Consumer Complaint

SunTrust Mortgage Customer Who Was Forced-Placed

Re: your post on "forced-placed insurance": http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/blog/when-banks-buy-insurance-youwatch-out I own a condo in St. Petersburg, Florida that has a primary mortgage with SunTrust and a line of credit with Bank of America. At least once a year, these lenders send me letters seeking proof of my flood insurance policy or they will buy one for me, known as "forced-placed" or "forced-purchase" insurance. The condo association maintains the same flood insurance policy for all units of the building. Every year, I get copies of this policy from the condo association manager then send them to both SunTrust and Bank of America. Often, these banks say they have not received the paperwork or tell me that it is not valid because of not meeting their formatting requirements (i.e. having certain policy information on the same page instead of multiple pages). SunTrust even charged me $3,225 for a flood insurance policy that I did not need earlier this year, which they added to my mortgage payment. I called many times and continued to provide them copies of the flood insurance policy I already had until they ultimately issued me a refund. Clearly, this is a scam. My proposed solution is a national database or state by state set of databases of flood insurance policy information. The insurers should be required to post addresses and coverage information to these databases. Lenders should be required to check these databases before seeking proof of flood insurance from consumers and definitely before they could force-place/purchase a policy for a consumer. Let me know if there is anything I can do to support your efforts on this issue. Best, Dan St. Petersburg