On October 25, 2010 a main water line was discovered to have burst in a second floor unit allowing for large amounts of water to enter into the first floor unit for an unspecified period of time.  Water was pouring out of the ceiling light fixtures and air vents causing direct physical damage to the kitchen cabinets, appliances, bedrooms and closets, carpeting, vanities, closet doors, sliding doors, doorway jams, crown moldings, and personal property located all throughout the unit.  

The owner who was an accountant residing in Pennsylvania immediately retained the services of public adjuster, Rick Tutwiler to help assist him with the preparation of his insurance claim.  Noting the severity of the loss, Mr. Tutwiler took his time to accurately assess the damage and also enlisted the help of multiple experts to render their professional opinions on items such as the kitchen cabinetry and appliances to see if they could be salvaged before submitting the claim to the insurance company.

To the contrary, the insurance company adjuster spent little time in estimating the loss and a check was issued to the insured in the amount of $6,209.67 accounting for minimal repairs before closing the claim file with out notice.  

Many weeks went by until Mr. Tutwiler was able to get the insurance company to assign a new field adjuster to the claim and the claim manger handling the claim in house for the insurance carrier was uncooperative and unprofessional at best.

During a reinspection, the reassigned field adjuster, confirmed that there were additional damages previously unaccounted for and agreed with Mr. Tutwiler on his scope of repair. The field adjuster stated that he would revise and prepare a new estimate however, when it was completed the claim manager would not provide a copy to the insured or Mr. Tutwiler, reasons unknown.

With no way to determine what the outstanding differences were Mr. Tutwiler attempted to invoke the appraisal process only to be completely ignored by the in-house claim manager. Mr. Tutwiler then recommended that the insured seek legal advice as to how he should proceed and not long after a Civil Remedy Notice of Insurer Violations was filed with the Florida Department of Financial Services the claims manager quickly called with a global settlement offer of $50,000.00 for the unit repairs. This was $43,790.33 more than the insurance carrier's initial offer and was sufficient enough for the insured to fully repair all the damages inside his unit.