I'm so pissed off right now I can't breathe.
Knutsen Insurance = taking advantage of the elderly.
My mother, the sweetest 78 year old woman on the face of the earth, lives in a pretty nice little cape cod home in Astoria, OR - the house my family moved into 2 years before I was born.
She has lived in the same neighborhood the majority of her life.
And like a lot of people in Astoria and other small towns, she has done most of her business locally. For the longest time it was out of necessity - the nearest big city is 100 miles away, but in the last decade or so with everything so readily available on the internet, etc., she has continued to do so out of convenience, out of support for local businesses, and because, well, 'she's always done it that way'.
In 1948, she signed up for automobile insurance with Knutsen Insurance. That's right, I said 1948. Nearly 60 years ago.
After my father, her husband, passed away in 1981, she went to Knutsen for her home owner's insurance needs. They had served her well enough for the last 3 decades of car insurance service, so why not send the home owner's insurance business their way, too?
Fast forward to a couple years ago, sometime in Spring of 2005.
My mother noticed that the vinyl flooring around her toilet was becoming 'puffy'. Upon further inspection, she realized there was a slow leak underneath the toilet, and it was slowly messing up her floor.
She called her insurance carrier to report the issue.
The woman on the phone told her it wasn't going to be covered, that it was a maintenance issue, that she should have repaired it before it caused the damage.
My mother asked how she would have known to repair the damage if she didn't see the leak until it had already caused the puffy vinyl flooring.
The woman on the phone told her again, "It's a maintenance issue, it won't be covered."
My mother, not being a very pushy person, resigned herself and hung up and didn't give it anymore thought.
Fast forward a bit.
My mother had another issue with her home and called Knutsen.
They sent up a claims adjuster named Patrick.
They got to talking, and my mother mentioned the bathroom floor issue.
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