 My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's law across the C program. Today we're going across the C to the Big Island of Hawaii to talk with Jeffrey Foster about Maui insurance claims. Jeffrey is a lawyer in Kailua, Kona who represents clients throughout the Hawaiian Islands with a focus on personal injury claims and civil litigation. Interesting for our present discussion. He has represented clients with insurance claims related to the 2018 Kilauea eruption. Jeffrey recently posted a 10 point checklist to help Maui homeowners present and pursue insurance claims for the loss of their homes, vehicles and other properties suffered due to the recent devastating brush fires. I've asked Jeffrey to share his checklist with us. Welcome Jeffrey. Welcome Mark. I appreciate you having me here today. Thank you, Mahalo. We are trying to help people and I think that's what you were trying to do. I wanna ask you some questions about that. I know that you are a lawyer that deals with these type of issues but your post was a 10 point checklist of general information on how to make and present a homeowner's claim. Now, why did you post that information and who was your intended audience? What was your purpose? Well Mark, my purpose was really more of a self help guide to just some things to pay attention to when making a homeowner's claim specifically. Homeowner's insurance is a unique area of insurance law and it's an area that frankly not a lot of attorneys have a significant experience in because a lot of times attorneys aren't needed in connection with presenting and pursuing homeowner's claims. Back in 2018, we got involved in the Kilauea eruption homeowner's insurance litigation. We represented over a hundred people. We filed over 50 lawsuits because an insurance company decided to deny hundreds of insurance claims for folks who lost everything after the eruption. So you had experience with the Kilauea 2018 eruption. What motivated you to post the ad information this time with respect to Maui? What I was trying to accomplish with that post was to provide people with some general information and some ideas on how to present an insurance claim and specifically a homeowner's insurance claim to their insurance companies for both destroyed and damaged homes. And what I was trying to accomplish is to avoid a situation that we had back in 2018. In 2018, after the Kilauea eruption, an insurance company decided to deny hundreds of insurance claims and those denials left people devastated financially, displaced, in despair, and all of the emotional effects that result from going one day from having a home to the next day trying to figure out where home was going to be. So my objective this time in terms of putting together the checklist was to provide information to people to be able to present their claims and to try to recover at least some of what was lost in terms of financial compensation from their insurance companies in a way that wouldn't involve attorneys becoming involved. Attorneys or public adjusters or frankly anyone who would take a percentage or a fee for presenting a claim. There's a time and a place for public adjusters and for attorneys and I'm not here to judge or to comment on the role attorneys and public adjusters play in presenting insurance claims. But for those folks who are looking for some guidance and some information and some clarity in terms of the process, that was my objective. Okay, well, let's get started on that. I wanna ask you, please go through your 10 point checklist. And I understand you'll go through it briefly but we'll then provide maybe some opportunities of where people can get it if they wish. So please start with your checklist and let's go through the 10 points. So the first thing to do in this process is to call your insurance company. Okay, now for insurance companies like State Farm and Allstate and those types of companies you wanna call the company director. Sometimes there's an application on your phone that you can use to report a claim. Okay, filling out a claim form. I've heard a lot of talk about filling out a claim form. That's not necessary. All that's necessary is to report the claim. And again, for the Allstate and the State Farms calling the claims number is sufficient, reporting the claim is sufficient. If you have a company like First Insurance, Island Insurance, you may need to call your insurance agent to report the claim. And when you report the claim there's a couple things to think about. Number one, you wanna report the claim as a total loss if your home has been destroyed and that you're making claims under any and all available coverages. Okay, some of those coverages will include a dwelling coverage which covers your home, personal property or contents coverage which will cover the contents of the home. There's loss of use coverage which is available short-term financial compensation that's available. There's additional living expense or ALE that's available. And those coverages, the loss of use and the ALE are available right away. So again, the first step in the process is to report the claim. One other thing to think about when reporting the claim is if your insurance agent or anyone who you're speaking to has to submit something in writing to actually report the claim on your behalf ask for a copy of that. Ask for a copy of any document that's submitted for the claim, be emailed to you. Okay, what's next? So the second step in the checklist advise you reporting a total loss of your dwelling and property. And a total loss means that the home and the contents were destroyed. Now, a total loss is a technical term that is used in the insurance business to advise the insurance company that your home and the contents have been destroyed. And a total loss also signifies an intent for you as the policy holder to seek policy limits. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But with every coverage contained in your insurance policy there'll be a limit of coverage, a dollar figure. And it's that dollar figure that you're gonna be requesting as we move forward with the claims process. So for number two, again, advise you reporting total loss of your dwelling and property. Okay, number three. Okay, number three, advise you are making total loss claims that are all available coverages. Okay, so some of the other coverages I spoke about earlier loss of use, additional living expenses, those are the really important coverages for the short term, because those are the coverages that will give you money in your pocket right away. Okay, additional living expense should be paid immediately. Loss of use should be paid immediately. And those coverages should be requested during that initial phone call. And one thing we dealt with in the Kilauea eruption was the fact that people needed to update their contact information. Okay, ask where you can pick up a check. Ask if there's claims offices that have been set up in Lahainu or up country. Those claims offices really should be set up to provide outreach to those affected. So one of the questions that you wanna ask during that first phone call is, is there a claims office located in my area? And if there's not, you maybe can make arrangements to meet someone, ask them to fly over, ask the adjuster to fly over to bring you a check if they're on Oahu or somewhere else. They insured the property on Mali, they need to be on Mali to help you. Okay, number four. Number four, request immediate payment of loss of use and additional living expenses. Again, that's in this initial phone call when you report the claim. I want my payment, I want my money, I want my loss of use, I want my additional living expenses. If they try to ask you questions, if they try to make you give a recorded statement. Again, any questions that they ask you, the response should be, where in my policy does it require me to do that? Okay, where in my policy does it say, or can I confirm what you're saying? Okay, because typically the person that you're calling on the other end of that initial phone call isn't the person that you're gonna be dealing with. Okay, so you can actually give a fair amount of information or I'm sorry, receive a fair amount of information from that initial phone call. And again, make sure you update an address if you have one. And also make sure you give an email address to the person that you're speaking to. And make sure that that person confirms the email address as you're speaking in that initial phone call when you report the claim. Okay, next, number five. Request email address for claims and request claim number and adjust or contact info. Again, this is on your first call. This is on the call where you're reporting the claim. You wanna know where to send information, documents, photos, and everything involving your claim. In that initial, again, this is the initial reporting phone call. You wanna ask whether a claim number has been generated. Okay, because you wanna use that claim number on any and all correspondence, any communications, any emails that you send to the insurance company. You want to use that claim number in the subject line of emails. You wanna use it on the top of any letters that you write and you wanna use it in any and all correspondence communications with the insurance company. But you also wanna request whether an adjuster has been assigned to these claims. One thing that we wish we would have had after the killer way eruption was catastrophe claims adjusters. I don't know whether catastrophe claims adjusters are on the ground in Maui. I've heard that they're not, but if they are, like some of the folks we dealt with had experienced with Hurricane Katrina and catastrophe adjusters were going door to door or writing those ALE checks to folks, figuring out what they needed, lost abuse money, literally door to door with a checkbook giving people the payments that were called for under the policy. Okay, number six. Number six, request the declaration page and certified copy of the policy be emailed to you. Okay, declaration page. That's another one of these insurance terms. What it really means, it's a list. The declaration page is a list and it contains a list of all of your coverages, dwelling, personal property, loss of use, additional living expense, trees and shrubs. Okay, there's compensation under a lot of policies for trees and shrubs. And every homeowner's policy will be different. Okay, some will have all those coverages. Some will have some of those coverages, but what the declaration page does is it lays out what the coverages are. Now, that's the first part of the process. The second part of the process is to request the actual policy. Ask for a certified copy of the policy because this is the policy that the insurance company validates as being the one that was in effect on the date of loss. Okay, on the date that the home was damaged or destroyed, and that should be emailed to you. You should request the declaration page. Again, we're talking about the initial phone call. The initial phone call where you're reporting the claim. Ask for that declaration page and ask for that certified copy of the policy. The declaration page should be emailed to you immediately. The certified copy of the policy may take a week, maybe a couple of weeks for you to get but the declaration page is really important because it'll give you information about what you have in terms of coverage. Okay, number next, seven. Request that information provided by the adjuster over the phone. Be confirmed in an email. This is really important. Oftentimes, claims adjusters and other insurance folks will have conversations with you over the phone. Frankly, they'll tell you everything you want to hear and they'll make promises. They'll say things. And again, not that they at the time believe that they can't make good on those promises and those representations. But one way to make sure that communications are documented is by requesting an email from the adjuster after the phone call confirming everything she or he said during that call. Okay, really important. One thing I'd like to talk about just real quick is claims diaries. Okay, I've heard a lot about, you know, make a diary, make a claims diary. And if you do do that, be really careful. Really, it should be just date of communication and a simple one line about what was discussed. Because in the event there is a denial down the road, those claims diaries, anything you write down in connection with your claim could be turned over in discovery in the lawsuit. And so if you write down, you know, I don't think my adjuster is being honest or you write down some thoughts about what you think a basis for denial would be, you know, those things will come out later on. So be really short, be really concise. Just date, you know, the facts as you understand them in a sentence at the most. Keep it simple. Yeah. Kids, keep it super simple. Yes. Yes, Mark. Next, next. Okay, this is, this is, so you've made the claim. You've reported the claim. Hopefully you've got your claim number. You've got your adjuster information. Hopefully the process of additional living expense, loss of use and, and the other short term coverages, that process has started. Hopefully you're getting money. But as soon as possible, especially in the context of a home and contents being destroyed is to make your policy limits demand. Okay. Now, before we talked about coverages, okay, every coverage has a limit, okay, a limit of that coverage. So what a policy limits demand is, it's requesting that the insurance company pay out the policy limits under each of those coverages. And the policy limits demand, one thing you can reference in your demand is Hawaii Rules of Evidence, HRE 408. Okay. It's a rule that protects settlement communications. Okay. So for whatever reason they want to bring that up later on, it's going to be a protected communication. And when you make your policy limits demand again, keep it super simple. Identify the coverage, request that the, that the coverage limits be tendered. Okay. Identify the coverage, request that the coverage limits be tendered. Now, one way to do it is just to say, Hey, I'm requesting policy limits under any and all available coverages based on the total loss of my home and contents. Okay. Again, don't get into any speculation. Don't make any statements about anything you didn't see with your own two eyes. Don't say anything that could potentially be used against you again. This is a one page document. Okay. This isn't, you know, any, any type of, of, of explanation. You don't have to explain. You don't have to play detective. You don't have to opine on any cause of loss. Make it simple. Checklist number nine. Checklist number nine. Here we go. Keep the policy limits demand short and simple request policy limits payments of all coverages in 30 days. Okay. Again, no need to explain yourself. No need to use insurance terms. No need to talk about replacement costs versus actual cash value. No need to go into any detail, especially if you don't understand. So keep it simple. Ask for the policy limits tender in 30 days. Your policy may have a different provision for the payment, but you can still ask. There's no harm in asking for a 30 day response. Okay. Number 10 checklist number 10. Okay. So the policy limits demand is denied or the adjuster offers less than policy limits request the justification and writing. Again, this goes to every conversation you have with an adjuster, you should request that the adjuster follow up with an email confirming the conversation. Okay. Sometimes they won't do it. Okay. And what happens in that case? What happens if you don't receive that email from the adjuster? Well, if you have notes on the conversation that you can remember, you can confirm it yourself. But again, make it super simple. We don't want a big email trail of speculation of policy holders trying to figure out what happened or trying to get to the bottom of why an adjuster made the decision they made. Now, I'd like to talk for a second about good faith obligations. Okay. Folks paid premiums for these homeowners policies and a lot of money they pay every year for premiums. Okay. Because it's a contract between the policy holder and the insurance company. There are good faith obligations that the insurance company has to the policy holder and those good faith obligations. There's a lot that goes to it, but really at the end of the day, it's basically they need to treat you right. They need to honor claims. They need to pay claims timely. They need to do what is not in their financial best interest, but what's required under the terms of the policy. And that's really important because there's nowhere in your policy that will say good faith obligations. It's the law. And the law requires them to operate in good faith. And I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful and I pray and I'm optimistic frankly that the insurance company is involved in these cases. We'll do the right thing, honor their good faith obligations and timely pay claims and frankly send people out to the affected areas with their checkbooks to honor the insurance contracts that they received money for. It's time for them to pay and it's time for them to make sure that the people who need their help receive it. Okay. You've gone through your checklist, the basic checklist. Now, if I'm a Maui resident, where could I find this for you and are you going to be doing anything more to help the Maui folks who want to make claims? Okay. So the checklist in a little bit different format is available on social media. You can just do a search for Jeffrey Foster. You'll find me. I think the post is actually public. So you'll probably find it on mine or someone else's. But I did want to say that we will be at the Maui Beach Hotel. We actually reserved the ballroom for August 23 and 24. And this is a free seminar for people to come in. We'll do a presentation. It will be a PowerPoint presentation on the claims process with a little more detail than what I'm giving today. But it'll also be an opportunity for folks to ask questions and for us to answer specific questions about claims, about policies, about timelines. We encourage people to bring their policies. This isn't a situation where we're taking on clients. We're not taking on clients. This is pro bono. This is something that we want to do because we saw the problems that happened after the Kilauea eruption where people weren't getting the right information. And unfortunately, because they weren't getting the right information, and folks were speaking to adjusters and people were frankly speculating on, you know, coverages and provisions and policies that they truly didn't understand. It led to some really, really bad results in the short term for folks. So we are now really hoping to get the right information out there and, you know, do what we can to help as many folks as we can help over there. And one thing I can take out of this conversation with you, you want people to keep it simple. You want them to keep a record of what they're doing. And make sure they can get confirmation from the insurance folks they're dealing with. Now, let me ask you this question. If I'm calling an insurance adjuster or insurance company for help, can I record that conversation? That's a good question. I think if they're in Hawaii, that is a first party. It's a one-party consent state. So the answer is yes. Conservatively, I would say don't do that, okay? Because again, while you may be recording them, it's also recording you. So I don't think I'd recommend that. And again, anything that you jot down, anything you write down, just write it down with the expectation that potentially whatever you write down will be used against you later. One other thing I'd like to add is that if you do have, you experience delay or you experience, you know, treatment that you don't think you're, the treatment you should receive, you can file a complaint with the Hawaii Insurance Commissioner. So what we understand, most of the insurance companies involved over on Maui are what are called admitted carriers. What we dealt with, what we're dealing with still over from the Kilauea eruption were surplus lines carriers such as Lloyds of London. And they are not regulated per se by the insurance commissioner. So again, I think we have a little bit different situation this time in terms of who's involved. And that really means a lot when it comes to, insurance insurers honoring their obligations. Okay. You talk about calling the insurance company. How about the insurance agent that helped you get the policy in the first place? Does it help talk to that? Absolutely. Absolutely. Can they help you? Well, you know, they can, but really I think, again, I think communications with the insurance agent who sold you the policy should be limited to reporting the claim. Okay. I'm calling to report the claim, you know, and they may ask some questions. Okay. And the answer again, unless you've seen it with your own eyes, don't speculate on the cause. Don't speculate on anything. Say my home has been destroyed. My contents have been destroyed. That's really as far as it should go at that stage. If you're not getting responses from the insurance company, then you can email the agent or you can call the agent say, Hey, I called and made this claim two weeks ago and I haven't heard anything. My adjuster is not following up. I think that's a role that the insurance agents can play to, to, to serve as an advocate for their, for their policy orders. Okay. So you're, you're going to be going over to Maui and putting on a free, free seminar for people to help them know how to file their claims and process them. How did they get involved in that? How do they find out about that? Is there going to be some advertisement or something notice put out? I mean, you know, what we're trying to do for that is, is simply, you know, get the, get the news out there however we can. So we'll probably put a fire on social media. But again, we want to be really respectful because we know that there's a lot of people out there advertising, you know, we know men on folks are coming in, you know, and doing some things that I think have really upset a lot of us, you know, and trying to sign up these claims. That's not what we're doing. What we're doing is simply trying to provide a community service for people to get their questions answered and to, you know, to provide some self help. Well, I mean, I heard you say that you say don't, you don't need to hire an attorney. And if you can get this process done by yourself, I guess what are your last words? What have you learned from all of this experience? And what would you say to the Maui folks about what they're going through? There are no words. I mean, just sending Aloha, trying to help, you know, we're very, very small places that I can chip in and, you know, share the experiences that I dealt with, you know, and, you know, just try to get people on their feet financially as best as we can. And not, and again, I'm not saying don't hire an attorney. They don't hire a claims adjuster because folks are so many emotions, obviously, are going through people's heads and, and then their hearts. And we, we understand that if you need help, you know, go get the help you need. But I, from, from my experience, I don't want to see people pay out, especially on their policies. Now, if an attorney is going to review an insurance contract for, you know, a couple hundred dollars and just kind of lay out the process, that's great. But, you know, when it comes to contingency fees and, and the things that are being requested, I think that I've seen out there, it's just not necessary. Now, if your claims deny, you do need an experienced litigator to, to, to, you know, to do the things that an experienced litigator does, which is all the insurance company accountable. But at the end of the day, right now, I'd really like to see people use as much of their insurance money as they can to, you know, to do what they have to do to survive and to, to rebuild. And put their lives back together. Jeffrey, thank you very much for giving this presentation and getting this information out to the people of Maui who need it. And it'll help them move forward. So thank you very much. Aloha.