Homeowners Choice

Insurance that does not pay claims is worth nothing. Homeowners Choice Insurance uses a third-party adjuster, Griston. The desk adjuster at Griston is either trained to automatically say "Claim Denied" like a broken record, or he simply does not have the cognitive ability to read and comprehend the written word. I believe he does not even read half of what is provided to him. Yes, I'm talking about you, Joe. This company knows that Florida law has changed and policyholders can no longer recover attorney's fees in their lawsuit. Therefore, even if you can find an attorney to take your case, you will likely not recover enough compensation to make a lawsuit worth your while. Homeowners Choice and Griston are taking your premium money and providing no compensation for your loss. They should not be allowed to sell insurance. I hope they go out of business.

Before we start, here's a quote from a Policy Genius review in the Cons category:
"Homeowners Choice receives nearly six times the number of complaints than other insurers of its size."

Here's our review.

1. The Skinny: Know who you're talking to. HCPCI farms out claims to a wholly-owned middleman subsidiary, Griston Claims.

In-Depth: The claims phone number on the HCPCI website is for a different company, Griston Claims Services. Griston is a profit-making middleman. HCPCI takes your premium check. Griston uses HCPCI emails as if they're HCPCI employees. I only found this out by finding an SEC report online. It's a pretty clever setup for HCPCI because it's incredibly difficult to know you're communicating with a different company. Griston's website is nothing more than a recruiting page. The only contact information is [email protected].

2. The Skinny: Adjusters make money by saving Griston money. It shares the same business and employment model as contractor sales.

In-Depth: The adjuster you speak with may not even be a Griston employee. An address like xperson@hcpci may belong to a self-employed subcontractor, working on a bonus or commission model. This is known as a 1099 contractor position. Here's an example job description from a Field Adjuster job advertisement: "Job Types: Full-time, Part-time, Contract, Commission. Pay: $125.00 - $1,000.00 per day. Expected hours: 20 per week." The business model incentivizes an employee or independent contractor to pay out as little as possible. The less they pay you, the more they earn. It's a negotiation from the start. They'll whittle down one line item at a time. They may concede one item and expect you to concede another in return. It's a tug-of-war for money, and they have an entire series of companies on their end of the rope.

3. The Skinny: Hiding information.

In-Depth: The adjuster won't share the engineering report or other documentation that verifies how they arrived at their figures. Upon repeated requests, our adjuster said, "We don't provide internal business details." We simply wanted to be on the same page as the adjuster. Additionally, they won't provide their supervisor's contact information. We had to call Human Resources to find the supervisor's email and phone number.

4. The Skinny: Here's an example.

In-Depth: The adjuster repeatedly referenced their engineering report, stating they would pay for one window instead of five. All five windows continue to leak when it rains. Our adjuster said, "Our engineering report indicates there's only one window that needs to be replaced." We responded, "We live here, and we can see rain leaking through all five windows." After extensive back-and-forth, the adjuster offered to pay for two windows. This proves that it's merely a negotiation game. How did she decide on two windows? If the engineering report specified one window, as she claimed, then why offer to replace two? What does the engineering report actually say? Where's the data, and why can't we see it?

5. The Skinny: Your final destination is the Marketing Department.

In-Depth: When examining one-star reviews on Policy Genius and other review sites, it's the marketing department that responds to your complaints. This is the closing sentence in all of HCPCI's Policy Genius reviews: "Please reach out to us with your policy and claim number so that we may work to resolve this issue promptly." Shout out to the marketing team. We'll resolve this issue if you pay us the equivalent of the contractor's invoice: $50,860.

6. The Skinny: Always be respectful.

In-Depth: Our claim began with a contractor joining the speakerphone conversations with the adjuster. Both the contractor and adjuster were rude, loud, and disrespectful. We took over the conversation, determined to de-escalate the tone. Unfortunately, although the noise level subsided without the contractor, the adjuster continued to speak over us, failing to be professional and respectful. While arranging another day and time to continue the conversation, she neglected to listen when we mentioned my client's son's funeral the next day. Instead, she asked us to continue the conversation during the time of the funeral. It was very difficult to remain calm, but we managed. We realized the contractor wasn't the only person to blame for the poor communication.

7. HCPCI/Griston deserves the Policy Genius review we quoted earlier: "Homeowners Choice receives nearly six times the number of complaints than other insurers of its size." We've been dealing with this for 17 months after the hurricane. It's time for HCPCI to grow massive profits by not fulfilling its end of the home insurance agreement. Once again, dear marketing department: The resolution is a check for $50,860.

Thank you to all for reading this review.

We have had nothing but problems with Homeowner's Choice. First of all, they outsource the claim process to an outfit called Griston Claims, which is already a problem, because now I'm dealing with a third-party who is only responsive 50% of the time, and when they do respond, they do not have any answers. My initial adjuster who came out to see our damage came back with an erroneous estimate that did not include walls or ceilings (which were the components of my condo that were mostly damaged). It took almost two months to finally resolve that. Now they are telling me my contents are not covered, although I had $30k in personal property coverage. I cannot understand how our condo infrastructure (walls, ceilings, floors, etc.) was covered but not the contents? And all that was damaged was a bed. And they will not cover. The process has been a nightmare. DO NOT go with Homeowner's Choice. When I called Homeowner's Choice they were not helpful whatsoever, and just referred me back to my unresponsive person at Griston Claims. I am at their mercy, it appears, and do not know what my recourse is.

Homeowners Choice-Every homeowners nightmare
9/29/20 Claim #: 907115 opened with Homeowners Choice.We own a duplex. (1 parcel, 2 dwellings) Advanced Dry (AD) arrives to start clean up of Cat 3 Septic water. Insurance adjuster arrives within a week. 8 weeks later, the desk adjuster William Marulanda notifies us that HC established coverage for damages and Loss of Use(LOU). A check in the amount of $42K was sent out as well as only One month loss of use. Noble Public Adjusters (NPA) hired. Air Quality Testing shows that both sides of our home to be health hazards; as mold dangerous black mold has set in. We have to live on the side that is the least hazardous.
11/18/20- 14 day demand for response to Proof of Loss and Estimate sent to HC. No response.
2/2/21- 14 Day Demand to pay sent to HC. Estimated damages and LOU: 150K. No response except for HC stating that our insurance policy was going to be cancelled in May when we were due to renew our policy. It is virtually impossible to find a homeowners insurance policy with an open claim.
On 2/22/21-Civil Remedy Notice of Insurer Violations(CRN) filed with the Department of Financial Services. William’s boss, John Petrulis contacted multiple times, request received that HC wants complete an inspection, again asking for an additional info that does not exist. HC contacted multiple times to schedule the inspection, to no avail.
We have utilized the initial payment to remediate the damage on one side of our home. We are at a standstill.
We have not received any additional payments or attempts from HC to negotiate our claim. We’re preparing to take them to court.
HC has not met their contractual obligations as it relates to this claim. I believe that HC is trying to “wait us out”, in hopes that the financial & emotional strain will cause us to accept a low ball offer out of desperation. They have at the very least, skirted the law, caused undue hardship & continue to stall resolution of our claim.
Save yourself the frustration, aggravation, & financial burden that has been placed upon us. Homeowners Choice, by their own actions, have proven themselves to be a very BAD insurance company.

The drain to my kitchen sink broke and caused damage to many of the cabinets. After some negotiation, Homeowners Choice did the right thing and restored my kitchen to the way it was before the damage.

I sold my home and got a premium partial refund. I lost the check and now cannot get another. They won't even communicate with me about it. Horrible service and I've been with them for many years. I'm going to buy another home but will look elsewhere for coverage.

Claim # 902945 deductible $2500
Policy # HCPCI-489545 HO-3
Effective Date 4/1/2020-4/1/2021
DOL (date of loss) 6/9/2020
CEO: Paresh Patel
Today’s date July 17th
My Email: [email protected]
Insurance servicer: str8line
Loss type: Cast Iron pipe failure, water damage
Approximate loss in US dollars: $65,345 billable work

Policy has been migrated from Anchor insurance to Homeowners Choice. HCPCI

My policy transfer states a NO renew with Homeowners choice HCPCI.

The claim coverage status deadline is the week of July, 21st 2020 per claim examiner. The cancellation date of my policy is the 28th of July, 2020

I cannot open a new policy with a open claim or my home in a state of Loss. I’ll be forced to open a risk policy.

If my legitimate and justified claim is denied or underpaid this will be the first step of many to seek reimbursement and reconciliation.

BBB, Fl office of insurance regulation, social media, a full release of all documentation, legal team services, Fl commission of Ethics. Release of Names of all contacts titles and addresses, a drove of reviews, cross platform reviews, shareable links to all data including all engineering, and professional investigation reports. All reports from HCPCI will be made as discoveries.
Etc........

If Homeowners Choice restores my insured investment whole on this claim I will promote this company’s coverage indemnity and products finally deleting this review.
This review will be changed to 5 stars with a stellar recommendation and we never will need to do business again since there is a no renew clause already.

We had a policy with them for homeowners insurance for many years. Never had a problem or a claim, but when the markets and property values crashed here I did have to call them to go over coverage. We were still paying for the inflated value of before the crash so I had to get it adjusted downward to the realistic value. This wasn't their fault though, since some areas in our state got zapped a lot worse than others as far as value goes. Luckily we never needed to make a claim, but the people on the phone were always nice, and I could tell they hired only people who knew what they were doing. I never spoke to anyone who needed to put me on hold to answer a question, which put me at ease.