TLDR: I'm screwed and everyone is blaming the other guy.

I called my insurance company yesterday, AAA, to have someone come look at our roof after a hail storm. The first lady I speak to takes all the info and tells me an adjuster will call.

Ten minutes later the adjuster calls and tells me the policy for 125.... Was cancelled in January due to non payment. I said, 125 is our old house that we sold and closed on last summer, so it shouldn't have had any payment expected in January. She replied, oh, they put the claim in under the wrong address.

I then confirm our new address and she says, it looks like that was cancelled in February due to non payment. I said that can't be possible, the mortgage company pays that from escrow. She looks a little more, nope, it was never paid, sorry, we won't be covering any damage and you don't have a policy with us.

I call my agent and leave a message.

I call my mortgage company, PHH, and get connected to someone in India. I start going through the situation with her and she connects me to an "insurance specialist." He claims they requested payment information from AAA through the website and never heard back and then tried calling but never got a response. So, they knew who my insurance carrier was and just said oh well, I guess we are paying? This guy can't give me ANYTHING. He says he doesn't have email to send me ANY record of their attempted contact with AAA. If he was standing in front of me I think I would have strangled him.

I call my agent back who had tried calling. He confirms no payment was made by the mortgage company and says there is no record in their system of PHH contacting them. He also says they don't show PHH as the loan servicer and AAA sent the bill to C**** Mortgage. I told him that was our broker. My agen stays it looks like they were never notified the loan was sold.

I call my mortgage broker. He says no, we notified them and I will email you the notification letter. He is supposed to find out today if it was mailed or emailed.

Everyone one is pointing a finger at everyone else. I'm not sure what recourse I have other than to hire an attorney and sue everyone for the cost of a new roof.

This is my third house and I have never had anything even close to this situation happen before. I've never had to check up to be sure the mortgage company was paying my homeowners insurance. I'm waiting on pricing for a roof but I estimate it will be near $50k.

I am so pissed right now I can't see straight.

Sucks OP. I had something similiar happen with a refinance. Property tax bill got sent to the old carrier,  was never forwarded to me or the new carrier, and ended up costing me some interest and fees.  Best advice I have is stop paying into escrow and pay your taxes and insurance yourself. Put the money into savings. Profit.

That kind of shit was par for the course back when I was stuck with Nationstar.  My mortgage kept getting sold every year or two to some other shitty company, but Nationstar was worst of the worst.  

Then refi’d with a local bank who doesn’t sell mortgages.  It’s been awesome.  Shit gets handled and I got a person I can visit in person if needed.

I have a mortgage with PHH.  They are terrible!
I had PMI on this house and had to resort to calling the state insurance commissioner to get any action.  In the end it was resolved, but took far too much effort.


Good luck OP.

Alternatively, think of how livid you'd be when they would have denied your claim. It's the new insurance norm.

That is the plan. Just trying to find an attorney to deal with the situation.

I am also having a new policy written first thing this morning so we have insurance on the house. Thank God it was just a hail storm and not a tornado.

If I were you I’d condense the facts into a short paragraph, and spend a few hours searching for law firms in your state that deal with insurance claims.

You could send the same summary of facts to each firm you talk to.

The hail damage is much less than a total loss, and there’s at least some chance that you get someone that will take this on a contingency fee basis.  

You might not get anything soon, but there’s enough parties involved, they all know that the mortgage company should have “force-placed” insurance and I think there’s a good chance that you get this paid with zero out of pocket

So the mortgage company allowed you to have a mortgage on a house but not insure it? Yeah right... don't they typically send you multiple letters and then threaten to purchase it for you?

I asked the Indian in what world does a mortgage company allow a property to sit without insurance. He acted like he knew nothing....

To recap, the mortgage company that requires you to carry home owners insurance and probably requires you to put the money in an escrow account, took your
money and never paid the Insurance premiums?  That should be a HUGE red flag, as that escrow account grew larger than it should have.  Seems this is
100% on the mortgage company.  Be glad it didn't burn to the ground.

+1 PHH sucks

When I got my loan for my house the idiot at Wells Fargo asked me if I wanted to escrow both insurance and property taxes to which I said yes.   It was two month from when they would start charging taxes on just the land to the land and the house.   My real estate agent told me start paying this extra amount into your escrow because of this so you don't have big payments when they finally catch up.  So I did that and a couple months in the escrow company sends me a check for over payment.   They were just collecting for insurance and not property taxes so I told them to shut down the escrow I would take care of it.

Op your mortgage company definitely dropped the ball.  One time when some notification got screwed it only took them like 1 week to send me a certified letter telling me I need to get insurance or they would start it for me and bill me.

My mortgage company did the same thing.  Luckily there was no claim needed during the gap.  However they did make me go back and pay premiums for the uncovered period.  Said Federal banking regs or some such shit required it.  I assumed that because I had to pay retroactively I would have been covered during such oversights.

and at an astronomical rate to force you get your own insurance. AAA was unbelievable handling my hail claim and lowered my rates the next year because I had a new roof.

State Insurance Commission is where I would start.

Good luck man.   I would guess that other than yourself the mortgage company has the most to lose and will likely pay for repairs.   In the meantime I would SIGN NOTHING and see a lawyer to determine if you can sue them for repairs, and a bunch of other stuff like lawyer fees, and the fact you paid them and they did not provide the agreed to services for months.

Maybe I'm stupid but why do people use escrow?  I just pay for taxes and insurance myself like any other bill.  I pay my taxes myself to make sure the county doesn't steal my home and insurance so I don't end up in this boat.  

The mortgage company pushed hard to get us to use escrow but I just said no or I'm going somewhere else and that was it.

State Attorney General/State Insurance Commissioner

I think this is part of the competency crisis.  

Everyone should expect to experience this more often as time goes by.

This is also the way things work in a lot of third-world countries.  
Bureaucratic incompetence constantly making problems and headaches for everyone.

They don’t.

Raja Patel on the phone is like the counter-guy, “Mikey,” at McDonald’s. He can’t answer serious ‘manager-level’ questions.

You’re at manager-level now.

It's often required.

A lot of people are incapable of saving money themselves for big annual expenses so some mortgage companies require it or act like it's a requirement of every mortgage company.

I was very specific when I refinanced that I would not accept any loan that required me to escrow property taxes and insurance.

this

What kind of ghetto mortgage company are you using?

This, because the insurance company wanted to post purchase run an inspection of the house, and weren’t able to reach us, cancelled our insurance.  The bank was going to purchase some for us at a $2000 more than current insurance.


We had to show proof of insurance at closing? Some closer, broker and mortgage person dropped the ball(s).

Some people don't put enough down or the or the loan to value is not at least 20%. I think.

Thats the way I understand it.

You might not even have to sue your mortgage company if the right people get the right lawyer letter.

Clear negligence on their part and your continued emotional distress can get costly fast.

At this point you want a new roof. If you go to court you want two new roofs, one for you and one for your lawyer.

This happens with some frequency.

First mistake was by escrow holders not sending payment.

Second and more important mistake was by insurance company.

My LOCAL insurance agent is great.  She monitors all late payments and contacts escrow.
When my son's policy almost lapsed, she called him at 7pm and took a credit card over the phone.
A storm was coming and she didn't want him to go without insurance.
Turns out insurance got payment from escrow, but lost it for a few days.

Anyway, I've reccommended her to others.

That.

No shit. I probably could have shopped around and got a mortgage for 1/8th percent less than I'm paying but I just went with my credit union. They don't sell mortgages off or use customer support from India.

That's a great lawsuit.  Everyone is made a defendant.  They all file counterclaims and cross claims against each other.  Sit back and let them fight it out.

“You better get Dick”

When we got our first house I was advised to only get mortgages from usaa or a local bank that doesn’t sell them.  I’ve followed that advice and it has worked out well.  Only down side is you might have to pay 1/8 higher interest but it’s worth it in the long run.  

More importantly,  If they didn’t pay your insurance where is your insurance premium?  If it’s not still in your escrow it sounds like they’re not only violating the mortgage agreement but maybe also breaking the law?

This is the way...

Did you ever get a cancellation letter from the insurance carrier OP?

This.  I got one after Katrina when my homeowners company was getting away from coastal areas.

Required by our local bank.  I protested during buying our house but they said it is their policy and not negotiable because it avoids hassles like OP.  
It’s kind of nice - they handle it to their satisfaction and it’s one less thing I have to deal with.

Ironically, there was a paperwork mistake when we bought our house and they were given the previous owner’s insurance info instead of ours.  First insurance renewal comes up and the bank called me, I directed them to usaa, and they settled it before lunch that day and I didn’t have to do anything other than answer the phone and talk for a minute or two,

It's a shame my attorney just retired. He wrote masterful letters and believed that the best defense was a great offense.

Good luck OP. Go get a late Boomer attorney who knows real estate and put him to work. Hé'll be expensive - and worth it.

Most states don't allow a policy to be canceled without proper notification to the policyholder (ie the owner).

ETA: I see OP is in MO.  MO is very pro-policyholder in insurance disputes.  However, I am uncertain about their cancelation requirements.

^^^^

This

Sounds like a RESPA violation. Fuck them hard OP.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/regulations/1024/34/

In before the insurance company says, "that's not hail."

On a serious note, I'd want to be damn sure there was hail damage to the roof if that's what's driving your legal efforts.
Hailstorm doesn't automatically equal shingle damage.

Op I was sent this from the wife who is a banking manager over construction lending.  She has been in the industry for 25+ years now.  

The mtg co will be responsible for placing a policy. He should have gotten notification from them that they did not receive a renewal from the insco.
The loan is likely owned by fannie/Freddie and there are insurance requirements that go with that. Notifications being one of them and purchase of a policy another. He may be on the hook for the policy premium, but there will be insurance to cover the loss.

You need to call a consumer protection attorney. Things start happening when lawyer letters start coming in the mail.

Do you open your mail, OP?

I can’t envision any scenario where you didn’t receive letters from both your mortgage company and your insurance company.

When I got a cancellation notice, it was signature required mail.

Under what circumstances?  I've declined escrow on 4 houses so far in my life.

ETA: read further in the thread and got an answer

OP's escrow statement should itemize deposits and payouts - what does it show happened with the insurance premiums?