Roofing Professionals of Texas

Former Allstate executive turned whistleblower,  was in charge of a computer program called "Colossus" that calculates money people are paid in claims. He "tuned" the program to increase profits, which he says was unfair to customers. Mark Romano gripped the steering wheel and tried to keep his car from swerving into another commuter on the busy Illinois tollway. Stress?  It was December 2007, and Romano was a senior manager at Allstate and its top expert in Colossus, a program that calculates how much a person might be paid for an injury claim. He was in charge of two projects to “tune” and “recalibrate” Colossus, work he knew could affect payments to thousands of people. Colossus was part of a quiet revolution in the insurance industry.  Before the early 1990s, insurance was a decidedly human endeavor, especially when it came to setting rates and paying claims. To set premiums, insurers relied on computations from their actuaries — mathematical wizards armed with ...

July 6, 2015      (Insurance Journal) The number of insurance claims from lightning strikes in the United States continued its steady decline, as severe thunderstorm activity eased from near-record levels and dry weather prevailed throughout much of the western half of the country. Despite fewer storms, insurers still paid $739 million in lightning claims to nearly 100,000 policyholders in 2014, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Florida led the way with the number of lighting claims in 2014, followed by Georgia, Texas and Louisiana. The Lone Star State had the highest average cost per lightning damage claim: $10,671. Across the United States, total insured losses from lightning were up 9.7 percent from 2013, though overall incurred losses between 2010 and 2014 are still down 28.5 percent. An analysis of homeowners insurance data by the INSURANCE INFORMATION INSTITUTE and State Farm found there were 99,871 insurer-paid lightning claims in 2014, down 13 per...

AUSTIN — Several weeks after signing a contract to get her roof replaced for $25,000 last summer, Mary Jane Pierson of Fort Worth started to worry she was getting scammed. Her repeated phone calls to the roofing contractor weren’t returned or she was offered a litany of excuses about why the job wasn’t getting done: the company’s office flooded, the owner’s wife was in the hospital, shipment of the shingles had been delayed. “I knew there was a serious problem,” she said, recalling the change in behavior of the roofer, whose initial friendly demeanor before he secured the contract — and a check for $14,000 — was gone. Pierson, whose $200,000 brick home is still waiting for a new roof, said the contractor originally came knocking on her door — as did several others — last spring after a massive hailstorm in North Texas. He was very helpful and offered to get her insurance claim moving — so she agreed to sign a contract. “Everything looked on the up and up. So I gave him the first check ...

From  ROGELIO V. SOLIS — AP SunHerald.com  Attorney General Jim Hood is suing State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. over millions of dollars he claims the state lost because the insurance company "maliciously" denied Hurricane Katrina claims for wind losses while the federally funded Homeowners Assistance Program picked up the tab. The lawsuit says: "State Farm benefitted substantially and illicitly from HAP, because HAP grants ameliorated the financial pain to State Farm policyholders caused by State Farm's wrongful denial or underpayment of claims for wind damage under its homeowner policies. "State Farm in effect converted a program designed to help Mississippians who were devastated financially by Katrina into a subsidy for itself." State Farm had no immediate response to allegations outlined in the 50-page lawsuit, but in past cases brought by policyholders has denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit, filed in Hinds County Circuit Court, accuses State Farm of ...

Roofing systems  characteristically get care only when they need upkeep. As long as a  roof needs  marginal repairs and keeps the contents of a facility dry and safe, maintenance and engineering managers have little to think about —or so the thinking goes. But  roofing  manufacturers say there is quite a bit to contemplate, especially when considering single-ply systems. According to manufacturers, these systems continue to harvest interest, thanks in part to the cost and performance benefits they deliver. Although varieties of single-plies have been around for more than 40 years, only in the last decade has the full performance potential of the systems been realized with the advent of new thermoplastic formulations. New plies also are increasingly economical, say manufacturers, and particularly favored by consumers when they carry Energy Star ratings. System Options Single-plies exist predominantly as two types: vulcanized unweldable elastomerics — nearly all o...