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Light Drizzle Fog FEMA reopens Sandy insurance claims
Schumer calls review process a 'new start'
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer has announced the details of a new insurance claim review process that is designed to benefit thousands of homeowners who were underpaid after Hurricane Sandy.
Schumer’s announcement, last Friday in Long Beach, came as the Federal Emergency Management Agency has begun reviewing flood insurance claims amid allegations that engineering reports were doctored. More than 2,000 Sandy victims in New York and New Jersey took legal action against their insurance companies after they received what they called “lowball” estimates for repairs.
The issue gained national media attention when U.S. Magistrate Judge Gary Brown issued a scathing ruling in November that U.S. Forensic, an engineering company hired by the Wright National Flood Insurance Company, had “unjustly frustrated efforts” by two Long Beach homeowners, Deborah Raimey and her husband, Bob Kaible, who sought a damage claim after their home was destroyed in the storm. Brown ordered that insurance carriers and engineering companies in all Sandy lawsuits provide property owners with copies of all reports on their homes and businesses, including any drafts and photographs.
FEMA, which administers the National Flood Insurance Program, recently agreed to settle 2,200 outstanding claims, and announced in March that it would reopen all Sandy claims for review.
At a May 29 press conference at City Hall, Schumer, joined by Brad Kieserman, FEMA’s deputy associate administrator for federal insurance, and members of local families affected by the storm, described the new review process as a “new start.”
FEMA will revisit all 144,000 Sandy-related insurance claims, not just those of the approximately 2,000 policyholders that filed suit, Kieserman said.
“We all know now — unfortunately — that policyholders have been put through the wringer by insurance companies that outrageously denied and underpaid the flood insurance claims of countless Superstorm Sandy victims,” Schumer said. “It’s totally unfair to say you’re in if you filed suit and you’re out if you didn’t. Because the overwhelming majority of people that were victimized didn’t file suit.”
