May 28, 2024 • 51 mins
May 28, 2024
137. From Confusion to Clarity: Insurance Insights Unveiled with Dick Tutwiler
Unravel the mysteries of homeowner's insurance with industry expert Dick Tutwiler. This conversation empowers you with critical knowledge, guiding you from confusion to clarity. We explore the evolution of insurance contracts, especially in Florida, where policy changes often disadvantage homeowners. Dick, a seasoned public adjuster, shares essential steps for mitigating damage and navigating the insurance claim process post-disaster.
We address the challenges posed by inexperienced adjusters and insufficient state resources. Legal complexities and the importance of working with licensed professionals are discussed. We also delve into legislative changes in Florida that favor the insurance lobby, affecting homeowners' rights. The discussion includes the impact of AI and drones in damage assessment and the implications of building practices and code changes on insurance coverage.
Concluding with advice on hiring private insurance adjusters and maintaining crucial records, this conversation aims to protect your most valuable asset.
Here’s how you can follow or reach Dick:
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dicktutwiler
Website: www.PublicAdjuster.com
Email: tutwiler@publicadjuster.com
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Website: https://homeownersbeaware.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/
If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:
https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact
Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
George Siegal (00:00):
If you've ever had to file a homeowner's
insurance claim, you might havelearned how it can be a very
challenging process, especiallyin the wake of a major disaster.
Well, today you're going tolearn how to make the best of a
bad situation.
My guest is Dick Tutwiler,founder and CEO of Tutwiler
Associates.
With a distinguished careerthat started at Travelers
(00:20):
Insurance Company, dick bringsdeep expertise in the claims
settlement process.
His journey from an industryinsider to a dedicated public
adjuster highlights hiscommitment to advocating for
policyholders.
Join us as we delve into Dick'swealth of experience and
uncover crucial insights forproperty owners and business
professionals that arenavigating insurance claims.
(00:44):
I'm George Siegal, and this isHomeowners Be Aware the podcast
that teaches you everything youneed to know about being a
homeowner.
Dick, thank you so much forjoining me today.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you for having me Now.
You ended up being a big playerin our documentary film Built
to Last Buy or Beware.
I know it's not out yet, so youhaven't seen it, but you said
(01:06):
some very important things and Icame away from the film with a
sense of insurance is not reallythe insurance that I think it
is.
Tell people why they need toreally be concerned about that
policy that they think is goingto be their stopgap lifesaver.
Dick Tutwiler (01:27):
Well, first of all let me just say this.
I would say 99.9% of peopledon't read their insurance
policy, don't understand what'sin it.
And if they read it five or 10years ago and they were
fortunate enough to stay withthe same insurance company, very
(01:48):
likely what they had five oreven three years ago is not what
they have now.
So insurance is drasticallychanged in Florida over the
years and it's not none of thatchange is beneficial to the
policyholder.
They call an insurance contracta policy of adhesion.
(02:11):
They wrote the policy so theyput the stuff in the policy.
Now in certain cases, if theywant to change endorsements to
the policy, theoreticallythey're supposed to get it
improved by the folks up inTallahassee.
But who reads that stuff?
Nobody reads it.
(02:32):
And I know very I've had very,very sophisticated clients over
the years commercial andhomeowners and they have no clue
what's in that policy.
And even worse is their agentand broker.
Typically, unless they havesome sophisticated risk
management people which mostpeople don't have, they don't
(02:54):
know what's in that policy.
They don't know the dynamics ofwhat happens after a loss.
You know what happens, who doeswhat, who has the authority to
do what.
You know what happens, who doeswhat?
Who has the authority to dowhat?
So you know, people are totallyblind when it comes to
insurance, in this state and inevery other state, in my opinion
.
George Siegal (03:13):
So whenever I'm signing something whether it's
at the doctor's office, whetherit's an insurance form, whatever
it is and I'm always thinking,ok, if I question this, they're
not going to rewrite it for me,they're not going to change
anything.
So even if I question this,they're not going to rewrite it
for me, they're not going tochange anything.
So even if I read that policyand I found out how bad it was,
what are my options?
Because I know here in Floridathere aren't a lot of them.
So if I read that policy and itsays you're not covered for X,
(03:34):
y and Z, where am I going tofind coverage for X, Y and Z?
That's going to make me happy.
Dick Tutwiler (03:41):
Well, you got to understand what you don't have.
You got to understand that thispolicy doesn't cover things.
And you're not going to knowthat because and here's a prime
example Insurance over you knowseveral, I would say 100 years
went from a policy which wascalled the New York Fire Policy
(04:02):
and it had 100 and I think 59lines of coverage and it was all
geared for fire losses and itstated very clearly what was in
the policy.
A common man, if he could read100 years ago, could read that
and probably understand what itsays.
Over the years the insuranceindustry realized that, hey, you
(04:24):
know, this is a great business,you know we can take all this
money in and we only have to payout a little bit of money,
drips and drabs as we go along.
So guess what?
The competitors figured thatout.
So then they started addingthings to policies, to policies,
(04:49):
and you know it went from ACVcoverage, which means you want
to get the actual cash valuecoverage, to replacement cost
coverage and they startedinsuring this and that and all
that was pretty much favorableto the policyholder until
Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992.
And I hate to keep bringingthat up, but the fact of the
matter is that was a sea changein the world of insurance.
(05:13):
Because insurance companiessuddenly realized they had all
this exposure and they had allthese policies with these terms
out there that were somewhatfavorable to the policyholder.
And they did that.
Why?
Competition?
All state wanted to beat statefarms, state farm wanted to beat
metropolitan, and so on and soon.
(05:35):
But Andrew changed all that.
So then the insurance companiesstarted looking at well, first
of all, we don't want to be hereanymore.
That was their first out.
And they created what's calledpup companies.
And not to get too far in theweeds, a pup company still had
(05:55):
the name State Farm, but thelawyers drew up contracts that
said the pup company is notreally the main headquarters.
I'll say State Farm becausethey still have a pub.
The headquarters up here arereally not responsible.
If the pub companies go broke,we're only responsible for the.
(06:15):
You know the pub companies areresponsible for their own losses
, not the big company, becausewe get wiped out.
So all these things changedafter Andrew and they continued
to change and we had no stormsfor a number of years after
Andrew and then all of a suddenwe had a lot of storms and
insurance companies same thing.
(06:36):
You know this is ridiculous.
What are we doing insuring this?
And then the dirty word moldcame out and that went nuts I
mean literally nuts all over thecountry.
And that started in Texas.
A Miss Ballard out in Texasclaimed that she got sick from
mold and I gave a speech at aconference down in the Fountain
(07:01):
Blue in Miami some years agowhen the mole issue was, you
know, at its zenith, at itsheight, and I said, ladies and
gentlemen, I handled claims on alot of buildings 10 miles from
here, 20 miles from here.
We never had one mole claim,not one.
(07:21):
No insurance company paid amole claim.
But this thing took a life ofits own when this ballard said
she got sick and she got alawyer and convinced a jury and
she was awarded millions ofdollars you sound like a mold
denier, so I mean it is aproblem no, it is a problem, but
you know there are.
There are ways to fix thatproblem, but the real problem
(07:46):
was that nobody understood whatmold was.
Mold is everywhere.
It's ubiquitous in society.
You're sitting in a room fullof mold right now at your house,
as am I, and most of it is notharmful, but there are a few
strains of mold that is harmfuland to some people it's not, but
(08:06):
to others, yes, you can getvery sick.
But the restoration peoplejumped in on this.
Oh, we got to get this mold outof here.
And you know, we got to do allthis kind of stuff and we have
to set protocols and we have tobring in the guys with the white
suits and up went, up went thecost, up went the premium.
George Siegal (08:33):
Yeah, that seems that seems to be the case and
anytime something you knowbecomes trendy like that,
they're going to make us pay forit and and because they're not
going to continue to eat it.
I'm reading this book Delay,deny, defend and it's
fascinating to me that theefforts the insurance company
makes to not pay us and I thinkmost people don't know that you
(08:57):
assume, hey, I'm paying thishefty amount.
Dick Tutwiler (08:59):
You said in the film there's to some degree of
confidence you're going to getsomething, but it may be nothing
near what you need in order togo on with your life, that's
true, and a lot of that has todo with the body of the policy.
There are different policyforms and there are different
companies.
You know, I will tell you oneof the best companies and I have
(09:21):
have it and I'm verycomfortable with, I'm going to
get paid by them because I knowthem, I know their reputation.
But there are other companiesout here, particularly some of
these companies, and I just read, literally yesterday or the day
before, that eight newcompanies are coming into the
state.
Okay, well, who are they andwhat's their background, what's
(09:43):
their financial strength?
So people say I have aninsurance policy.
Do you really understand whothey are?
Have you checked their ratings,those kinds of things?
And it gets into what's intheir policy.
George Siegal (09:58):
Now, when a big hurricane blows through and all
of a sudden, a whole communityis devastated through and all of
a sudden, a whole community isdevastated.
That's really the toughest timeto need help, and we keep
hearing stories about peoplethat get stonewalled for months,
if not years.
One of the gentlemen wefeatured in our film it took him
(10:19):
seven years to get back in hishouse after Hurricane Sandy, and
it just makes you wonder whatdo we need to do as homeowners
to have protection?
Dick Tutwiler (10:30):
Well, first thing you need to do is take I call
it personal responsibility.
It's almost assumed it's.
If you have no insurance and Iknow that's a hard thing to say,
and people, you know peoplewould not want to hear that I
bought this policy.
And what are you telling me?
Assume I have no insurance.
(10:51):
Well, you may not see anadjuster out there for a month,
two months, or you may see threeor four adjusters in two or
three months, none of which hasauthority.
So what do you do?
Sit in a lawn chair in thefront yard?
No, you need to take personalresponsibility and, to the best
of your ability, mitigate thedamages and try to get on with
(11:13):
your life.
Now you cannot go in and dothings that would raise
prejudicial issues with theinsurance industry.
An example of that would be youwould completely gut your house
.
That may not be the correctthing to do in your situation,
but you know, if there are fourfeet of, let's say, three feet
(11:35):
of flood water in your house,you certainly should take the
first four feet of drywall outimmediately, as soon as possible
.
And if the insurance companywould raise prejudicial issues,
you'd say well, what do you wantme to do?
Leave it in here and then thewhole house is full of mold.
So a homeowner has to use somecommon sense.
(11:57):
Unfortunately, common sense isnot so common and it's
particularly not common forpeople who've never had a loss
(12:21):
before, but still they have tobind you.
An example of that insurancecompanies typically send out
somebody to gather information.
That information is thentransferred back to somebody
else and, depending on what theythink the exposure is, it goes
to somebody else.
(12:42):
And then it may go on up thefood chain to say, well, wait a
minute, we need to send a guy ora girl out that really has the
authority to deal with this lossbecause it's going to cost us a
lot of money.
But the first people you getout there typically no authority
, probably not very experienced,particularly when you're
talking big cat events and wecall them cat in our industry,
(13:05):
cat events.
So they'll sweep them in fromall over and you know an example
of this is there was a biguproar recently about local
insurance companies I don't wantto say local, I mean state
bonded or licensed in our stateusing unlicensed adjusters from
(13:26):
other states Came out.
Where'd they get them?
Guys with a mechanic,refrigerator repairman or
whatever, but they sent them injust to initially report back.
Well, that's not good, but youknow the people don't know that.
They're thinking that personthat's coming out is the person
(13:48):
my person that's going to staywith me, and very few times does
that ever happen.
George Siegal (13:56):
Yeah, they seem to shift that around.
A lot was that the state toutsan 800 number that they have
that they claim can be a liaisonbetween the insured and the
insurance company.
You were not a big admirer ofthat in the film and,
interestingly, we reached out toCFO Patronus's office numerous
(14:20):
times and they never got back tous with any kind of comment or
statement about.
We just wanted to know howsuccessful that has been.
Is that truly a help?
Because if it is a help I wantto tell people to go there and
take advantage of that, but wecouldn't even get any
information out of them about it.
That was very disappointing.
Dick Tutwiler (14:39):
Well, george, here's where common sense comes
into play again.
Now you think about this.
You get a major storm intoFlorida.
You think they have people upthere.
Either they have them there orthey're going to break and bring
them in manning the phonestelling people what to do,
telling people we're going tosend them checks.
That's not going to happen.
(15:01):
That's a smokescreen.
Now, I didn't test this myself,but I was told that that 800
line was only operational likethree or four hours a day.
George Siegal (15:12):
I called the number because I couldn't get
through to the.
Dick Tutwiler (15:14):
CFO's office.
George Siegal (15:15):
I got somebody to answer and I told them why I
was calling.
I gave them all my informationand said can somebody please get
back to me?
Because I want to promote youguys in our film as being an
asset to Florida residents.
Nothing, Nobody got back to us.
That was very disappointing.
Dick Tutwiler (15:35):
I think I mentioned this to you in our
prior conversation.
There was a case I think it wasin the four storms of 04, one
of the other prior big hurricaneevents where a guy, a public
adjuster, went out and he hadpeople calling him and he had
(15:57):
gotten some people to come in.
They were licensed asapprentices, so they had some
other protocols that they had todo in order to actually sign
somebody up and it'd be legal,and one of the things was that
they could go out and meet withthe people and the contract
(16:19):
could be signed, but they had tohave a fully licensed public
adjuster sign the contract.
Well, they didn't do that.
You know, they went out and metwith the people, signed a
contract, apparently, walked itback to the guy's office who had
a full license and he signed it.
Well, something blew up.
Department of Insurance gotinvolved in it and the public
(16:43):
adjuster said well, I called upthe Department of Insurance and
they told me that we could sendpeople out and they could sign
the contracts.
In other words, I didn't needto go out and see them, they
could do it and sign thecontracts.
And he relied on that.
Well, whatever happened, thedepartment got involved in it
(17:06):
and says no, you cannot do that.
You had to send somebody outwith the apprentice.
You have to sign the contractsso that you've got a fully
licensed person to do it.
They proposed a big fine andthe guy says no, I'm not going
to do it because I got thisinformation over this 800 line.
(17:27):
I called this person.
Well, it ended up in court andthe Department of Insurance
attorneys says well, you cannotrely on anything.
Anybody tells you inTallahassee regarding insurance.
You cannot do that because theydon't have the authority.
(17:49):
And it makes very good sense tome, because how are they going
to tell somebody sitting upthere in a phone bank about what
you need to do or not do, orwhen we're going to send you
money and so forth?
They can give you some generalguidelines, but they're not the
final arbiter over the phone totell you what to do.
(18:10):
Well, the guy lost the case.
You know he ended up losing hislicense or he got suspended for
a while.
So the bottom line that 800number.
Maybe you'll glean somethingout of it.
But unless you're dealing withsomebody that has the authority
and you know they have theauthority you can't really rely
on anybody.
George Siegal (18:31):
Now why aren't they more forthcoming and
transparent up there?
They should.
In theory, they should berepresenting us.
As Floridians, we should havesomebody watching out for us on
our side.
Does the insurance industryhave such a powerful lobby that
it's just not going to happenfor us?
I mean, how do we turn thisback so the homeowner has some
(18:54):
kind of heavyweight on our side?
Dick Tutwiler (18:57):
Well, that's a good point, and I think the
heavy lifters up there, so tospeak, is on the insurance
company side.
They're the people that go inand lobby to get the right
contract in place, the wordingthat their client wants.
But when you get into a claimsituation where people are
(19:19):
coming at you for money in allfairness to the insurance
industry, it's a fact-driventhing Each person's loss is
different.
So it's very difficult to havesomebody sitting up there
monitoring what their person is,telling them and giving them
advice.
It's not going to happen.
(19:42):
And to give you a good exampleof how this works, particularly
in this last storm we had downin Fort Myers, you had a lot of
flooding and you had a lot ofwind.
So which came first, the windor the flood?
And they're two separate,completely different policies.
The flood policy, I mean, it'svery unique and you have to read
(20:02):
it and understand it.
Well, nobody up until andthat's a federal program, by the
way Good luck getting hold ofthe feds.
So you know, in all fairness,it's hard to imagine how that
would ever get sorted out.
Now it's been brought to myattention and I'm sure you heard
a lot about it.
We have this new thing calledAI and I suspect the insurance
(20:25):
company is going to try to relyon that to a large extent.
And how that's going to playout I'm not sure In the last big
hurricane.
they were using drones, which isvery helpful, because how do
you scan a big building?
You know you got to put lifts,high lifts or something to get
(20:48):
up there to see it.
So they started using drones.
But a drone is, you know, onlyas good as a picture it sends
back.
Then you still have todistinguish old damage versus
new damage.
But that was kind of the newthing that came into the
industry this last session.
So now we have this AI thingout here and how is that going
(21:09):
to work?
I'm not sure how that's goingto work.
It's been told to me thatinsurance company is going to
call the person up when theperson has got a phone and say
we want you to send us picturesand we will plug them into a
program and spit out you a check.
(21:30):
Now I don't think that's goingto work.
George Siegal (21:35):
There's already companies that are doing that,
that are mapping out entireneighborhoods.
I heard of a company that'sdoing that to look for roofs
that have problems so he canthen sell that information to
roofers.
So there's an entire industrythat will be developed from that
.
I have an ongoing runningdebate with with Lisa Miller up
(21:55):
in Tallahassee about SB2A andthe legislature.
The governor ramrodded throughlegislation that if you have to
sue your insurance agent becausethey're not making a claim, you
have to pay your own attorney.
You no longer get attorney'sfees.
She thought that was fair.
Why should the insurancecompany have to pay it?
I think that's one of the mostoutrageous things I've ever
(22:17):
heard personally, because if theinsurance company stonewalls me
and I have to pay a third of myclaim to my lawyer, I can't fix
my house.
I'm screwed.
Why would they take away theone right?
It seemed like we had to atleast hold their feet to the
fire when we were mistreatedleast hold their feet to the
(22:38):
fire when we were mistreated.
Dick Tutwiler (22:38):
I agree with that .
And Florida was unique andthere are a lot of states in
this country who did not haveprovisions for attorney's fees
and it's called in a first partycontract dispute, like Georgia
doesn't have that, florida hadit.
It's been in existence for Idon't know going back tens and
tens of years and I think therewas a lot of abuse with lawyers,
(23:01):
quite frankly, lawsuits thatwere not valid, so to speak.
On top of that, you had Floridahad a bad faith statute that
says if you sue your insurancecompany and you get one dollar
more than what they offered,then you have a right to file a
(23:22):
separate lawsuit for bad faith.
And what is bad faith?
You know that's not ameasurement of the sticks and
water and whatever you had inyour house.
It's some subjective thing thatyou have been harmed in some way
and you know there's nothingbad about that.
(23:44):
You know it's not.
You know it's like pain andsuffering.
You know you had an injury, youhad a pain, you have pain and
suffering, you have lots ofconsortium with your wife, those
kind of things.
So it's not in and of itselfbad.
But I think lawyers in Floridatook this back and I can tell
(24:06):
you this right now.
You know, I've been in thisbusiness 50 years and we never
had an environment where peoplewere suing insurance companies,
making bad faith claims onproperty claims.
It did not exist, and I waswith one of the major carriers
that nobody had any issues withproperty claims, so to speak.
(24:31):
We didn't have that many ofthem.
Of course, during my tenure,which is 10 years, we didn't
have very many hurricanes.
George Siegal (24:37):
Because they weren't sticking it to us, then
Maybe they were paying claimsbetter, and maybe so.
I mean, it's easy to say thatlawyers have ruined the system
by going in there.
Dick Tutwiler (24:48):
I'm saying there were some abuses to it and I
listened to Mr Boyd, senatorBoyd, who put that bill together
, and I knew this was going to.
You know was coming.
You know we have a red statelegislature.
You just knew this was going tocome.
So I agree with you anddisagree with Ms Miller that
(25:08):
they probably went too far.
People cannot afford to go outand hire their own lawyers, you
know, after their house isdestroyed and they're sitting in
a trailer or something.
They can't do that.
So there has to be somerecourse, some method that allow
them to deal with the big guys.
(25:28):
Who's got the big money, sothat at some point there has to
be something worked out whereit's fair to both sides.
Now they've, you know, they'vejust threw the baby out with the
bathwater.
George Siegal (25:39):
Yeah, they could have cleaned it up other ways, I
think, without completelytaking that away.
I just didn't think that wasgood, and Lisa also suggested
that in that wind versus waterscenario you get both adjusters
together.
We kind of shot that down asbeing unrealistic because you
can't get one person out there,let alone two.
(26:00):
That's a tough spot forhomeowners.
I've heard a lot of peoplereally suffer when there's that
fight on who's responsible.
Dick Tutwiler (26:08):
Exactly and there is no science about which comes
first.
I've heard every argument thatcould be made and I have made a
lot of them myself about whichcame first wind or water.
And in Florida we enjoysomething called the broad
evidence rule and every adjusterinsurance company is
(26:30):
responsible to apply that.
And basically what that meansis you take all the factors into
consideration on a loss todetermine what happened at a
particular location.
So you would have a house thatyou know well.
I can give you an example wherethere was nothing.
The whole house was washed away.
(26:51):
But just to give an example,where a house is flooded, the
easy way to do it is a highwater mark.
You know when the water comesup it's going to leave a debris
line around there.
But the water just doesn't riseup in a hurricane.
It sloshes around everywhereand as it goes down it may leave
a water mark.
So you can't use that old way,the simple way of the high water
(27:16):
mark.
You've got to take intoconsideration all the factors
and they're arguable and they'resubjective.
But you make the point that Iwould make you're not going to
get the wind adjuster and theflood adjuster out there at the
same time.
That's not going to happen.
Same thing happens with theflood people.
They bring people in fromeverywhere.
(27:37):
That same flood adjuster thatwent out the first day is not
going to be the same floodadjuster that's going to handle
that claim throughout.
Now I've seen them say no,we're going to revise that,
we're going to change that,we're going to make them do it
Not going to happen?
We're going to make them do itNot going to happen?
And I'll give you a practicalreason.
(27:58):
Down in the Keys we've hadhurricanes down there and it's
very, very expensive to operateas an adjuster in the Florida
Keys.
Number one housing is expensiveGas.
All the things that you've gotto do to do your job is double
what it is in other parts of thestate.
So what the flood people did inone instance that I'm aware of,
(28:23):
they handed out a bunch offlood claims, the adjuster, and
they get paid on a scale thatgoes up.
It's kind of a percentage scale.
It's a basic amount, and thenthey get it goes up to I've
forgotten the top amount, but sothey do have a little incentive
in there.
But when they went down therethey said wait a minute, we
can't make any money here andthey just threw all the files
(28:47):
back on the desk, walked andwent home back to Oklahoma or
Texas.
So these are real worldexamples.
Now what really should behappening in the perfect world,
particularly in Florida, is thatthe policy should cover wind
and flood at the same time had aloss out here, measure the loss
.
Doesn't matter whether it's windor flood, but that would make
(29:09):
Florida property policies veryexpensive.
George Siegal (29:12):
As if they're not already.
I mean, it's kind of ridiculous.
Dick Tutwiler (29:15):
You throw a flood in, but in the perfect world
that's the way to do it.
But the National Flood Programis one entity, florida insurance
companies another entity.
Different rules, differentlanguages in the policy,
different adjusting practices.
It's a nightmare, truly anightmare practice.
It's a nightmare, truly anightmare.
George Siegal (29:35):
Now another thing we talked about in the film
building codes and the waythey're building.
Especially here in Floridathere is a lot of wood apartment
buildings going up everywhere.
There's a lot of houses thatare concrete block on the first
floor but wood on the secondfloor and people I've
interviewed say that's justnowhere as strong as building an
all concrete house and thoseapartment complexes on the water
(30:00):
, four or five stories made outof wood.
Sure, the garage is concrete,the slab is concrete, but the
rest of the structures are woodand you seem to think that was
kind of crazy, like most peoplewould.
Dick Tutwiler (30:13):
Well, you know, I come from an era where we had
something called collapse inpolicy and collapse caused by
certain things, and this allcame about because the way it
was written there was anambiguity in it, so it ended up
going into court and the courtscame back and made some very
(30:35):
substantial rulings on this.
It opened up the door for usand I take credit for this, and
I think a lot of insurancecompanies don't like me for that
, but I figured it all out couldget insurance companies to pay
for hidden wooden structuraldamage caused by hidden decay
(31:02):
termites, and those were the twoprimary things in the
collapsing world.
Now what's that mean?
All these wood buildings thatare built out here, and I just
cringe when I see them.
I see them going up all thetime.
I know what they're going to belike in five years.
If there's no hurricanes,that's fine.
Water's going to get in thereand termites will follow and the
(31:28):
wood will be eaten up,literally eaten up.
I have seen it over and over andit takes basically five years
for this to happen.
And the reason it does happenis because of the poor
workmanship when they buildthese buildings.
They don't caulk and they don'tseal it up, water gets in it.
We're in Florida, high humidity.
(31:48):
It's just a disaster waiting tohappen.
Now, as Warren Buffett said,you're going to find out who's
swimming naked when the tidegoes down.
So here's what that means tothis world.
When the siding gets blown off,the insurance companies are
going to come out and say wait aminute, we don't cover this
stuff, this is rotten woodthat's not covered in your
(32:14):
insurance policy.
That's going to be hundreds ofmillions of dollars,
theoretically, if it hits in theright spot.
When the stuff gets blown offand the woods all riddled and
eaten up, huge, huge deal, theelephant in the room that nobody
really talks about and, quitefrankly, I don't think they
(32:36):
understand the exposure.
George Siegal (32:39):
Yeah, we were shocked to see in Mexico Beach
everything is being rebuilt withwood, other than a house I
featured in my last film.
That was concrete poured inplace walls.
It was concrete block, theentire house.
At least the forms wereconcrete.
Now they're doing all wood.
And one of the things thatamazed me when we talked about
(32:59):
building codes Mexico Beachactually made their building
code stronger after HurricaneMichael, but then they rescinded
it and they went back to freeMichael hurricane levels.
That's amazing to me.
When you get wiped out by adisaster and people complain
that the building code is nowtoo tough and they want it
relaxed.
(33:19):
That's just.
I don't know how you could evenget insurance for that.
Dick Tutwiler (33:25):
Politics, lobbyists, those kinds of things
.
I mean I don't knowspecifically what the
conversations were up there, butI mean obviously it deals with
money.
It's cheaper to not do theright thing, to fix, you know,
put them back right.
(33:45):
And people say, okay, well,we've had our hurricane, we're
not going to have another one inmy lifetime, so let's just save
some money and rescind thatbuilding code.
George Siegal (33:56):
I don't know how an insurance company would
insure it, though is, I guess,what my point is.
If you know a hurricane, if youknow a Category 5 hurricane
wiped you out, that means it'scertainly possible for another
Category 5 hurricane to hit you.
You're not invincible.
I would think you would have toraise the building code, not
lower it invincible.
Dick Tutwiler (34:13):
I would think you would have to raise the
building code, not lower it.
Well, they did do that and most.
I mean Florida has a prettystrict building code.
Now people change you knowtheir laws to get around it.
You know when it comes time tomake a claim, the insurance
company may not pay the claim.
Yeah, south.
George Siegal (34:32):
Florida seems to have the toughest standards.
Everybody else.
Dick Tutwiler (34:35):
They do now.
They absolutely do.
But you know, look around thestate of Florida how much of
this stuff is on the ground andbeen here before the building
codes were changed.
The majority, I would say, ofthe properties in Florida are
old properties.
Just look what's happening tothe condominium world right now.
(34:57):
You know you had the collapseof that Surfside building down
there.
You know, I've seen that.
I can't tell you how manyplaces where the rebar gets
saltwater in it it rusts and youknow, over time things fall
down.
Insurance companies keptinsuring the buildings.
(35:18):
They never said anything aboutit.
Now they have put some verystrict rules that they have to
have the building recertified ina certain amount of time and
they have to.
The condominium associationshave to have the reserves fully
funded and it's causing havoc inthe condominium world.
We can't afford to pay for thereserves and we cannot afford
(35:43):
the insurance premium.
So what's going to happen?
From what I'm reading,developers are going in there
and trying to dissolve the oldcondominium, get the people out,
pay them some amount of moneyand then put up new buildings
that they can make more money in.
But you know, surfside thing,it was an eye-opener.
(36:06):
It shouldn't have been, becauseyou know it's pretty clear that
I've seen it all over the state.
You build on the water concrete, you put rebar in there, water
gets in there over the years,the concrete spalls, it starts
cracking, the rebar keepsrusting.
It's a prelude for a disasterand we had that disaster happen
(36:32):
with the surface matter downthere.
George Siegal (36:34):
That was awful.
I can't even imagine what thatwas like to be part of that.
Now, at what point shouldsomebody consider getting a
private insurance adjuster?
That's kind of your wheelhouse?
Now, At what point wouldsomebody want to say, all right,
I can't rely on company X.
You know we were using Allstateor State Farm or whatever.
(36:55):
I'm going to hire my own person.
When should you do that?
Dick Tutwiler (36:59):
Well, again it gets back to common sense.
I think people when they have abig loss, they look around.
They were busy before.
They had all kinds of stuffgoing on in their lives, you
know, whatever it may be medical, business, families and now
they've got this and they haveduties and responsibilities.
It says in the policy theirduties and responsibilities.
(37:23):
Now, most people don'tunderstand that.
What does that mean?
So a smart person would say canI do this?
Is somebody else going to dothis for me?
Or should I get somebody thatknows what they're doing?
And to me it's a simple thing.
I would get somebody that knowswhat they're doing to handle
(37:44):
this.
Now, and what I think is aterrible thing, is what's
happening with surplus linescarriers, which is primarily
Lloyds and a few here in thecountry.
They're putting in anti-publicadjusting clauses in it.
They're taking away from thepolicyholder the same thing they
did with the lawyers.
(38:06):
They do not want thepolicyholder to hire public
adjusters and they're puttinganti-public adjusting clauses in
some policies.
Can't hire a lawyer, can't hirea public adjuster.
George Siegal (38:22):
That seems kind of rough.
I mean, you know, because it'sless expensive?
Isn't it less expensive than anattorney?
You guys are what?
At 10% of the claim.
Dick Tutwiler (38:31):
Typically 10%, 15% and it's all negotiable.
You know the statute in Floridaon non-emergency is 20%.
Emergency claims are capped at10%.
On the 20% daily claims, I'llcall them those are all
negotiable.
There's a lot of competition.
(38:52):
So you know you can negotiate afee that's fair for both
parties.
But you know, with thisanti-public adjusting thing in
the policies, I mean the policyowners are going to be standing
out there in their shorts andthey're going to have to read
the policy and figure out whatthey're going to do, because
there's not going to be any helpout there Now would I want to
(39:16):
first have my insurance companycome in and give me their
valuation of my loss and then goto the public adjuster?
George Siegal (39:23):
I think I said private adjuster, so public
adjuster or would I call in thepublic adjuster first so I know
what the base level should bewhen my insurance company comes
out?
I mean, a lot of people don'tsay they might not want to pay
for that.
Dick Tutwiler (39:44):
That's true, and I would tell a person first of
all if it's obvious that yourproperty is a total loss, you
don't need to hire me or anattorney.
Why should you have us go tothe bank with you to get our fee
out of the insurance company'scheck?
You don't need somebody.
George Siegal (39:56):
The other issue.
Dick Tutwiler (39:58):
There's two parts to that question you asked.
The other issue is, as I saidbefore, there are things that
you are required to do.
You cannot just sit down andsay okay, mr Insurance Company,
you do it all, come up with myloss and tell me what it is.
They're not going to do that.
You have to do things.
So you have to ask yourself canwe do this?
(40:21):
Do we know how to do it?
What are the rules?
That's a question you need toask.
The other question, the otherissue, is well, I'll sit and
wait and see what they do.
Okay, how long are you going towait?
Who's going to tell you on theinsurance company side what
their loss is?
(40:41):
Now, if an insurance companyhas a good and qualified
adjuster says I'm going to havesomebody out next week, take
their word for it, we're goingto tell you what we're going to
pay you, I'd say, fine, sit downand wait for the guy to do it,
but that's not likely to happenNow.
George Siegal (40:58):
People also along the whole process, really need
to keep very accurate notes ofwho they spoke with, what was
done, because what we found outfrom attorney David Murray, who
we interviewed here in Tampa,that the insurance company
doesn't have to give you allthose we're recording this
conversation to have accuraterecords.
If you end up in a court withthem, they don't have to share
(41:20):
that with you.
Dick Tutwiler (41:22):
And here's another thing they don't have to
share with them.
If they bring in their when Isay experts, such as engineers
that they hire, they don't haveto give you those reports, and
those are very, very criticalreports in some cases, you know,
do we have to replace the wholeroof?
Is the building condemned?
I mean, the engineer will go inand write a report for the
(41:45):
insurance company and give it tothem and they are not required
to give it to you.
So you know when you get backto, should I wait?
You want to wait or you want tohave somebody come in and do
this stuff that knows whatthey're doing?
George Siegal (42:01):
So how do we turn this around?
So homeowners recapture.
You know it's like upper hand.
How do we get our hand back inthis whole thing, because it
seems like it's not going to getbetter.
If people are, I don't know howyou turn back the clock on this
stuff.
Dick Tutwiler (42:18):
Well, actually I had a conversation this morning
about this with my son and Ireminded him that back in the
four storms, the four hurricanesthat hit and I think in 45 days
, back to back pretty much, youknow, the whole world went crazy
and the insurance property bitinside of it and people were
(42:43):
flooding the legislature withcomplaints, constantly asking
them what is this?
I'm hearing from my insurancecompany.
My policy says that I amsupposed to get replacement
costs.
My insurance company is sayingno, you need and I think I
pointed this out, you need to goread the fine print that tells
(43:06):
you when you're going to getreplacement costs.
But no, it says this right onthe front.
And I told my agent I wantedthis.
But no, it says this right onthe front.
And I told my agent I wantedthis.
So the voice was so huge thatthe legislature went in and
changed the law that said allpolicies will pay replacement
costs.
And when that happened, I wasdumbfounded, as were others.
(43:27):
How could we file a claim forstuff we had that's 20 years old
, it's obsolete, has no value?
But the way the legislaturechanged the law, you got
replacement costs.
So that went on for three orfour years.
Things quieted down.
(43:48):
Insurance company got back withtheir lobbyists in Tallahassee.
Wipe that out.
We're back to the old waysagain.
So to change it, it's going totake another hurricane, another
big hurricane, and then thelegislature and all their wisdom
will be so undone andundoneated with complaints that
(44:10):
they won't listen to thepolicyholder and they will
change it.
It's like a ship it's going toturn but it's going to take time
.
It's going to take a bighurricane.
Right now, everything's intheir favor.
George Siegal (44:23):
Well, our area is supposed to be the next big
bullseye.
You know we've dodged a lot ofbullets here.
I was talking to somebodyyesterday who said they believe
in the old Indian burial groundrumor for the.
Tampa area and that we'll neverget hit by a major hurricane.
And I just I rolled my eyesvery obviously.
What do you think about allthat?
Dick Tutwiler (44:46):
Well, I hope so.
I hope that old Indian burialground is still, that maiden is
still here and she's protectingus.
But I doubt it.
I mean, you know we've I had a.
I went to a conference a coupleof years ago and there was one
of the keynote speakers was aCoast Guard Admiral and he had
been involved in the Katrina andSandy.
(45:10):
You know running it from amilitary Coast Guard perspective
, and they gave a greatpresentation.
They do a great job.
You know they're not biased oneway or the other.
They're out there trying to dothe right thing.
But I asked him.
I said you know, why don't we?
How come we don't gethurricanes so much on the West
Coast?
The Panhandle gets them upthere, but you know the West
(45:32):
Coast down.
He says, watch, it's changingright now.
Things are in the works, in theatmosphere that it's changing.
And lo and behold, if you readthe predictions now in fact I
just saw one this morning thatshows this area that they're
predicting a high possibility,at least 75%, of a major
(45:53):
hurricane.
And we're right in that areaover here it's like a circle
South Florida up to our area.
So the experts are predictingthat if it hits Fort Lauderdale
or something.
It's going to cause damage uphere, you know, and the big
(46:13):
thing up here is well, they'reboth.
I mean, wind is definitely aserious thing, but it's the
water, the water, the weight ofthe water pushing in, pushing in
and pushing in, and a gallon ofwater weighs eight pounds and
you've got this force of waterpushing in and pushing in and it
(46:34):
lasts for days so I wouldn't.
George Siegal (46:37):
Yeah, I would encourage anybody listening to
google.
Um hurricane phoenix scenario.
Uh with uh here in tampa.
They put out a video showingwhat a category 5 hurricane
would do to this area and it'sjust staggering the amount of
damage we would have over amillion homes destroyed,
businesses, 2000 people killed.
(46:59):
Tampa General on Davis Islandswould be underwater 26 feet of
water downtown.
I mean it's really scary and itis possible.
Dick Tutwiler (47:08):
It is possible, although typically you know
possible.
It is possible, althoughtypically you know it depends on
the, how hot or warm the wateris.
You know we've been saved a lotof times by the because we're
further north and the water's alittle cooler.
But things have changed.
You know, the water temperaturenow is off the charts in the
atlantic and it's hot out herein the gulf.
(47:29):
So it used to be well.
We could get a two or a three,but we're not going to get
anything bigger than thatbecause we got this cold water
that's protecting us.
We got this Indian maiden uphere, but everybody's aligned
this year that it's going to bea bad year someplace.
(47:50):
Yeah, and the zone that I justsaw has got this circle around
it right across Florida and thatit runs from the keys up to
where we're at now.
You know they could hit up inKatrina, or I mean sorry, in New
Orleans, where Katrina you knowit's.
It's going to hit someplace andit's going to be bad.
George Siegal (48:13):
Yeah, and that's the thing.
Every time you breathe a sighof relief when one blows by you,
it means somebody else is goingto get it, so it's kind of.
It doesn't leave you with areal good feeling.
So let's put a bow on this.
If you're somebody who lives inFlorida, or really anywhere in
the country, what's the numberone thing you can do to put
yourself in the best positionshould a disaster find you?
Dick Tutwiler (48:38):
well, when you say disaster, I'm going to keep
that in terms of what we talkedabout hurricane and I think the
best thing that you can do whatyou, what I do and what I have
done personally to my house isyou need to try to the best of
your ability, economically, youneed to try to fortify your
house.
Don't wait for the insurancecompany to tell you to do that.
You need to do it yourself andyou know I've gone around my
(49:00):
house and put shutters up thatcome down windows.
I mean, you know the old 50sliding glass doors are horrible
and they're.
You know there's god knows howmany of those are still here and
the ones today are like bankvaults.
So if you have sliding doors,you know you know, upgrade it to
(49:24):
to the new code and you knowit's not cheap.
But those are the kind ofthings that you know.
I get back to a personalresponsibility.
Look around and see if you canprotect your property.
Don't wait for the insurancecompany, because afterwards
you're going to be dealing withthe fine print and the process
(49:45):
we've been talking about.
Try to avoid them to the bestof your ability and you know I
do see a lot of homes around myarea.
There are a lot of people thatare replacing the roofs, whether
it's at the behest of theinsurance company or whether
they're just using common sense.
But you know, those are thethings that people need to do
(50:05):
proactively before the stormhits Protect your property and
then if it's going to be badenough.
You know you need to have someevacuation plan, and I'll just
tell you this.
George Siegal (50:14):
I hear this all the time.
Dick Tutwiler (50:15):
Well, you know, if my house gets destroyed, I'll
just go up and rent a housesomeplace up the street and I'll
sell my lot.
Guess who the competition isgoing to be.
All your neighbors are lookingfor that one house that still
has a roof on.
So you know that's not a goodhurricane plan.
Y'all just go somewhere up theroad, rent a house.
George Siegal (50:38):
Yeah, probably not very realistic.
And we always say and that'sprobably the key message in our
film the cost of being proactiveis much lower than the cost of
being reactive.
It's a major difference.
Dick Tutwiler (50:50):
Well said and I totally agree with that.
George Siegal (50:53):
Dick, thank you so much for coming on today.
I appreciate your time.
I'll give you a heads up waybefore this film comes out,
cause I know you're going tolove it.
You were great in it.
Dick Tutwiler (51:03):
You see it, and thanks for doing it.
Hopefully people will, you know, pay attention to what we've
talked about and others I knowsome of the people you've
interviewed good people usecommon sense.
The only person that's going toreally save you is you yourself
.
George Siegal (51:24):
That's the truth, Dick.
Thank you.
Dick Tutwiler (51:26):
My pleasure Good talking with you.
George Siegal (51:28):
All of Dick's contact information is in the
show notes.
Now I know a lot of youlistening have experienced all
kinds of things as either ahomeowner or a renter.
There's a contact form in theshow notes.
Fill it out, send it my way.
You could be a guest to shareyour story on an upcoming
podcast.
Thanks for taking the time tolisten today.
I'll see you next time.
If you've ever had to file a homeowner's
insurance claim, you might havelearned how it can be a very
challenging process, especiallyin the wake of a major disaster.
Well, today you're going tolearn how to make the best of a
bad situation.
My guest is Dick Tutwiler,founder and CEO of Tutwiler
Associates.
With a distinguished careerthat started at Travelers
(00:20):
Insurance Company, dick bringsdeep expertise in the claims
settlement process.
His journey from an industryinsider to a dedicated public
adjuster highlights hiscommitment to advocating for
policyholders.
Join us as we delve into Dick'swealth of experience and
uncover crucial insights forproperty owners and business
professionals that arenavigating insurance claims.
(00:44):
I'm George Siegal, and this isHomeowners Be Aware the podcast
that teaches you everything youneed to know about being a
homeowner.
Dick, thank you so much forjoining me today.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you for having me Now.
You ended up being a big playerin our documentary film Built
to Last Buy or Beware.
I know it's not out yet, so youhaven't seen it, but you said
(01:06):
some very important things and Icame away from the film with a
sense of insurance is not reallythe insurance that I think it
is.
Tell people why they need toreally be concerned about that
policy that they think is goingto be their stopgap lifesaver.
Dick Tutwiler (01:27):
Well, first of all let me just say this.
I would say 99.9% of peopledon't read their insurance
policy, don't understand what'sin it.
And if they read it five or 10years ago and they were
fortunate enough to stay withthe same insurance company, very
(01:48):
likely what they had five oreven three years ago is not what
they have now.
So insurance is drasticallychanged in Florida over the
years and it's not none of thatchange is beneficial to the
policyholder.
They call an insurance contracta policy of adhesion.
(02:11):
They wrote the policy so theyput the stuff in the policy.
Now in certain cases, if theywant to change endorsements to
the policy, theoreticallythey're supposed to get it
improved by the folks up inTallahassee.
But who reads that stuff?
Nobody reads it.
(02:32):
And I know very I've had very,very sophisticated clients over
the years commercial andhomeowners and they have no clue
what's in that policy.
And even worse is their agentand broker.
Typically, unless they havesome sophisticated risk
management people which mostpeople don't have, they don't
(02:54):
know what's in that policy.
They don't know the dynamics ofwhat happens after a loss.
You know what happens, who doeswhat, who has the authority to
do what.
You know what happens, who doeswhat?
Who has the authority to dowhat?
So you know, people are totallyblind when it comes to
insurance, in this state and inevery other state, in my opinion
.
George Siegal (03:13):
So whenever I'm signing something whether it's
at the doctor's office, whetherit's an insurance form, whatever
it is and I'm always thinking,ok, if I question this, they're
not going to rewrite it for me,they're not going to change
anything.
So even if I question this,they're not going to rewrite it
for me, they're not going tochange anything.
So even if I read that policyand I found out how bad it was,
what are my options?
Because I know here in Floridathere aren't a lot of them.
So if I read that policy and itsays you're not covered for X,
(03:34):
y and Z, where am I going tofind coverage for X, Y and Z?
That's going to make me happy.
Dick Tutwiler (03:41):
Well, you got to understand what you don't have.
You got to understand that thispolicy doesn't cover things.
And you're not going to knowthat because and here's a prime
example Insurance over you knowseveral, I would say 100 years
went from a policy which wascalled the New York Fire Policy
(04:02):
and it had 100 and I think 59lines of coverage and it was all
geared for fire losses and itstated very clearly what was in
the policy.
A common man, if he could read100 years ago, could read that
and probably understand what itsays.
Over the years the insuranceindustry realized that, hey, you
(04:24):
know, this is a great business,you know we can take all this
money in and we only have to payout a little bit of money,
drips and drabs as we go along.
So guess what?
The competitors figured thatout.
So then they started addingthings to policies, to policies,
(04:49):
and you know it went from ACVcoverage, which means you want
to get the actual cash valuecoverage, to replacement cost
coverage and they startedinsuring this and that and all
that was pretty much favorableto the policyholder until
Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992.
And I hate to keep bringingthat up, but the fact of the
matter is that was a sea changein the world of insurance.
(05:13):
Because insurance companiessuddenly realized they had all
this exposure and they had allthese policies with these terms
out there that were somewhatfavorable to the policyholder.
And they did that.
Why?
Competition?
All state wanted to beat statefarms, state farm wanted to beat
metropolitan, and so on and soon.
(05:35):
But Andrew changed all that.
So then the insurance companiesstarted looking at well, first
of all, we don't want to be hereanymore.
That was their first out.
And they created what's calledpup companies.
And not to get too far in theweeds, a pup company still had
(05:55):
the name State Farm, but thelawyers drew up contracts that
said the pup company is notreally the main headquarters.
I'll say State Farm becausethey still have a pub.
The headquarters up here arereally not responsible.
If the pub companies go broke,we're only responsible for the.
(06:15):
You know the pub companies areresponsible for their own losses
, not the big company, becausewe get wiped out.
So all these things changedafter Andrew and they continued
to change and we had no stormsfor a number of years after
Andrew and then all of a suddenwe had a lot of storms and
insurance companies same thing.
(06:36):
You know this is ridiculous.
What are we doing insuring this?
And then the dirty word moldcame out and that went nuts I
mean literally nuts all over thecountry.
And that started in Texas.
A Miss Ballard out in Texasclaimed that she got sick from
mold and I gave a speech at aconference down in the Fountain
(07:01):
Blue in Miami some years agowhen the mole issue was, you
know, at its zenith, at itsheight, and I said, ladies and
gentlemen, I handled claims on alot of buildings 10 miles from
here, 20 miles from here.
We never had one mole claim,not one.
(07:21):
No insurance company paid amole claim.
But this thing took a life ofits own when this ballard said
she got sick and she got alawyer and convinced a jury and
she was awarded millions ofdollars you sound like a mold
denier, so I mean it is aproblem no, it is a problem, but
you know there are.
There are ways to fix thatproblem, but the real problem
(07:46):
was that nobody understood whatmold was.
Mold is everywhere.
It's ubiquitous in society.
You're sitting in a room fullof mold right now at your house,
as am I, and most of it is notharmful, but there are a few
strains of mold that is harmfuland to some people it's not, but
(08:06):
to others, yes, you can getvery sick.
But the restoration peoplejumped in on this.
Oh, we got to get this mold outof here.
And you know, we got to do allthis kind of stuff and we have
to set protocols and we have tobring in the guys with the white
suits and up went, up went thecost, up went the premium.
George Siegal (08:33):
Yeah, that seems that seems to be the case and
anytime something you knowbecomes trendy like that,
they're going to make us pay forit and and because they're not
going to continue to eat it.
I'm reading this book Delay,deny, defend and it's
fascinating to me that theefforts the insurance company
makes to not pay us and I thinkmost people don't know that you
(08:57):
assume, hey, I'm paying thishefty amount.
Dick Tutwiler (08:59):
You said in the film there's to some degree of
confidence you're going to getsomething, but it may be nothing
near what you need in order togo on with your life, that's
true, and a lot of that has todo with the body of the policy.
There are different policyforms and there are different
companies.
You know, I will tell you oneof the best companies and I have
(09:21):
have it and I'm verycomfortable with, I'm going to
get paid by them because I knowthem, I know their reputation.
But there are other companiesout here, particularly some of
these companies, and I just read, literally yesterday or the day
before, that eight newcompanies are coming into the
state.
Okay, well, who are they andwhat's their background, what's
(09:43):
their financial strength?
So people say I have aninsurance policy.
Do you really understand whothey are?
Have you checked their ratings,those kinds of things?
And it gets into what's intheir policy.
George Siegal (09:58):
Now, when a big hurricane blows through and all
of a sudden, a whole communityis devastated through and all of
a sudden, a whole community isdevastated.
That's really the toughest timeto need help, and we keep
hearing stories about peoplethat get stonewalled for months,
if not years.
One of the gentlemen wefeatured in our film it took him
(10:19):
seven years to get back in hishouse after Hurricane Sandy, and
it just makes you wonder whatdo we need to do as homeowners
to have protection?
Dick Tutwiler (10:30):
Well, first thing you need to do is take I call
it personal responsibility.
It's almost assumed it's.
If you have no insurance and Iknow that's a hard thing to say,
and people, you know peoplewould not want to hear that I
bought this policy.
And what are you telling me?
Assume I have no insurance.
(10:51):
Well, you may not see anadjuster out there for a month,
two months, or you may see threeor four adjusters in two or
three months, none of which hasauthority.
So what do you do?
Sit in a lawn chair in thefront yard?
No, you need to take personalresponsibility and, to the best
of your ability, mitigate thedamages and try to get on with
(11:13):
your life.
Now you cannot go in and dothings that would raise
prejudicial issues with theinsurance industry.
An example of that would be youwould completely gut your house
.
That may not be the correctthing to do in your situation,
but you know, if there are fourfeet of, let's say, three feet
(11:35):
of flood water in your house,you certainly should take the
first four feet of drywall outimmediately, as soon as possible
.
And if the insurance companywould raise prejudicial issues,
you'd say well, what do you wantme to do?
Leave it in here and then thewhole house is full of mold.
So a homeowner has to use somecommon sense.
(11:57):
Unfortunately, common sense isnot so common and it's
particularly not common forpeople who've never had a loss
(12:21):
before, but still they have tobind you.
An example of that insurancecompanies typically send out
somebody to gather information.
That information is thentransferred back to somebody
else and, depending on what theythink the exposure is, it goes
to somebody else.
(12:42):
And then it may go on up thefood chain to say, well, wait a
minute, we need to send a guy ora girl out that really has the
authority to deal with this lossbecause it's going to cost us a
lot of money.
But the first people you getout there typically no authority
, probably not very experienced,particularly when you're
talking big cat events and wecall them cat in our industry,
(13:05):
cat events.
So they'll sweep them in fromall over and you know an example
of this is there was a biguproar recently about local
insurance companies I don't wantto say local, I mean state
bonded or licensed in our stateusing unlicensed adjusters from
(13:26):
other states Came out.
Where'd they get them?
Guys with a mechanic,refrigerator repairman or
whatever, but they sent them injust to initially report back.
Well, that's not good, but youknow the people don't know that.
They're thinking that personthat's coming out is the person
(13:48):
my person that's going to staywith me, and very few times does
that ever happen.
George Siegal (13:56):
Yeah, they seem to shift that around.
A lot was that the state toutsan 800 number that they have
that they claim can be a liaisonbetween the insured and the
insurance company.
You were not a big admirer ofthat in the film and,
interestingly, we reached out toCFO Patronus's office numerous
(14:20):
times and they never got back tous with any kind of comment or
statement about.
We just wanted to know howsuccessful that has been.
Is that truly a help?
Because if it is a help I wantto tell people to go there and
take advantage of that, but wecouldn't even get any
information out of them about it.
That was very disappointing.
Dick Tutwiler (14:39):
Well, george, here's where common sense comes
into play again.
Now you think about this.
You get a major storm intoFlorida.
You think they have people upthere.
Either they have them there orthey're going to break and bring
them in manning the phonestelling people what to do,
telling people we're going tosend them checks.
That's not going to happen.
(15:01):
That's a smokescreen.
Now, I didn't test this myself,but I was told that that 800
line was only operational likethree or four hours a day.
George Siegal (15:12):
I called the number because I couldn't get
through to the.
Dick Tutwiler (15:14):
CFO's office.
George Siegal (15:15):
I got somebody to answer and I told them why I
was calling.
I gave them all my informationand said can somebody please get
back to me?
Because I want to promote youguys in our film as being an
asset to Florida residents.
Nothing, Nobody got back to us.
That was very disappointing.
Dick Tutwiler (15:35):
I think I mentioned this to you in our
prior conversation.
There was a case I think it wasin the four storms of 04, one
of the other prior big hurricaneevents where a guy, a public
adjuster, went out and he hadpeople calling him and he had
(15:57):
gotten some people to come in.
They were licensed asapprentices, so they had some
other protocols that they had todo in order to actually sign
somebody up and it'd be legal,and one of the things was that
they could go out and meet withthe people and the contract
(16:19):
could be signed, but they had tohave a fully licensed public
adjuster sign the contract.
Well, they didn't do that.
You know, they went out and metwith the people, signed a
contract, apparently, walked itback to the guy's office who had
a full license and he signed it.
Well, something blew up.
Department of Insurance gotinvolved in it and the public
(16:43):
adjuster said well, I called upthe Department of Insurance and
they told me that we could sendpeople out and they could sign
the contracts.
In other words, I didn't needto go out and see them, they
could do it and sign thecontracts.
And he relied on that.
Well, whatever happened, thedepartment got involved in it
(17:06):
and says no, you cannot do that.
You had to send somebody outwith the apprentice.
You have to sign the contractsso that you've got a fully
licensed person to do it.
They proposed a big fine andthe guy says no, I'm not going
to do it because I got thisinformation over this 800 line.
(17:27):
I called this person.
Well, it ended up in court andthe Department of Insurance
attorneys says well, you cannotrely on anything.
Anybody tells you inTallahassee regarding insurance.
You cannot do that because theydon't have the authority.
(17:49):
And it makes very good sense tome, because how are they going
to tell somebody sitting upthere in a phone bank about what
you need to do or not do, orwhen we're going to send you
money and so forth?
They can give you some generalguidelines, but they're not the
final arbiter over the phone totell you what to do.
(18:10):
Well, the guy lost the case.
You know he ended up losing hislicense or he got suspended for
a while.
So the bottom line that 800number.
Maybe you'll glean somethingout of it.
But unless you're dealing withsomebody that has the authority
and you know they have theauthority you can't really rely
on anybody.
George Siegal (18:31):
Now why aren't they more forthcoming and
transparent up there?
They should.
In theory, they should berepresenting us.
As Floridians, we should havesomebody watching out for us on
our side.
Does the insurance industryhave such a powerful lobby that
it's just not going to happenfor us?
I mean, how do we turn thisback so the homeowner has some
(18:54):
kind of heavyweight on our side?
Dick Tutwiler (18:57):
Well, that's a good point, and I think the
heavy lifters up there, so tospeak, is on the insurance
company side.
They're the people that go inand lobby to get the right
contract in place, the wordingthat their client wants.
But when you get into a claimsituation where people are
(19:19):
coming at you for money in allfairness to the insurance
industry, it's a fact-driventhing Each person's loss is
different.
So it's very difficult to havesomebody sitting up there
monitoring what their person is,telling them and giving them
advice.
It's not going to happen.
(19:42):
And to give you a good exampleof how this works, particularly
in this last storm we had downin Fort Myers, you had a lot of
flooding and you had a lot ofwind.
So which came first, the windor the flood?
And they're two separate,completely different policies.
The flood policy, I mean, it'svery unique and you have to read
(20:02):
it and understand it.
Well, nobody up until andthat's a federal program, by the
way Good luck getting hold ofthe feds.
So you know, in all fairness,it's hard to imagine how that
would ever get sorted out.
Now it's been brought to myattention and I'm sure you heard
a lot about it.
We have this new thing calledAI and I suspect the insurance
(20:25):
company is going to try to relyon that to a large extent.
And how that's going to playout I'm not sure In the last big
hurricane.
they were using drones, which isvery helpful, because how do
you scan a big building?
You know you got to put lifts,high lifts or something to get
(20:48):
up there to see it.
So they started using drones.
But a drone is, you know, onlyas good as a picture it sends
back.
Then you still have todistinguish old damage versus
new damage.
But that was kind of the newthing that came into the
industry this last session.
So now we have this AI thingout here and how is that going
(21:09):
to work?
I'm not sure how that's goingto work.
It's been told to me thatinsurance company is going to
call the person up when theperson has got a phone and say
we want you to send us picturesand we will plug them into a
program and spit out you a check.
(21:30):
Now I don't think that's goingto work.
George Siegal (21:35):
There's already companies that are doing that,
that are mapping out entireneighborhoods.
I heard of a company that'sdoing that to look for roofs
that have problems so he canthen sell that information to
roofers.
So there's an entire industrythat will be developed from that
.
I have an ongoing runningdebate with with Lisa Miller up
(21:55):
in Tallahassee about SB2A andthe legislature.
The governor ramrodded throughlegislation that if you have to
sue your insurance agent becausethey're not making a claim, you
have to pay your own attorney.
You no longer get attorney'sfees.
She thought that was fair.
Why should the insurancecompany have to pay it?
I think that's one of the mostoutrageous things I've ever
(22:17):
heard personally, because if theinsurance company stonewalls me
and I have to pay a third of myclaim to my lawyer, I can't fix
my house.
I'm screwed.
Why would they take away theone right?
It seemed like we had to atleast hold their feet to the
fire when we were mistreatedleast hold their feet to the
(22:38):
fire when we were mistreated.
Dick Tutwiler (22:38):
I agree with that .
And Florida was unique andthere are a lot of states in
this country who did not haveprovisions for attorney's fees
and it's called in a first partycontract dispute, like Georgia
doesn't have that, florida hadit.
It's been in existence for Idon't know going back tens and
tens of years and I think therewas a lot of abuse with lawyers,
(23:01):
quite frankly, lawsuits thatwere not valid, so to speak.
On top of that, you had Floridahad a bad faith statute that
says if you sue your insurancecompany and you get one dollar
more than what they offered,then you have a right to file a
(23:22):
separate lawsuit for bad faith.
And what is bad faith?
You know that's not ameasurement of the sticks and
water and whatever you had inyour house.
It's some subjective thing thatyou have been harmed in some way
and you know there's nothingbad about that.
(23:44):
You know it's not.
You know it's like pain andsuffering.
You know you had an injury, youhad a pain, you have pain and
suffering, you have lots ofconsortium with your wife, those
kind of things.
So it's not in and of itselfbad.
But I think lawyers in Floridatook this back and I can tell
(24:06):
you this right now.
You know, I've been in thisbusiness 50 years and we never
had an environment where peoplewere suing insurance companies,
making bad faith claims onproperty claims.
It did not exist, and I waswith one of the major carriers
that nobody had any issues withproperty claims, so to speak.
(24:31):
We didn't have that many ofthem.
Of course, during my tenure,which is 10 years, we didn't
have very many hurricanes.
George Siegal (24:37):
Because they weren't sticking it to us, then
Maybe they were paying claimsbetter, and maybe so.
I mean, it's easy to say thatlawyers have ruined the system
by going in there.
Dick Tutwiler (24:48):
I'm saying there were some abuses to it and I
listened to Mr Boyd, senatorBoyd, who put that bill together
, and I knew this was going to.
You know was coming.
You know we have a red statelegislature.
You just knew this was going tocome.
So I agree with you anddisagree with Ms Miller that
(25:08):
they probably went too far.
People cannot afford to go outand hire their own lawyers, you
know, after their house isdestroyed and they're sitting in
a trailer or something.
They can't do that.
So there has to be somerecourse, some method that allow
them to deal with the big guys.
(25:28):
Who's got the big money, sothat at some point there has to
be something worked out whereit's fair to both sides.
Now they've, you know, they'vejust threw the baby out with the
bathwater.
George Siegal (25:39):
Yeah, they could have cleaned it up other ways, I
think, without completelytaking that away.
I just didn't think that wasgood, and Lisa also suggested
that in that wind versus waterscenario you get both adjusters
together.
We kind of shot that down asbeing unrealistic because you
can't get one person out there,let alone two.
(26:00):
That's a tough spot forhomeowners.
I've heard a lot of peoplereally suffer when there's that
fight on who's responsible.
Dick Tutwiler (26:08):
Exactly and there is no science about which comes
first.
I've heard every argument thatcould be made and I have made a
lot of them myself about whichcame first wind or water.
And in Florida we enjoysomething called the broad
evidence rule and every adjusterinsurance company is
(26:30):
responsible to apply that.
And basically what that meansis you take all the factors into
consideration on a loss todetermine what happened at a
particular location.
So you would have a house thatyou know well.
I can give you an example wherethere was nothing.
The whole house was washed away.
(26:51):
But just to give an example,where a house is flooded, the
easy way to do it is a highwater mark.
You know when the water comesup it's going to leave a debris
line around there.
But the water just doesn't riseup in a hurricane.
It sloshes around everywhereand as it goes down it may leave
a water mark.
So you can't use that old way,the simple way of the high water
(27:16):
mark.
You've got to take intoconsideration all the factors
and they're arguable and they'resubjective.
But you make the point that Iwould make you're not going to
get the wind adjuster and theflood adjuster out there at the
same time.
That's not going to happen.
Same thing happens with theflood people.
They bring people in fromeverywhere.
(27:37):
That same flood adjuster thatwent out the first day is not
going to be the same floodadjuster that's going to handle
that claim throughout.
Now I've seen them say no,we're going to revise that,
we're going to change that,we're going to make them do it
Not going to happen?
We're going to make them do itNot going to happen?
And I'll give you a practicalreason.
(27:58):
Down in the Keys we've hadhurricanes down there and it's
very, very expensive to operateas an adjuster in the Florida
Keys.
Number one housing is expensiveGas.
All the things that you've gotto do to do your job is double
what it is in other parts of thestate.
So what the flood people did inone instance that I'm aware of,
(28:23):
they handed out a bunch offlood claims, the adjuster, and
they get paid on a scale thatgoes up.
It's kind of a percentage scale.
It's a basic amount, and thenthey get it goes up to I've
forgotten the top amount, but sothey do have a little incentive
in there.
But when they went down therethey said wait a minute, we
can't make any money here andthey just threw all the files
(28:47):
back on the desk, walked andwent home back to Oklahoma or
Texas.
So these are real worldexamples.
Now what really should behappening in the perfect world,
particularly in Florida, is thatthe policy should cover wind
and flood at the same time had aloss out here, measure the loss
.
Doesn't matter whether it's windor flood, but that would make
(29:09):
Florida property policies veryexpensive.
George Siegal (29:12):
As if they're not already.
I mean, it's kind of ridiculous.
Dick Tutwiler (29:15):
You throw a flood in, but in the perfect world
that's the way to do it.
But the National Flood Programis one entity, florida insurance
companies another entity.
Different rules, differentlanguages in the policy,
different adjusting practices.
It's a nightmare, truly anightmare practice.
It's a nightmare, truly anightmare.
George Siegal (29:35):
Now another thing we talked about in the film
building codes and the waythey're building.
Especially here in Floridathere is a lot of wood apartment
buildings going up everywhere.
There's a lot of houses thatare concrete block on the first
floor but wood on the secondfloor and people I've
interviewed say that's justnowhere as strong as building an
all concrete house and thoseapartment complexes on the water
(30:00):
, four or five stories made outof wood.
Sure, the garage is concrete,the slab is concrete, but the
rest of the structures are woodand you seem to think that was
kind of crazy, like most peoplewould.
Dick Tutwiler (30:13):
Well, you know, I come from an era where we had
something called collapse inpolicy and collapse caused by
certain things, and this allcame about because the way it
was written there was anambiguity in it, so it ended up
going into court and the courtscame back and made some very
(30:35):
substantial rulings on this.
It opened up the door for usand I take credit for this, and
I think a lot of insurancecompanies don't like me for that
, but I figured it all out couldget insurance companies to pay
for hidden wooden structuraldamage caused by hidden decay
(31:02):
termites, and those were the twoprimary things in the
collapsing world.
Now what's that mean?
All these wood buildings thatare built out here, and I just
cringe when I see them.
I see them going up all thetime.
I know what they're going to belike in five years.
If there's no hurricanes,that's fine.
Water's going to get in thereand termites will follow and the
(31:28):
wood will be eaten up,literally eaten up.
I have seen it over and over andit takes basically five years
for this to happen.
And the reason it does happenis because of the poor
workmanship when they buildthese buildings.
They don't caulk and they don'tseal it up, water gets in it.
We're in Florida, high humidity.
(31:48):
It's just a disaster waiting tohappen.
Now, as Warren Buffett said,you're going to find out who's
swimming naked when the tidegoes down.
So here's what that means tothis world.
When the siding gets blown off,the insurance companies are
going to come out and say wait aminute, we don't cover this
stuff, this is rotten woodthat's not covered in your
(32:14):
insurance policy.
That's going to be hundreds ofmillions of dollars,
theoretically, if it hits in theright spot.
When the stuff gets blown offand the woods all riddled and
eaten up, huge, huge deal, theelephant in the room that nobody
really talks about and, quitefrankly, I don't think they
(32:36):
understand the exposure.
George Siegal (32:39):
Yeah, we were shocked to see in Mexico Beach
everything is being rebuilt withwood, other than a house I
featured in my last film.
That was concrete poured inplace walls.
It was concrete block, theentire house.
At least the forms wereconcrete.
Now they're doing all wood.
And one of the things thatamazed me when we talked about
(32:59):
building codes Mexico Beachactually made their building
code stronger after HurricaneMichael, but then they rescinded
it and they went back to freeMichael hurricane levels.
That's amazing to me.
When you get wiped out by adisaster and people complain
that the building code is nowtoo tough and they want it
relaxed.
(33:19):
That's just.
I don't know how you could evenget insurance for that.
Dick Tutwiler (33:25):
Politics, lobbyists, those kinds of things
.
I mean I don't knowspecifically what the
conversations were up there, butI mean obviously it deals with
money.
It's cheaper to not do theright thing, to fix, you know,
put them back right.
(33:45):
And people say, okay, well,we've had our hurricane, we're
not going to have another one inmy lifetime, so let's just save
some money and rescind thatbuilding code.
George Siegal (33:56):
I don't know how an insurance company would
insure it, though is, I guess,what my point is.
If you know a hurricane, if youknow a Category 5 hurricane
wiped you out, that means it'scertainly possible for another
Category 5 hurricane to hit you.
You're not invincible.
I would think you would have toraise the building code, not
lower it invincible.
Dick Tutwiler (34:13):
I would think you would have to raise the
building code, not lower it.
Well, they did do that and most.
I mean Florida has a prettystrict building code.
Now people change you knowtheir laws to get around it.
You know when it comes time tomake a claim, the insurance
company may not pay the claim.
Yeah, south.
George Siegal (34:32):
Florida seems to have the toughest standards.
Everybody else.
Dick Tutwiler (34:35):
They do now.
They absolutely do.
But you know, look around thestate of Florida how much of
this stuff is on the ground andbeen here before the building
codes were changed.
The majority, I would say, ofthe properties in Florida are
old properties.
Just look what's happening tothe condominium world right now.
(34:57):
You know you had the collapseof that Surfside building down
there.
You know, I've seen that.
I can't tell you how manyplaces where the rebar gets
saltwater in it it rusts and youknow, over time things fall
down.
Insurance companies keptinsuring the buildings.
(35:18):
They never said anything aboutit.
Now they have put some verystrict rules that they have to
have the building recertified ina certain amount of time and
they have to.
The condominium associationshave to have the reserves fully
funded and it's causing havoc inthe condominium world.
We can't afford to pay for thereserves and we cannot afford
(35:43):
the insurance premium.
So what's going to happen?
From what I'm reading,developers are going in there
and trying to dissolve the oldcondominium, get the people out,
pay them some amount of moneyand then put up new buildings
that they can make more money in.
But you know, surfside thing,it was an eye-opener.
(36:06):
It shouldn't have been, becauseyou know it's pretty clear that
I've seen it all over the state.
You build on the water concrete, you put rebar in there, water
gets in there over the years,the concrete spalls, it starts
cracking, the rebar keepsrusting.
It's a prelude for a disasterand we had that disaster happen
(36:32):
with the surface matter downthere.
George Siegal (36:34):
That was awful.
I can't even imagine what thatwas like to be part of that.
Now, at what point shouldsomebody consider getting a
private insurance adjuster?
That's kind of your wheelhouse?
Now, At what point wouldsomebody want to say, all right,
I can't rely on company X.
You know we were using Allstateor State Farm or whatever.
(36:55):
I'm going to hire my own person.
When should you do that?
Dick Tutwiler (36:59):
Well, again it gets back to common sense.
I think people when they have abig loss, they look around.
They were busy before.
They had all kinds of stuffgoing on in their lives, you
know, whatever it may be medical, business, families and now
they've got this and they haveduties and responsibilities.
It says in the policy theirduties and responsibilities.
(37:23):
Now, most people don'tunderstand that.
What does that mean?
So a smart person would say canI do this?
Is somebody else going to dothis for me?
Or should I get somebody thatknows what they're doing?
And to me it's a simple thing.
I would get somebody that knowswhat they're doing to handle
(37:44):
this.
Now, and what I think is aterrible thing, is what's
happening with surplus linescarriers, which is primarily
Lloyds and a few here in thecountry.
They're putting in anti-publicadjusting clauses in it.
They're taking away from thepolicyholder the same thing they
did with the lawyers.
(38:06):
They do not want thepolicyholder to hire public
adjusters and they're puttinganti-public adjusting clauses in
some policies.
Can't hire a lawyer, can't hirea public adjuster.
George Siegal (38:22):
That seems kind of rough.
I mean, you know, because it'sless expensive?
Isn't it less expensive than anattorney?
You guys are what?
At 10% of the claim.
Dick Tutwiler (38:31):
Typically 10%, 15% and it's all negotiable.
You know the statute in Floridaon non-emergency is 20%.
Emergency claims are capped at10%.
On the 20% daily claims, I'llcall them those are all
negotiable.
There's a lot of competition.
(38:52):
So you know you can negotiate afee that's fair for both
parties.
But you know, with thisanti-public adjusting thing in
the policies, I mean the policyowners are going to be standing
out there in their shorts andthey're going to have to read
the policy and figure out whatthey're going to do, because
there's not going to be any helpout there Now would I want to
(39:16):
first have my insurance companycome in and give me their
valuation of my loss and then goto the public adjuster?
George Siegal (39:23):
I think I said private adjuster, so public
adjuster or would I call in thepublic adjuster first so I know
what the base level should bewhen my insurance company comes
out?
I mean, a lot of people don'tsay they might not want to pay
for that.
Dick Tutwiler (39:44):
That's true, and I would tell a person first of
all if it's obvious that yourproperty is a total loss, you
don't need to hire me or anattorney.
Why should you have us go tothe bank with you to get our fee
out of the insurance company'scheck?
You don't need somebody.
George Siegal (39:56):
The other issue.
Dick Tutwiler (39:58):
There's two parts to that question you asked.
The other issue is, as I saidbefore, there are things that
you are required to do.
You cannot just sit down andsay okay, mr Insurance Company,
you do it all, come up with myloss and tell me what it is.
They're not going to do that.
You have to do things.
So you have to ask yourself canwe do this?
(40:21):
Do we know how to do it?
What are the rules?
That's a question you need toask.
The other question, the otherissue, is well, I'll sit and
wait and see what they do.
Okay, how long are you going towait?
Who's going to tell you on theinsurance company side what
their loss is?
(40:41):
Now, if an insurance companyhas a good and qualified
adjuster says I'm going to havesomebody out next week, take
their word for it, we're goingto tell you what we're going to
pay you, I'd say, fine, sit downand wait for the guy to do it,
but that's not likely to happenNow.
George Siegal (40:58):
People also along the whole process, really need
to keep very accurate notes ofwho they spoke with, what was
done, because what we found outfrom attorney David Murray, who
we interviewed here in Tampa,that the insurance company
doesn't have to give you allthose we're recording this
conversation to have accuraterecords.
If you end up in a court withthem, they don't have to share
(41:20):
that with you.
Dick Tutwiler (41:22):
And here's another thing they don't have to
share with them.
If they bring in their when Isay experts, such as engineers
that they hire, they don't haveto give you those reports, and
those are very, very criticalreports in some cases, you know,
do we have to replace the wholeroof?
Is the building condemned?
I mean, the engineer will go inand write a report for the
(41:45):
insurance company and give it tothem and they are not required
to give it to you.
So you know when you get backto, should I wait?
You want to wait or you want tohave somebody come in and do
this stuff that knows whatthey're doing?
George Siegal (42:01):
So how do we turn this around?
So homeowners recapture.
You know it's like upper hand.
How do we get our hand back inthis whole thing, because it
seems like it's not going to getbetter.
If people are, I don't know howyou turn back the clock on this
stuff.
Dick Tutwiler (42:18):
Well, actually I had a conversation this morning
about this with my son and Ireminded him that back in the
four storms, the four hurricanesthat hit and I think in 45 days
, back to back pretty much, youknow, the whole world went crazy
and the insurance property bitinside of it and people were
(42:43):
flooding the legislature withcomplaints, constantly asking
them what is this?
I'm hearing from my insurancecompany.
My policy says that I amsupposed to get replacement
costs.
My insurance company is sayingno, you need and I think I
pointed this out, you need to goread the fine print that tells
(43:06):
you when you're going to getreplacement costs.
But no, it says this right onthe front.
And I told my agent I wantedthis.
But no, it says this right onthe front.
And I told my agent I wantedthis.
So the voice was so huge thatthe legislature went in and
changed the law that said allpolicies will pay replacement
costs.
And when that happened, I wasdumbfounded, as were others.
(43:27):
How could we file a claim forstuff we had that's 20 years old
, it's obsolete, has no value?
But the way the legislaturechanged the law, you got
replacement costs.
So that went on for three orfour years.
Things quieted down.
(43:48):
Insurance company got back withtheir lobbyists in Tallahassee.
Wipe that out.
We're back to the old waysagain.
So to change it, it's going totake another hurricane, another
big hurricane, and then thelegislature and all their wisdom
will be so undone andundoneated with complaints that
(44:10):
they won't listen to thepolicyholder and they will
change it.
It's like a ship it's going toturn but it's going to take time
.
It's going to take a bighurricane.
Right now, everything's intheir favor.
George Siegal (44:23):
Well, our area is supposed to be the next big
bullseye.
You know we've dodged a lot ofbullets here.
I was talking to somebodyyesterday who said they believe
in the old Indian burial groundrumor for the.
Tampa area and that we'll neverget hit by a major hurricane.
And I just I rolled my eyesvery obviously.
What do you think about allthat?
Dick Tutwiler (44:46):
Well, I hope so.
I hope that old Indian burialground is still, that maiden is
still here and she's protectingus.
But I doubt it.
I mean, you know we've I had a.
I went to a conference a coupleof years ago and there was one
of the keynote speakers was aCoast Guard Admiral and he had
been involved in the Katrina andSandy.
(45:10):
You know running it from amilitary Coast Guard perspective
, and they gave a greatpresentation.
They do a great job.
You know they're not biased oneway or the other.
They're out there trying to dothe right thing.
But I asked him.
I said you know, why don't we?
How come we don't gethurricanes so much on the West
Coast?
The Panhandle gets them upthere, but you know the West
(45:32):
Coast down.
He says, watch, it's changingright now.
Things are in the works, in theatmosphere that it's changing.
And lo and behold, if you readthe predictions now in fact I
just saw one this morning thatshows this area that they're
predicting a high possibility,at least 75%, of a major
(45:53):
hurricane.
And we're right in that areaover here it's like a circle
South Florida up to our area.
So the experts are predictingthat if it hits Fort Lauderdale
or something.
It's going to cause damage uphere, you know, and the big
(46:13):
thing up here is well, they'reboth.
I mean, wind is definitely aserious thing, but it's the
water, the water, the weight ofthe water pushing in, pushing in
and pushing in, and a gallon ofwater weighs eight pounds and
you've got this force of waterpushing in and pushing in and it
(46:34):
lasts for days so I wouldn't.
George Siegal (46:37):
Yeah, I would encourage anybody listening to
google.
Um hurricane phoenix scenario.
Uh with uh here in tampa.
They put out a video showingwhat a category 5 hurricane
would do to this area and it'sjust staggering the amount of
damage we would have over amillion homes destroyed,
businesses, 2000 people killed.
(46:59):
Tampa General on Davis Islandswould be underwater 26 feet of
water downtown.
I mean it's really scary and itis possible.
Dick Tutwiler (47:08):
It is possible, although typically you know
possible.
It is possible, althoughtypically you know it depends on
the, how hot or warm the wateris.
You know we've been saved a lotof times by the because we're
further north and the water's alittle cooler.
But things have changed.
You know, the water temperaturenow is off the charts in the
atlantic and it's hot out herein the gulf.
(47:29):
So it used to be well.
We could get a two or a three,but we're not going to get
anything bigger than thatbecause we got this cold water
that's protecting us.
We got this Indian maiden uphere, but everybody's aligned
this year that it's going to bea bad year someplace.
(47:50):
Yeah, and the zone that I justsaw has got this circle around
it right across Florida and thatit runs from the keys up to
where we're at now.
You know they could hit up inKatrina, or I mean sorry, in New
Orleans, where Katrina you knowit's.
It's going to hit someplace andit's going to be bad.
George Siegal (48:13):
Yeah, and that's the thing.
Every time you breathe a sighof relief when one blows by you,
it means somebody else is goingto get it, so it's kind of.
It doesn't leave you with areal good feeling.
So let's put a bow on this.
If you're somebody who lives inFlorida, or really anywhere in
the country, what's the numberone thing you can do to put
yourself in the best positionshould a disaster find you?
Dick Tutwiler (48:38):
well, when you say disaster, I'm going to keep
that in terms of what we talkedabout hurricane and I think the
best thing that you can do whatyou, what I do and what I have
done personally to my house isyou need to try to the best of
your ability, economically, youneed to try to fortify your
house.
Don't wait for the insurancecompany to tell you to do that.
You need to do it yourself andyou know I've gone around my
(49:00):
house and put shutters up thatcome down windows.
I mean, you know the old 50sliding glass doors are horrible
and they're.
You know there's god knows howmany of those are still here and
the ones today are like bankvaults.
So if you have sliding doors,you know you know, upgrade it to
(49:24):
to the new code and you knowit's not cheap.
But those are the kind ofthings that you know.
I get back to a personalresponsibility.
Look around and see if you canprotect your property.
Don't wait for the insurancecompany, because afterwards
you're going to be dealing withthe fine print and the process
(49:45):
we've been talking about.
Try to avoid them to the bestof your ability and you know I
do see a lot of homes around myarea.
There are a lot of people thatare replacing the roofs, whether
it's at the behest of theinsurance company or whether
they're just using common sense.
But you know, those are thethings that people need to do
(50:05):
proactively before the stormhits Protect your property and
then if it's going to be badenough.
You know you need to have someevacuation plan, and I'll just
tell you this.
George Siegal (50:14):
I hear this all the time.
Dick Tutwiler (50:15):
Well, you know, if my house gets destroyed, I'll
just go up and rent a housesomeplace up the street and I'll
sell my lot.
Guess who the competition isgoing to be.
All your neighbors are lookingfor that one house that still
has a roof on.
So you know that's not a goodhurricane plan.
Y'all just go somewhere up theroad, rent a house.
George Siegal (50:38):
Yeah, probably not very realistic.
And we always say and that'sprobably the key message in our
film the cost of being proactiveis much lower than the cost of
being reactive.
It's a major difference.
Dick Tutwiler (50:50):
Well said and I totally agree with that.
George Siegal (50:53):
Dick, thank you so much for coming on today.
I appreciate your time.
I'll give you a heads up waybefore this film comes out,
cause I know you're going tolove it.
You were great in it.
Dick Tutwiler (51:03):
You see it, and thanks for doing it.
Hopefully people will, you know, pay attention to what we've
talked about and others I knowsome of the people you've
interviewed good people usecommon sense.
The only person that's going toreally save you is you yourself
.
George Siegal (51:24):
That's the truth, Dick.
Thank you.
Dick Tutwiler (51:26):
My pleasure Good talking with you.
George Siegal (51:28):
All of Dick's contact information is in the
show notes.
Now I know a lot of youlistening have experienced all
kinds of things as either ahomeowner or a renter.
There's a contact form in theshow notes.
Fill it out, send it my way.
You could be a guest to shareyour story on an upcoming
podcast.
Thanks for taking the time tolisten today.
I'll see you next time.
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