- Jurisdiction
- New Mexico
We have a Home Owner's policy on a mobile home. My wife and I have temporarily moved to a vacation home in Mexico while she is checking out Archaeological field schools here. We had a lightning strike and it damaged all sorts of computers/electronics. We placed a claim on the damage we suffered under the Personal Property provision of the policy.
Bring proactive, we went to a local electronics tech/company and had them write a letter stating what was damaged, with model and serial #s of the items and photographs of the items showing model/serial #s. We were only able to find a single company in this area that knew English well enough to write a letter to them.
Our insurance company is trying to say this is a fraudulent claim because the strike happened on a Friday and we had the letter written on the following Monday; that there is no way that we were able to get someone to come over that soon, make the determination it was lightning caused and gotten them to write a letter with that level of detail. They all but accused me of writing the letter on my own.
We were told that they (the insurance company) may want us to ship the items back to the US so that they can be inspected there by their own preferred company. They did not say that they will pay for the shipping or if I would have to foot the bill and get reimbursed.
Can they actually do this? What are the limits that they are allowed to do? We are going to be in Mexico through the month of November, am nowhere able to pay for the shipping for all items damaged in the strike upfront and wait for reimbursement.
We can get another letter from a different computer consulting firm in our area but none of them speak English well enough to compose a letter explaining what happened. Do you think the insurance company would accept a letter like this if it is written in a foreign language(Spanish)? If not, who pays for the "certified translation" of the letter? I am sure that they will want me to foot a bill on that being done if they would even accept a letter from another business in a foreign country.
What is the limits an insurance company can go to prove our loss if we are in a foreign country? Is there any options we can take being proactive that will make this claim be handled reasonably?
Bring proactive, we went to a local electronics tech/company and had them write a letter stating what was damaged, with model and serial #s of the items and photographs of the items showing model/serial #s. We were only able to find a single company in this area that knew English well enough to write a letter to them.
Our insurance company is trying to say this is a fraudulent claim because the strike happened on a Friday and we had the letter written on the following Monday; that there is no way that we were able to get someone to come over that soon, make the determination it was lightning caused and gotten them to write a letter with that level of detail. They all but accused me of writing the letter on my own.
We were told that they (the insurance company) may want us to ship the items back to the US so that they can be inspected there by their own preferred company. They did not say that they will pay for the shipping or if I would have to foot the bill and get reimbursed.
Can they actually do this? What are the limits that they are allowed to do? We are going to be in Mexico through the month of November, am nowhere able to pay for the shipping for all items damaged in the strike upfront and wait for reimbursement.
We can get another letter from a different computer consulting firm in our area but none of them speak English well enough to compose a letter explaining what happened. Do you think the insurance company would accept a letter like this if it is written in a foreign language(Spanish)? If not, who pays for the "certified translation" of the letter? I am sure that they will want me to foot a bill on that being done if they would even accept a letter from another business in a foreign country.
What is the limits an insurance company can go to prove our loss if we are in a foreign country? Is there any options we can take being proactive that will make this claim be handled reasonably?
