance company and give it to them and they are not required to give it to you. So you know when you get back to, should I wait? You want to wait or you want to have somebody come in and do this stuff that knows what they're doing?

George Siegal:

So how do we turn this around? So homeowners recapture. You know it's like upper hand. How do we get our hand back in this whole thing, because it seems like it's not going to get better. If people are, I don't know how you turn back the clock on this stuff.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, actually I had a conversation this morning about this with my son and I reminded him that back in the four storms, the four hurricanes that hit and I think in 45 days, back to back pretty much, you know, the whole world went crazy and the insurance property bit inside of it and people were flooding the legislature with complaints, constantly asking them what is this? I'm hearing from my insurance company. My policy says that I am supposed to get replacement costs. My insurance company is saying no, you need and I think I pointed this out, you need to go read the fine print that tells you when you're going to get replacement costs. But no, it says this right on the front. And I told my agent I wanted this. But no, it says this right on the front. And I told my agent I wanted this.

Dick Tutwiler:

So the voice was so huge that the legislature went in and changed the law that said all policies will pay replacement costs. And when that happened, I was dumbfounded, as were others. How could we file a claim for stuff we had that's 20 years old, it's obsolete, has no value? But the way the legislature changed the law, you got replacement costs. So that went on for three or four years. Things quieted down. Insurance company got back with their lobbyists in Tallahassee. Wipe that out. We're back to the old ways again. So to change it, it's going to take another hurricane, another big hurricane, and then the legislature and all their wisdom will be so undone and undoneated with complaints that they won't listen to the policyholder and they will change it. It's like a ship it's going to turn but it's going to take time. It's going to take a big hurricane. Right now, everything's in their favor.

George Siegal:

Well, our area is supposed to be the next big bullseye. You know we've dodged a lot of bullets here. I was talking to somebody yesterday who said they believe in the old Indian burial ground rumor for the. Tampa area and that we'll never get hit by a major hurricane. And I just I rolled my eyes very obviously. What do you think about all that?

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, I hope so. I hope that old Indian burial ground is still, that maiden is still here and she's protecting us. But I doubt it. I mean, you know we've I had a. I went to a conference a couple of years ago and there was one of the keynote speakers was a Coast Guard Admiral and he had been involved in the Katrina and Sandy. You know running it from a military Coast Guard perspective, and they gave a great presentation. They do a great job. You know they're not biased one way or the other. They're out there trying to do the right thing.

Dick Tutwiler:

But I asked him. I said you know, why don't we? How come we don't get hurricanes so much on the West Coast? The Panhandle gets them up there, but you know the West Coast down. He says, watch, it's changing right now. Things are in the works, in the atmosphere that it's changing. And lo and behold, if you read the predictions now in fact I just saw one this morning that shows this area that they're predicting a high possibility, at least 75%, of a major hurricane. And we're right in that area over here it's like a circle South Florida up to our area. So the experts are predicting that if it hits Fort Lauderdale or something. It's going to cause damage up here, you know, and the big thing up here is well, they're both. I mean, wind is definitely a serious thing, but it's the water, the water, the weight of the water pushing in, pushing in and pushing in, and a gallon of water weighs eight pounds and you've got this force of water pushing in and pushing in and it lasts for days so I wouldn't.

George Siegal:

Yeah, I would encourage anybody listening to google. Um hurricane phoenix scenario. Uh with uh here in tampa. They put out a video showing what a category 5 hurricane would do to this area and it's just staggering the amount of damage we would have over a million homes destroyed, businesses, 2000 people killed. Tampa General on Davis Islands would be underwater 26 feet of water downtown. I mean it's really scary and it is possible.

Dick Tutwiler:

It is possible, although typically you know possible. It is possible, although typically you know it depends on the, how hot or warm the water is. You know we've been saved a lot of times by the because we're further north and the water's a little cooler. But things have changed. You know, the water temperature now is off the charts in the atlantic and it's hot out here in the gulf. So it used to be well. We could get a two or a three, but we're not going to get anything bigger than that because we got this cold water that's protecting us. We got this Indian maiden up here, but everybody's aligned this year that it's going to be a bad year someplace. Yeah, and the zone that I just saw has got this circle around it right across Florida and that it runs from the keys up to where we're at now. You know they could hit up in Katrina, or I mean sorry, in New Orleans, where Katrina you know it's. It's going to hit someplace and it's going to be bad.

George Siegal:

Yeah, and that's the thing. Every time you breathe a sigh of relief when one blows by you, it means somebody else is going to get it, so it's kind of. It doesn't leave you with a real good feeling. So let's put a bow on this. If you're somebody who lives in Florida, or really anywhere in the country, what's the number one thing you can do to put yourself in the best position should a disaster find you?

Dick Tutwiler:

well, when you say disaster, I'm going to keep that in terms of what we talked about hurricane and I think the best thing that you can do what you, what I do and what I have done personally to my house is you need to try to the best of your ability, economically, you need to try to fortify your house. Don't wait for the insurance company to tell you to do that. You need to do it yourself and you know I've gone around my house and put shutters up that come down windows. I mean, you know the old 50 sliding glass doors are horrible and they're. You know there's god knows how many of those are still here and the ones today are like bank vaults.

Dick Tutwiler:

So if you have sliding doors, you know you know, upgrade it to to the new code and you know it's not cheap. But those are the kind of things that you know. I get back to a personal responsibility. Look around and see if you can protect your property. Don't wait for the insurance company, because afterwards you're going to be dealing with the fine print and the process we've been talking about. Try to avoid them to the best of your ability and you know I do see a lot of homes around my area.

Dick Tutwiler:

There are a lot of people that are replacing the roofs, whether it's at the behest of the insurance company or whether they're just using common sense. But you know, those are the things that people need to do proactively before the storm hits Protect your property and then if it's going to be bad enough. You know you need to have some evacuation plan, and I'll just tell you this.

George Siegal:

I hear this all the time.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well, you know, if my house gets destroyed, I'll just go up and rent a house someplace up the street and I'll sell my lot. Guess who the competition is going to be. All your neighbors are looking for that one house that still has a roof on. So you know that's not a good hurricane plan. Y'all just go somewhere up the road, rent a house.

George Siegal:

Yeah, probably not very realistic. And we always say and that's probably the key message in our film the cost of being proactive is much lower than the cost of being reactive. It's a major difference.

Dick Tutwiler:

Well said and I totally agree with that.

George Siegal:

Dick, thank you so much for coming on today. I appreciate your time. I'll give you a heads up way before this film comes out, cause I know you're going to love it. You were great in it.

Dick Tutwiler:

You see it, and thanks for doing it. Hopefully people will, you know, pay attention to what we've talked about and others I know some of the people you've interviewed good people use common sense. The only person that's going to really save you is you yourself.

George Siegal:

That's the truth, Dick. Thank you.

Dick Tutwiler:

My pleasure Good talking with you.

George Siegal:

All of Dick's contact information is in the show notes. Now I know a lot of you listening have experienced all kinds of things as either a homeowner or a renter. There's a contact form in the show notes. Fill it out, send it my way. You could be a guest to share your story on an upcoming podcast. Thanks for taking the time to listen today. I'll see you next time.

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George Siegal

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