Imagine that you have paid for medical insurance all your life, and one day you receive a crushing diagnosis from your doctor: cancer. You face a treatment regimen that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and keep you from working for a full year. However, when the bills come due, your insurer claims that your cancer was an act of God and refuses to reimburse you.
Sound ridiculous? Well, this is the kind of thing property insurers get away with all the time (thankfully, most medical insurance companies are held to a higher standard). Let's say your basement is flooded in the wake of a Category 3 hurricane, whereas previously the strongest hurricane ever to hit your area was a much less destructive Category 1. Your insurance company may claim that the storm was an act of God, since it could not have been predicted or anticipated, and thus refuse to pay you for repairs. The same may apply if a freak hailstorm rips your roof apart. The insurance company will reimburse you for damage caused by ordinary hail, but three-inch hailstones? That's an act of God!
This act of God ploy is often entirely cynical: your insurance company knows as well as you do that God had nothing to do with it. The company is merely trying to forestall your claim in the hopes that you'll simply give up and pay for the repairs to your house and property yourself. What you need to do when your insurer invokes an act of God is to hire an experienced lawyer. A lawyer can aggressively argue that the damage is covered by your policy and that your insurer will be in serious legal trouble if it doesn't pay up. Want to learn more? Contact the denial of insurance experts at the Voss Law Firm (888-614-7730) for a free consultation today!