JEFF RAIZNER: The insurance industry has been nothing but a roadblock to recovery standing in the way of getting your home repaired, getting your business back in order, getting your feet back on the ground.

CHRIS BERTINI: On September the 13th, 2008 Hurricane Ike hit Galveston Island. My name is Chris Bertini. I’m an attorney working with Doyle Raizner. I have an office in Galveston. On that day, my office took eight feet of water. My house was destroyed. My family has been split apart.

Two days later I got a call from Jeff and Mike, my friends, saying Chris, we’re here to help you. Come to our office, bring your staff, bring your family, stay at our house.

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When our clients hire us and come to us they have had insurance companies come out to their homes sometimes as many as twelve times. This is a delay tactic. When you hire Doyle Raizner and Bertini & Associates, we send an adjuster to your home immediately.

Our adjusters assess the damages to the property, and we gather the documents necessary to understand and evaluate the claim. Then we send a demand letter to the insurance company outlining the appropriate payment due under the policy. We try to work with the insurance companies to resolve the claims quickly and efficiently, but we have often discovered that insurance companies refuse to honor their obligations.

So we do the one thing that gets their attention; we sue them. And that is what we are doing right now; we are bringing these cases to the courts to force these insurance companies to do the right thing.

We are working with our clients to resolve their claims as quickly as possible because we understand what it means to go through this frustrating process. They are tired of delays.

They are tired of the unnecessary inspections and re-inspections and re-inspections to get what they are entitled to. The insurance companies have all the information they need to resolve your case.

When you hire Doyle Raizner, when you hire Bertini and Associates, you are going to have our phone numbers. You will not be a file number or claim number or policy number. You are going to be a friend and a family member that we are going to work for because my friends and my family have lost everything.  We are tired of it.

Technorati Tags: deny hurricane claims, Galveston Hurricane lawyer, Houston Hurricane Attorney, hurricane insurance claims, hurricane insurance dispute, insurance bad faith, Insurance dispute

November 20, 2009:  A Galveston County jury found that Zurich American Insurance Company acted in bad faith in delaying and denying a workers’ compensation claim of a 44 year old Galld sandblaster injured on the job in October 2007.

The jury found that Zurich unreasonably delayed income  benefits for four months, and delayed Doyle Raizner client Jerome Ryan’s medical care for his injured shoulder.  Zurich failed to obtain medical records from Mr. Ryan’s doctors, claimed that Mr. Ryan could not chose his own treating physician, and refused to pay him income benefits or for his medical care until ordered to do so by the Texas Department of Insurance.

The jury in Galveston County Court at Law No. 3, Hon. Roy Quintanilla presiding, awarded 1.384 million in damages, including $500,000 in punitive damages.

Technorati Tags: Galveston lawyer, Insurance dispute

Chris Bertini lost his office because of Hurricane Ike.
Below are the pictures of the aftermath.

“I’ve been practicing law in Galveston for 19 years. This is what was left of my office after Ike. People often ask “What did you lose?” I lost EVERYTHING! My office had 8 feet of water and I lost the home of my dreams.”

Technorati Tags: Galveston Hurricane lawyer, Galveston lawyer, Hurricane Ike damage

Jeff Raizner: (Transcript from video)

One of the biggest problems that we’ve seen from the insurance companies is what happens when they send their adjusters out there in the beginning. We are seeing this from many clients and from looking at everybody’s home and businesses. What happens is the insurance companies come out there the first time and give a clearly low ball estimate.

No reasonable insurance adjuster, no reasonable insurance company would look at a house with a roof that is gone, completely damaged and say it would cost a thousand dollars to fix this. Then they come out a second time with a different adjuster and maybe provide a little more money, but it is still not appropriate and still not the right amount.

What we do when we get involved is send out an independent adjuster who does what the insurance company was supposed to have done the first time, looks at everything, actually climbs on the roof, actually looks at the walls, looks at the outside, spends some time there and provides a fair and a honest estimate of what the damages are.

We then get that to the insurance company and sometimes they will pay a little bit more voluntarily and sometimes they won’t. Most of the time, the case will have to end up in a lawsuit and that is when we can get into the position where we can get the results for you.

Technorati Tags: hurricane insurance claims, hurricane insurance dispute, ike dispute

Still a year after Hurricane Ike, insurance companies are still not doing what is right. Chris Bertini, a local Galveston attorney, had his office destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Chris had been practicing Law in Galveston for over 19 years. Galveston is his home.

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Listen to one of our clients that we have helped – Eric – “The insurance company that I’d paid my premiums to was denying everything. They did not want to pay for anything. That is why I’d hired Chris Bertini and Jeff Raizner.

After I’d hired them it was a total different case. The insurance company wanted to help me out. They wanted to do this. They wanted to do that…. but it was only because I hired a lawyer (Doyle Raizner LLP and Chris Bertini & Associates). Before I hired a lawyer, I was nobody. I guess I was just a number. I was not a case. But after I hired a lawyer, I was a person then… instead of a number….”

“I appreciate what Jeff and Chris did for me…. I’m glad that Jeff and Chris helped me out with this issue.”

Call us. We will not treat you like just another claim.