Perhaps mention your idea about filing that complaint first to the company, preferably in writing, that may get you some action...

You pay your premiums, they need to hold up their end of the bargain. I might contact your State's Attorney General...

Almost same story. Been working on hail damage claim for 2 years.( Filed,denied; refiled, denied) (Filed a 2nd claim, denied; refiled, denied.) (Filed a new claim for the 3rd time, denied X 2) All of a sudden the insurance company has decided to pay some . I do not know what my latest roofing salesman did to accomplish this.. Four different roofers each unknown to the others inspected my roof and said there was hail damage. One of the first adjusters I had with my insurance company talked down to me like I was stupid. I told him that I had engaged 4 roofers to look at my roof after the 1st denial and all saw hail damage.. I told him that "there were 4 roofers who were liars or that his company were crooks." And several houses in my neighborhood got new roofs from the hail storm promptly.

Many years ago my house burned down. I had a sister that had worked in insurance for many years (accounts manager) and I asked her for advice. She told me insurance companies will often assess the damage, decide what the worst case scenario would be for them, put that money into an account and try to manage the claims so there was money left over. Companies might pay the claims adjuster a percentage of that money. Not saying that is what is going on but persistence paid off. She told me they had to pay up in the end but might use every legal method to brown you out. In your case you cant even use the leverage of saying you will change companies. Keep hounding them. Offer to report them.

Forgot to say that one other homeowner in the affected area is still in the process of trying to get the claim adjusted Another one just gave up and changed policies.

Your state has to have an Insurance Commissioner, who oversees practices. I would contact his office.

How does an insurance company not answer an incoming call? Has it gone out of business? Is it the company or an agent?

There's something wrong with this story.

I ALWAYS call the main phone number...not the individual office. Talk to corporate. They'll handle it.

I would do everything in writing. Old fashioned snail mail, with a return receipt so you can prove they received it. Give them a deadline for resolution before you go to the insurance commissioner. Be sure to tell them that’s what you will do.

Always call the claims department not the regular number. Also write down the name of your adjuster.

Something to consider is while there may be hail damage it may not be enough to replace the roof. Knowing my roof was probably near the end of its functional life and expecting the roofing companies to want to replace the whole thing. I was pleasantly surprised when I was told while there was some hail damage it was not severe enough to replace the roof. One company did suggest that one spot could be repaired but the shingles would never match. Turned out the leaks that were happening were not from the roof but from split boots surrounding the various exhaust pipes. One of those things that should be replaced periodically.

No advice other than the imsirance subreddit is a good place to ask questions.

I disagree with the suggestion of contacting them by mail. Proof of receipt of a letter- what purpose does that serve? It's wishful thinking to expect that one piece of mail, among the hundreds and thousands of items each insurance companies receives each day, will find its way to the right person who can do something, is more than wishful thinking.

If your agent is being unresponsive, call the claims department directly. If the claims department is being unresponsive, call your agent.

Just last week I had 5 seconds of annoyance about a few incomprehensible email communications from my insurance company's claims department. Two hours after a phone call to my agent, the matter was completely cleared up and moving along.

I’m so shocked you disagree, Elmer! lol

Is it a large insurance company with a home office. Go straight to the top. I've had to do it before. It takes some searching through the internet but you can usually find the CEOs, any officers that might pertain and even board of directors emails. Send a polite email to the CEO and CC the remainder stating your problem. Also state that you will contact your states Attorney General if the problem is not addressed. I don't what magical power PAs Attorney General has, but that always does the trick.

Take a break - I disagreed with your suggestion, it wasn't a personal comment. It's a little used communication means these days, it's too slow and also too passive for a situation that requires more timely action.

Like a moth to a flame.

My DH & I were involved in a fraud involving a charitablle organization that we contributed to and our State's/Commonwealth attorney general was very resposive and helpful to us. We contacted them by phone but also exchanged paper correstpondance with them...

The real irony is that some people get off just insulting or provoking without adding any substantive comment, other than accusing others of the same. More a display of uncontrolled misandry than anything else, and not for the first time. If a male disagrees with you, you think it's because you're a female. Maybe it's because others have the right to different opinions and or that you're wrong.

Check your policy coverage under "Other Structures", and see how much it's covered, the amount may not cover the roof exp. For some reason carriage house ( 2nd dwelling) doesn't get covered a lot. We had to add on optional coverages for ours.

I agree with Elmer and have worked in the industry. This is why you have an insurance agent. Remember that "hail damage" doesn't automatically qualify for "new roof". And insurance is for acts of nature, not maintenance. If you can't get a response from the claims adjuster, then call your agent and ask them to step in for you. But just because your neighbors got a new roof doesn't mean you should as well.

Op says she already has contacted the old agency and they, along with the old insurance company are being non-responsive. If she gets no satisfaction in the way of a response, the next step could be to contact the insurance commissioner. Anyone advocating for her is going to want proof of the efforts she's made to resolve this on her own. Thus my suggestion of a real letter, with proof of receipt to the parties involved. No one can prove an email was received or a phone call/message sent. All the company has to do is say they never received anything from her trying to resolve this. Of course, it goes without saying that this might not be covered by insurance, but if there is a disagreement about the cause and amount of damage, then having a gov't agency take a look is a logical step.

Some good ideas, which is what I was looking for. The company is AAA, so no little fly by night outfit. We switched agents because, despite using this agency for over 20 years, they were not helpful or proactive with communication, yet had no problem cashing the checks for our multiple properties and vehicles every year. Just bad timing on the switcheroo. This property was a separate policy, not a carriage house policy. Of course I don't think just because all of my neighbors are getting their roofs replaced, I should. I had a qualified roofing contractor look at it, and it's his opinion there is significant damage. This guy is local and is the contractor being used by probably 50% of the neighborhood. He has a reputation as being honest.

So this afternoon, another adjuster called my husband and said he was coming Thursday to look at the house. DH wants the roofing contractor there when the adjuster examines the roof. I can't believe someone actually finally contacted us. So we will see what this second adjuster says, and go from there. I really don't want the roof to be damaged, I'd rather not deal with it, but if it is I want it fixed. And I think it is damaged, going by what the contractor said and the immense damage in the town.

I didn't mention, I was at work in the next town over when the hail storm hit and it blanketed both towns with golf ball sized hail balls. Every car in the parking lot was damaged, including mine. I had an adjuster out to examine the damage and received a check within 10 days. Different insurance company, though, but that's the way it should work. All these years I have paid auto and homeowners insurance and never had a claim, and then all of a sudden one storm and multiple claims.

Shame on them. I've always viewed insurance as legal gambeling, and we frequently opt out of some of our insurance coverages except for health and, sadly, increasingly expensive real estate. I fervently hope your property is repaired soon. There is no legal excuse for it.

"If she gets no satisfaction in the way of a response, the next step could be to contact the insurance commissioner."

I don't think this is likely to do anything.

State and federal laws get enacted to regulate certain industries or business sectors when legislators or the general public believe such businesses should be held to particular standards of prudent operation to protect the public. In the financial sector, such laws and the regulatory agencies that enforce them concern themselves with enacted standards of prudent financial management to ensure the ability to deliver the services customers expect in an orderly way. Standards of liquidity, prescribed means permitted to calculate rates of return and premium levels, statutorily prescribed levels of reserves of various kinds and regular reviews to assess their adequacy, prohibited and permitted transactions and investments, regular audits, and regular agency inspections and reports to ensure all legal requisites are met, and on and on. And mechanisms in place to be sure that institutions having financial problems are quickly identified and allow interventions take place.

Such roles rarely involve a Big Brother function to make sure customers are happy or looked after to certain standards, unless a random sampling of such incidents suggest conduct either illegal or contrary to what the guidelines allow. The oversight agencies are limited by law as to what they must pay attention to and what they can and can't do.

Governmental regulators of specific industries are rarely tasked to provide an ombudsman function for disgruntled customers.

"I've always viewed insurance as legal gambeling"

In a way, it is gambling. The customer bets they need it and the insurance company has data to determine who more likely will and who more likely won't, and they set premium levels and reserve set-asides to cover the claims they can accurately calculate will be made in most circumstances other than catastrophes. For some catastrophic loss levels, insurance companies will themselves buy insurance to cover their possible extraordinary losses (That's called re-insurance).

Those debating whether or not they need insurance can choose to limit or pass on getting coverage to reduce costs. That's what high deductible policies are. That's also what opting to not have collision or comprehensive coverage on a car is. The term used when this is done is called "Self-insurance". An example - you can be sure that UPS doesn't have collision coverage on its massive truck fleet. Instead, they are self-insured and have in-house garages and body shops. That way they can do the work cheaper themselves instead of paying for insurance, having to manage that process, and then engage a third party shop for damage repairs.

Of course each state is different but our insurance commissioner's office does try to help. When I was referring clients in our law office for help with insurance problems, they often did get results when the Commissioner got involved. YMMMV

From their website- if you file a complaint they can (I picked and chose items from their list, eliminating those dealing with health insurance):

• Tell the company to fix the problem if they didn’t follow the laws or your policy.
• Try to find patterns of problems that may need further reviewing.
• Try to help fix your insurance problem or help you and the company communicate with one another
• Send your complaint to the insurance company and require them to provide an explanation for their actions.
• Recommend places you can go for help if we don’t have the legal right to resolve your complaint.

They cannot:

• Determine the cause of loss, value of a claim, the amount owed to you, or act as your adjuster.
• Address issues we can’t legally enforce.
• Act as your lawyer, give you legal advice or be your claims adjuster.

Hopefully, the new adjuster will help and all will be resolved.

I've worked in and with companies that were subject to federal and or state regulation, and worked with aspects of compliance with such regulation. WIth banks and others in financial services, as an example, but not insurance companies.

Have you?

My notions come from personal professional experiences, not from websites.

??? what does that have to do with what an insurance commissioner's office does.

You can't offer advice from having had hands-on experience working for and with regulated businesses. You're guessing and trying to defend guesses. Rather than cutting and pasting bullet points from the insurance regulator website you found, read them over and think about what they want to know about and why.

I'll give you a running start

- they're looking for violations of customer contracts

- "patterns" of conduct that suggest they should be taking a look at a particular company's business practices.

In other words, matters of concern for a regulator.

Otherwise, they forward your inquiry to the company (no purpose in doing that if you've called them yourself) and ask them to communicate with you.

Or ask the insurance company to explain to the customer what's going on (many customers complain because they don't themselves understand what their policies provide for or what the regulated company's obligations are),

Or, "recommend places to go for help" - a Legal Aid Society or local bar association to get a lawyer.

In other words, relatively nothing to help the individual who rightly or wrongly feels hard done by.

In many states, insurance commissioners are elected officials so that public outreach and appearing concerned (while being unable to do anything outside of its legal regulatory construct) is a political and PR effort. It's the same thing elected legislators do when they say "if you're having trouble dealing with the level of government you've elected me to (like federal or state), let me know and I will help you".

There was a phrase long ago in the Army - certainly during WW2 and it was around during my Vietnam era service - Go see the Chaplain and you can get a TS slip. (TS stood for Tough Poop)

"Otherwise, they forward your inquiry to the company (no purpose in doing that if you've called them yourself) and ask them to communicate with you."

Isn't that what she was looking for?

"speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far"

I think that evidence of some outside contacts not only helps establish a paperwork trail, but it also serves as evidence of a stick especially if prior attempts to get help from the company have not brought results, which seems to be the case for the OP.