Iowa Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss announced yesterday that she had met with insurers and told them she is putting a flood claim mediation service in place.

Ms. Voss also said she had urged carriers to be lenient with flooded homeowners who are late with policy premiums.

Ms. Voss, who said the industry appeared to be responding well to the flood disaster that hit the state, has advised insurers that a flood mediation program is being reactivated.

Iowa's Flood Mediation Service program was initiated as an emergency response to the floods of 1993.

The Iowa Insurance Division said the mediation service will allow consumers who have a settlement dispute with their insurance company to utilize a mediator under contract with the division to determine if any elements exist in their own case that would allow any additional payment amount in cases of homeowner claims for property losses involving floods.

Details on implementation of the program will be available in a few weeks, the agency said.

Ms. Voss announced she let insurers know that consumers are to be given the benefit of the doubt in some cases involving sewer backup and floods where there is no clear prohibition against doing so in the terms of their insurance policy.

Last month when the state was hit with tornadoes, it was noted Ms. Voss asked insurers to ramp up their response activities and they had complied.

“Now the floods have her attention, and she has again taken aggressive steps and asked for their cooperation,” the division said.

“Honestly, we're hearing good things about the industry response to these disasters,” Commissioner Voss said. “They appear to have really stepped up their service to their customers so far.

“We just want to make sure we're doing all that we can to make sure people are getting the benefits that are in the policies they purchased. This is just a matter of doing the right thing. We believe we will get excellent cooperation on this.”

Since May, extreme rains that caused flooding throughout the Midwest have caused 42 counties in Iowa to be declared disaster areas and thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes because of the flooding.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has said the estimated damage bill from the flooding will be between $750 million and $1 billion.

State officials have called the Iowa flooding a 500-year event with damage to the infrastructure exceeding the mammoth floods of 1993.

Special Reports /

Iowa Regulator Sets Flood Claim Mediation Service

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