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Wellington Florida Real Estate News- Chinese Dry Wall Claims May Get Your Insurance Canceled

Wellington Florida Real Estate News- Chinese Dry Wall Claims May Get Your Insurance Canceled.

It has come to our attention that some homeowners' insurance companies are canceling policies after homeowners make a claim because Chinese Dry Wall was found in their home.

Most developers and builders we know have been taking care of the Chinese Dry Wall issues themselves. Where Chinese Dry Wall has been found, the builders or developers if it is still a new development have been moving families into other homes while they go in and tear out all the Chinese Dry Wall and replace it with code approved and certified dry wall. There are many lawsuits going through the courts right now against builders and developers who are not replacing the dry wall and repairing the damage. Lennar and GL homes are 2 of the builders that are repairing, replacing and re-mediating the issues with Chinese Dry Wall without a cost to the homeowner. In turn, the builders and developers are turning to the manufacturers for recouping some of the expenses.

We are not attorneys so you would need to talk to your attorney first and this post is not giving you legal advice. What we have found many homeowners doing is first getting the builder to replace and repair the Chinese Dry Wall and also getting the builder to pay for their temporary move and storage of their belongings. This way a claim would not have to be made to their insurance company.

Most claims to insurance companies are being denied anyways, because most insurance policies do not cover building material defects and contamination.

The other problem with making a claim to your insurance company is that is now put on your record and your insurance company may not renew your policy unless you totally fix the Chinese Dry Wall issue. So if you don't have the money to fix it and the builder refuses to fix it or you bought the home from a homeowner after their warranty ran out and now can not fix it- you may have a real problem on your hands by your insurance company knowing about it.

Some of the adverse affects of Chinese Dry Wall are health issues such as difficulty in breathing, nosebleeds and headaches. The property issues consist of air conditioning units that stop working and the smell of rotten eggs throughout the house.

The costs to replace the Chinese Dry Wall and the corroding parts of metals and air conditioners and other construction parts- can ring up to 1/3 of the original construction cost.

Thousands of homes here in Florida that were built after the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 contain Chinese Dry Wall. This also happened to be the housing boom time here in Florida and builders were buying dry wall from China that was not approved nor stamped certified to use.

The Florida Senate is holding meetings in Tallahassee to discuss ways in which to help the homeowners. Making the insurance companies cover the claims is not on the table being discussed at this time. Most of the attorneys representing homeowners in lawsuits against their insurance companies argue that no one even knew what Chinese Dry Wall was when homeowners policies were established and to deny their claims because it was not invented is just wrong.

We will stay tuned and follow this story to see how it all turns out and bring you the breaking Wellington Florida Real Estate News.

FTC Disclosure: While there is no outright solicitation in this post nor in the intent of this post and it is written for informational purposes we may end up getting a listing or a buyer that contacts us because they are a reader of our blog or they happen upon this post as they search on the internet for information. There is a chance that we may gain some type of benefit known or unknown from writing this post. Hmmm, wondering if this covers enough of the vagueness of the new FTC rule on disclosure of business relationships that may be, could be or may one day be formed through writing this post.

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Wellington Florida Real Estate News- Chinese Dry Wall Claims May Get Your Insurance Canceled. -was first published on South- Florida-Luxury-Living.com.

Posted by Nestor & Katerina Gasset Realtors® Wellington Florida Luxury Homes on 10/11/2009 07:00 PM

Comments (13)

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Originally posted at: South Florida Real Estate and...: Wellington Florida Real Estate News- Chinese Dry Wall Claims May Get Your Insurance Canceled

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13 Comments on Wellington Florida Real Estate News- Chinese Dry Wall Claims May Get Your Insurance Canceled

OCT

Nice alert for the consumers. Also nice to see that a couple of the builders are taking care of things.

Krista- The google juice question was too complicated to answer in a comment that you asked on the last post about the realbird photo wall. Each one of the photos can be tagged with an alt 1 image tag which are found by the search engines. That is one, then the other is that facebook fan pages are going to be if not already searchable and indexed by search engines. Katerina

OCT

This would be funny if it were not so sad.

One thing I learned long ago is that the last thing one wants to do is make an insurance claim.

All it does is target you for increased premiums or cancellation. Or, in the case of home owners' insurance, get you flagged in C.L.U.E.

Hello Katerina, thanks for the update on this item. This could be a real problem for property owners if they have it and don't even know it is "hiding" in plain view. John

Lenn- Isn't that just the most lame thing- pay for insurance and then fear ever having to use it because you may get punished with higher premiums! What a scam!

John- We have a Chinese drywall disclosure here in Florida. It is now a part of our disclosures. We encourage buyers to get inspections for it.

OCT

How sad that homeowners have one more thing to worry about. I understand that insurance companies must to reduce their risk, but they are pretty quick to pull the rug out from under loyal customers who have paid their premiums for years.

OCT

Katerina, I was going to say what Lenn said about the CLUE report. A house can be denied by the company for a new buyer because of previous claims. We had to arrange for Lloyd's of London to insure a home in Cassellberry a few years ago because the Seller had unknowingly submitted 4 small claims on her policy.

It's not surprising that insurance companies would do this for Chinese Drywall claims. They really are not on the side of the insured when there is a claim.

OCT

Love your FTC Disclosure! Maybe insurance companies should be required to make one as well...

NOTICE: Just because you have paid for and believe that the insurance policy we have offered and you have accepted will cover you for unforeseen eventualities, does not preclude us from refusing to pay for whatever we don't want to pay for or from raising your rates or reporting you to ensure that you are never again able to take advantage of an insurance company by filing a claim against us! What did we ever do to you?!

Katerina, I have a Realtor friend in Williamsburg that is dealing with Chinese Drywall in a subdivision there. It is not pretty and it is VERY expensive.

Love you FTC disclosure.

My husband is an attorney and does construction defect work and said Chinese Drywall is coming up more and more and is a hot topic in the CLE (Continued Legal Ed) courses.

Thanks for noticing my FTC disclosure. I am going to make a new one for each type of post I write to keep on showing the absurdity to which we have to stoop in disclosure. Reminds me of that lady who spilled McDonalds coffee on herself and wins in court. Now McDonalds has to disclose to you that their coffee is hot! No personal responsibility, no personal accountability, no personal due diligence required. Katerina

Sharon- I wonder what about the hurricane claims? I made a hurricane claim after Wilma damaged our home. Good thing we are not planning on selling our home. I have never liked insurance, a necessary evil I always thought.

As for the Chinese drywall- yes, it is getting worse because more is being discovered. I have some more information I found that I will post about that our board and FAR legal has come out with. Katerina

Just awful-home owners lose again! BTW, I did spill wine on myself while learning by reading your post...can I get anything for that?

Wow - eye opening information and certainly a big potential problem especially if a builder or developer declares bankruptcy.

Jane- Ah yes, something for everyone for every thing.

The most stupid law suit ever that takes the cake is the one where the man bought a motor home. He was driving his motor home. He put his motor home on auto pilot and got up and walked to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Of course the motor home ran off the road. He sued the manufacturer! WHAT! Yes, he said that the manual did not tell him that the motor home could not drive on its own! I can't believe he won. They had to add a section to the operating manual, this motor home does not drive by itself, do not leave the drivers seat while driving or while in motion!

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