Please feel encouraged to submit businesses

or vendors who do unfair, dishonest dealings

or absolutely stupid things to you so we can

post them for the monthly Single Digit Salute

award!  Submit to

bob@middlefingerparty.com.  

If anyone can top what Frontline Insurance

Company did, we'll cancel them as of June

12, and post yours, instead.

For An Interesting Time, Choose Frontline!

(How I got screwed by Frontline Insurance Company - the whole story!

Most business people seek feedback from their clientele. Frontline Insurance Company isn't’t like that. They don’t care if you appreciate their service or not and you probably won't.

Frontline Insurance Company leads the pack for High-handed, whimsical, authoritarian incompetence. They insured a property in my name, with my money, that I did not own. Frontline Insurance Company inspected a property I was trying to buy, 6 days before the closing, found that they were unwilling to insure it, and DID NOT TELL ME until nearly a month after the closing date. Here’s the time line. That’s what people, where I come from, call a “GOTCHCA’!”

I signed a contract to buy the house in December 2010. I applied to lender #1 (who shall remain unnamed) for a mortgage. Lender1, after two months of meandering through red tape, declined the loan on a technicality, March 10, 2011, suggesting I reapply the following month, which would have been April. I re-applied to lender #2 who approved and closed in just over one month. Closing took place May 2, 2011 (on a house already insured by Frontline Insurance Company, in my name for 51 days BEFORE I OWNED IT).

March 14, Lender #1, using my money, placed homeowner’s insurance on the house, paying an annual premium, using my credit card. The insurance was placed with Frontline Insurance Company.

Frontline Insurance Company’s effective date for the policy was March 11 FIFTY ONE DAYS BEFORE CLOSING – before I even owned the house!

Frontline had the home inspected on April 25 – 45 days later, still 6 days before I closed on the house. Why they waited 6 weeks to inspect it is still a mystery to me.

Closing took place May 2, 2011 – without a hitch.

A little over two weeks later (May 17), I had an email from my insurance agent asking if I was having repairs done to the roof. I called and asked what work needed to be done on the roof. It is a clay tile roof, in good condition and so far as I could tell it was in great condition. The response was to send me a series of pictures with no explanation, essentially ignoring my question.

I pressed the issue and on May 20, I received this cursory statement from Frontline Insurance Company via my agent:

After reviewing the inspection, it is appears [sic] there are several issues. Some of the issues are as follows:

? Roof damage to the shingle, flashing of the tile portion and where the shingle portion meets the tile roof
? Many large siding cracks and paint peeling
? Broken light fixture (s)
? Chimney issues

[ Review above: “it is appears,” is not a definitive statement. It’s the same as saying “there might be but there also might not be issues…”] “Some [but not all?] of the issues are as follows…”

No one could be sure what “roof damage to the shingle” could possibly mean.
There is no place where the ceramic tile portion of the roof meets the asphalt shingle portion since there are large wood trim pieces between them. One of those pieces had a cracked bead of caulking. One of the asphalt shingles was damaged.

At one time, a large crack in the siding had been repaired with silicon cement flashing and finished with a mismatching color so it looked like the crack was still there. In response to the above, I:

Pressure washed, steel brushed, resealed and painted the house.
I re-flashed and repainted the broken bead of caulking where the ‘ceramic portion of the roof meets the asphalt shingle portion.’
I repaired the one damaged shingle by placing a patch under it.
I painted the cement filler that the inspector took for wood rot.
I removed the broken light fixtures.

I asked for clarification on the “chimney issues.” After asking several times, I was told by my agent that there were cracks in the finish of the chimney. I went up on the roof and looked at it and found one hair-line crack.

I agreed to have the chimney refinished in July – next month and I sent pictures of all my repairs. After a week of silence, Frontline Insurance Company declined reinstatement of the policy siting “pre-existing damage” and that the repairs I had made were “inadequate.”

At no time did Frontline Insurance Company list repairs that if completed, would be satisfactory to them.

I received a letter from Frontline Insurance Company in April, dated April 15, 2011, announcing a Hurricane Deductible amount.

I received a letter from Frontline Insurance Company dated May 16, announcing an increase in my annual premium of $206 with no explanation.

I received a letter from Front Line Insurance Company dated May 17.

In that communication Frontline Insurance Company notified me of the Cancellation of my homeowners insurance, effective June 12, 2011 siting “pre-existent damage to dwelling and roof.”

Frontline Insurance Company is a subsidiary of First Protective Insurance Company of Lake Mary, Florida.

At no time did Frontline Insurance Company articulate clearly what repairs, if any, they wanted me to undertake. Their answers to my queries have been vague and modified with “it is appears there are several issues…” At no time did a representative of Frontline Insurance Company contact me and say, “We need you to fix these specific things.”

Frontline Insurance Company’s responses to my questions were misleading, inarticulate and high-handed. They led me to do expensive and time consuming repairs in the belief that I was doing the right thing, all the while knowing in their evil little hearts that they were going to cancel my policy after three months. During the first two of those months, I didn’t even own the house.

Florida Law requires an “Insurable Interest” be present as a prerequisite to providing insurance coverage. From the date of the policy, March 11, 2011 until May 2, 2011, I held no insurable interest in the house, yet Frontline Insurance Company accepted my money at the call of Lender #1 without checking with me or even verifying that I actually owned the house. Frontline Insurance Company is clearly in violation of Florida’s Insurance Laws.  During the two months I owned insurance on the house before actually owning the house, Frontline Insurance Company could have warned me about the alleged needed repairs but neglected to do so until it was too late for me to back out of buying it.  Even though they dragged their feet for six weeks before actually inspecting the house, they still had a week left over in which they could have warned me or made some statement about needed repairs before I actually laid out my money and BOUGHT the house!

As for me, that my homeowner’s insurance company, Frontline Insurance Company, cancelled my policy on the basis of “needed repairs,” without giving me the chance to MAKE the repairs or warning about needed repairs has placed me in a very awkward position. Other insurance companies are afraid to insure my house because Frontline Insurance Company dropped me for “needed repairs.”

Frontline Insurance Company damaged me by taking money for insurance coverage when no insurable interest existed,

by failing to inform me in a timely manner of damage they knew about that would affect my insurance coverage,

by inducing me to do expensive and time consuming repairs in hopes of appeasing them while they with-held vital information about what kind of repairs they wanted.

I recommend that if you are buying a house and your agent suggests Frontline Insurance Company that you run like hell and find a new agent!

At the present, I am in search of an attorney who would like to take action on my behalf. I will actively begin pursuing that in a few days.

So. FOR AN INTERESTING TIME, CHOOSE FRONTLINE!

Robert G. Makin