[StBernard] mediation

[Westley Annis]

Wendy,

My husband and I went through mediation process for a small little older 
summer home we had in Waveland, MS.. It was an older house, it survived 
Camille and it was small.  It was close to the beach so the house was pretty

much gone, we had several very large pine trees on the lot and you could see

remanants of the house underneath the trees and the water had washed most of

the debris away.  My advise to your friend is to be as prepared as possible,

don't show up there with nothing.  Have a folder with some evidence, such as

pictures, internet research, engineer's report, etc...  What ever you can 
bring to support your position.  We had a folder with as much informaiton as

we could gather and we also had our snap shots blown up to 8 x 10 ( go to 
Wal-mart for this) and they really did make an impact.  We had the engineers

report in our favor (wind damage).  I'm assuming your friend is trying to 
get her wind policy to pay it's fair share. Go dressed nicely like you would

be going to court.  Talk nicely and professionally and keep your cool.  It 
is like dealing with adjusters, that's all they are.  Just like you are 
already used to dealing with, you just have to make your case and be firm.  
It took us about 3 hours but we got $26,000 when they originally wouldn't 
pay a cent.  They denied all wind coverage compleately in Mississippi. 
(State Farm) We spent about $500 on the report and picture, the rest our 
supporting evidence was printed from the internet.  The insurance company 
will start off my giving you their condolences and saying how sorry they are

but your policy just does not afford coverage to you for this event.  Then 
you can say why it does afford coverage for this event. Be frim and positive

yourself.  Read and know your policy.  I know it can be hard to understand 
the policy, but you have to try to counter what they will say. Bring the 
policy if you have it and highlight the areas that you think give you the 
coverage if you need to point that out to them. Tell them over and over 
again that the eye, the most powerful part of the storm, pasted directly 
over St. Bernard Parish.  Tell them that even if the levees had never 
failed, you would surely have had at least xxx amount of dollars of damage 
from a storm of this size and intensity. Tell them that they are hiding 
behind flood and using that as an excuse to get out of their contract and 
obligation they have to you and they are not acting in good faith. If they 
tell you they cannot pay for anything below the water line, counter that 
that is arbitrary and capricious and they are not supposed to act in that 
manner but rather look at your property and what actually happened to your 
property, not your neighbor's or anyone else, you are paying for insurance 
coverage on your property. Just counter whatever they say.  If they don't 
want to pay for fences, find a reason for them to pay for fences.  My reason

was to tell them that my brother, that lives in St. Tammany, had no flood 
water but virtually every fence in the area was down, I said that  supports 
the fact that the wind was more than strong enough to knock down a fence, if

you have a picture of of any downed fences, that would be good.  They also 
may put you in separate rooms and the arbitrator will go back and forth. 
This helps cause you can talk more freely.  I hope this helps.  I also got 
my mother in law $10,000 more on her wind using the same arguments and 
method.

Laurie