Public Mediation

My Claim vs. American Family Insurance company Dispute

J. M. vs. American Family Insurance Group
6000 American Parkway, Madison, Wisconsin, 53783-0002, United States
    • Status: In Negotiation
      This claim has posted for public comment and negotiation. It will remain posted until resolved to the claimant's satisfaction. Suggest a resolution to help these parties reach a settlement.
      (seeking public comment)
    • Claimant Seeks: View.
    • Claim #: 2573043
    • Amount Involved: 120,000.00
    • Filed On: Apr 28, 2014
    • Posted On: May 16, 2014
    • Complaint(s):
      • "I just feel ripped off."
      • Overcharge or billing error
      • Contract / Agreement / Promise dispute
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Statement of Claim
Claimant says:
"I was a victim in the Yarnell Arizona Fire of June 2013 last year, that took the lives of 19 firemen, I was covered by my Insurance company which was American Family, I did not lose my house, however I did have property damage. They have paid for some but there is still more that has not been taken care of, my personal items which were lost, the cleanup, and the vegetation which was destroyed in the fire. My policy is about to be terminated in May they sent me notice a month or so ago that they would not be reinstating my policy, which led me to find insurance else where, needless to say it was not an easy task, apparently American Family was putting on some sites for other insurance companies to view false information regarding my claim, mostly in the amount for which they have already paid me, the amounts kept growing higher, however I did not see these checks. I had the state commissioner look into it, and it seemed to be resolved around 3/17/2014, however soon after he took himself out of the picture it was all back out there again. The good news, I did finally find an insurance company to insure me, however, they still owe me my money for this fire claim , and I feel its been long enough waiting on this to be resolved. I do not know what their game is, it's been more like self gain for them and not looking out for me , I have a public adjuster as well on this matter and have had no contact or word either from him on this matter, I don't have sufficient funds to go and hire a lawyer now to get another party involved so maybe this can help. I hope so. I paid for this insurance to have when I needed it and now I expect to have it because I do need it to move on ."
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Additional Communication Between Claimant and American Family Insurance Group Hide
  • May 18, 2014, () added:
  • I did receive a letter from the CEO of American Family INSURANCE GROUP ,after the letter in which People claim sent off for me , it had a lot of useful information in it and suggested at this point I contact my public adjuster which is also involved to act upon getting this matter resolved while there is still time to do so , the yarnell fire was june 30th 2013 , so we will be coming up on a year , I will keep this site updated when I know more or what is going to be done , I did contact the public adjuster , and I thank people claim for helping me get it to this point , its encouraging at least now , someone has responded , and also the CEO OF AMERICAN FAMILY for sending a very helpful and informative letter

  • May 19, 2014, Claiming party added:
  • I REALIZE THAT American Family , would like me to mark the box here resolved because they sent me a letter with helpful information , which I am using , however until I receive the money which is owed to me it will remain open , I have contacted the public adjuster to get working on this claim so it can be settled , but have not heard anything yet , again until I receive all monies pertaining to this fire claim it will remain unresolved and stay right here , thank you , Johanna Montgomery , yes I want it resolved as well and soon .

  • Jun 01, 2014, () added:
  • I just want to say that we are now in the month of June , it will be a year at the end of this month that we had the Yarnell Fire which took the lives of 19 firemen , along with hundreds of homes , there is still no further contact from anyone regarding this settlement , I have again reached out to the public adjuster involved in this reminding him of the time period , I do not understand any of these adjusters being public or with the insurance company , during any disaster one would think that getting the matter settled and resolved as quickly as one can would be a priority for everyone . This is fire sesason here in Arizona and California also is being hit hard , my advise to anyone faced with this kind of disaster would be to take your time , do not rush into making any decisions , when you are allowed back into your home , people start contacting you and coming from every where once something like this occurs , it is over whelming , there are many who sincerely care and want to help but also ones that will delay the process of getting something done after the fact . The other thing I learned in being involved in this disaster is to stay away from insurance companies which advertise on tv or other media channels , those cute tunes and ads will pull you in . Remember the old saying if it sounds too good to be true it probably is , I have two adjusters on this claim as far as I am concerned neither of them care about my loss , or they would have reached some kind of agreement by now and had this settled and closed .Shame on all parties , being faced with any disaster is a horrifying experience which scars you for life , prolonging any settlement only adds more pain and suffering , where is the compassion , humanity , lets gettttttttttttttttttttttrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrdone people !

  • Jun 24, 2014, Claiming party added:
  • I t is coming up , the end of this month a year anniversary to the Yarnell Az , fire which has now become the worst fire killing 19 firemen , I am still waiting for a resolution to my claim from American Family Insurance company , hopefully it will be resolved by the anniversary date , I hear it is being communicated by all parties involved , but have seen nor heard recently that any changes are in progress , mean time I still wait , as many here in Yarnell are doing because so many insurance companies have failed to meet their timely needs , and we are gearing up here in Yarnell for this anniversary date for many different events , one being addressing this specific problem , myself and others faced with this should not have had to wait a year in getting their matters addressed , this fire was caused by a lightening strike that should of had immediate attention , but instead went unattended for days and destroyed homes and killed 19 brave firemen , American FAMILY advertises , about making ones dreams happen , well it wasn,t my dream to have a wildfire come thru my place and destroy my property , nor is it my dream to live with looking at this destruction every day since , I also want to say this site is awesome , before I found it there was nothing at all happening with my claim , at least there is some communicating , if they really wanted it to go away I think someone could step up and say lets get this done to the adjusters involved in this and be settled , so we all could live our happy dreams , if this claim is not resolved by the end of this month , I will be back , and we will proceed further to get it to satisfaction .

  • Jul 07, 2014, Claiming party added:
  • I have an update as to what is happening with this claim at this point , today July 7th,2014 , I spoke to the public adjuster this morning about this matter and he told me that basically we are done , there is some monies to claim if and when I get the work done concerning the roof and air conditioning system on the house itself , but told me that Mr Brent Bowen and himself , have worked so diligently thru out this past year on this matter that there is no place else to go with it , I am not pleased at these results obviously , but feel backed up against a wall by a group of bullies handling the situation so I do not see a mutual agreement being reached here , there are still unanswered questions out there , number one being that I still never got paid for my personal belongings lost in the guest house , yes American Family did send me a check for that , but I did not accept it and sent it back to Mr Jim O,TOOLE UNSIGNED , he was to dispute the amount , I never heard any more about that , American Family I was told says all checks they sent out were cashed , I do not know what happened to the one I did not sign and sent back to him , if it was signed it was not signed by me , and I did not see any of the money from it , I suppose now I am just suppose to turn my head and let it go as lost and forgotten , the check was for the personal items , it was one of the largest sent out , it was either 14,000 or 16,000 dollars however not enough in my opinion for the personal , so it is a lot of money regardless to just ignore and forget about , especially since someone else took it upon themselves to keep , there is also the question of Mr Brent Bowen stating that my home here suffered no smoke damage , he was up here , and even now whenever anyone comes up they can still see how close the actual fire was to my house , only inches , it is extremely a miracle that the house did not burn , but smoke damage , it was too close to have not suffered any , instead he thought it was all nicotine , however the color is different with nicotine than an actual fire , there was blackened soot on the walls in here and else where , that did not come from nicotine , and last but not least just the way American Family inserted everything into each bundle with the checks they paid out , when my stubs only said payment for building , or AC payment whatever , now there is an entire list of things that are or were included in them checks , like everything , this is just another example of dirty under hand business practices in our system , like the VA Hospitals scandal , and the Child Protection Agency , and the Yarnell FIRE , STILL TO BE INVESTIGATED , for conspiracy , wrong communication , and other things that were and are held back , it is a shame that this goes on , just so some people out there will not get the care or money they deserve , but big business and governments can and do , I would like to remove this claim and say it is resolved but just can,t bring myself to do it yet , it may not bring the results I expected it to but I do see some holes here to fix yet and until I receive what ever little amount of money to be paid to me , I will not be taking it off this site or others , this kind of greedy , inhumane actions need to be cleaned out of business and government , other insurance companies have done the same thing to people in the Yarnell Fire particularly , so not necessary , I have sent an e-mail to Mr Bowen , and to Mr O,Toole as well concerning my question regarding the check that I never cashed and where it is ? , but I have to wait for people to get back from their vacations and such to have this matter taken care of so it may be another year yet or so before we get to the bottom of this one , it just is not important enough because of the total amount we are talking about here , to get it resolved sooner .However these kind of business practices are something to get involved with , so they don,t continue to happen to others .

  • Jul 08, 2014, () added:
  • I want to add that I have decided to contact all news channels in the state of AZ, to check into this matter , to see what happened to the check which was sent back , the one I never signed and sent back , American family says all checks they paid out were cashed well there is one out there that someone else did obviously and it was not me , that is money I should have received towards my personal items lost in this fire and its not one I want to see just ignored maybe someone from one of the news channels can find out what happened to it ,

  • Jul 20, 2014, Claiming party added:
  • I just want to update where we are at this point , I have not heard anything since my last conversation with the public adjuster on this claim , several weeks ago , nothing seems to be moving and have yet to receive any kind of settlement , I have sent out a few more contacts hoping someone can do something to get this moving along , there is still the matter of the check that I did not sign and sent back , the insurance company says they have all checks and signed , but one is not my signature and I still do not know answers as to who signed and cashed it ? , where is the money for my personal items lost ? , and when do I see my money ? , it is fraud if there is a check in their possession and its not me , also I do not believe its fair nor right to hold some ones money hostage , its like an act of terrorism , waiting for the homeowner to replace items , where they can no longer be replaced , or have things fixed and worked on before they pay you the money , this company has been from the start deceiving and unwilling to work with me , so why should I think now they would be anything different , it only gets worst not better , I am now not getting any help from the public adjuster either looks like , but he would certainly be around for his commission though I am sure , I really feel bad that anyone has to go thru all of this when you are devastated enough by a disaster of this nature , remember the yarnell fire was caused by a lightening strike , and killed 19 firemen , its still being investigated , insurance companies should be there for the people that have them we pay for it , but instead more and more of them are choosing to divert to tactics like American Family and take more in place of giving back in time of need , I thought this would be better news like its settled but its not , I will continue to keep it updated , even if I am not going to get anything back for my legitimate claim , I will still keep this alive simply because I do not want to see it happen to anyone else its a nightmare .

What Claimant Wants Hide
1. Compensation: cleanup of debris from fire and vegetation lost in fire Apr 30, 2014 $30,000.00
2. Payment due: yarnell fire claim in 2013 Apr 30, 2014 $60,000.00
3. Damages: carport to be taken down and hauled away Apr 30, 2014 $10,000.00
4. Recovery of Losses: all personal items lost Apr 30, 2014 $20,000.00
Cash total : $120,000.00
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Respondent's Counteroffer


There has been no response to this claim from American Family Insurance Group. This claim will remain posted until resolved
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  • Question: by Jessica Lothman (606 points) — Marquette University Law Student
  • On: 04-29-2017
  • How much of the above listed amount has already been paid? Are all these claims unpaid at this point?
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