North Miami resident sues Citizens over broken roofA

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North Miami resident sues Citizens over broken roof

Miami Herald

A North Miami homeowner with a respiratory illness has sued Citizens

Property Insurance because it won't replace a roof damaged after

Hurricane Wilma.

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BY PATRICK DANNER

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Leven greets visitors to his North Miami home by handing them

a safety mask.

Leven, who suffers from a severe respiratory illness, blames mold

and mildew in his home on Citizens Property Insurance. Citizens paid

only to patch rather than replace his roof after a tree limb fell on

it during Hurricane Wilma last year, he claims in a breach-of-

contract lawsuit seeking unspecified damages.

The roof then leaked, and the ceiling in a spare bedroom collapsed

during a storm in May.

The suit is one of about 130 filed against Citizens this year in

Miami-Dade and Broward circuit courts. However, it's unclear whether

Citizens has any legal obligation to take Leven's illness into

account in deciding insurance issues.

Citizens has more than 500,000 policies in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm

Beach and Monroe counties and handled 180,000 claims after Hurricane

Wilma, spokesman Rocky notes.

says Citizens does not comment on litigation. In a letter to

Leven, Citizens said without elaborating that its ''rights might

have been substantially prejudiced,'' or harmed. And Leven says

Citizens accused him of hiding and distorting information during an

examination under oath that lasted two days.

Leven now has to use a breathing machine about every two hours for

20 minutes. That's up from every 4.5 hours before May, he says.

Leven's doctor has advised in writing that he move out of the Sans

Souci Estates house, but the 63-year-old former real estate

executive says he and his wife can't afford to leave. They live on

Social Security disability of $3,000 a month, of which $1,700 goes

to pay for his 17 medications.

He says he also has prostate cancer and heart disease and has been

hospitalized three times since May because of the respiratory

illness. His wife, Barbara, has asthma.

''It's disgusting the way they are making my family suffer,'' he

says of Citizens. He says he made his teenage daughter move in with

friends; she wasn't available for comment.

While unfamiliar with Leven's case, Sam of the Florida

Insurance Council says insurers -- including Citizens -- paid out

nearly $10 billion to settle Hurricane Wilma claims.

''Most of the people who filed claims after Hurricane Wilma did not

end up suing their insurance company,'' says.

SIMILAR STORIES

But Liggio, a West Palm Beach attorney who represents

homeowners in disputes with insurers, says other Citizens

policyholders statewide have similar stories.

''The way they have been conducting themselves in the claims

process, they ignore, they delay, they deny, they reduce,'' Liggio

says of Citizens, which denies the charge.

Stuart Michelson, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who has represented

Citizens policyholders, says he knows of no Florida law that gives

sick people greater rights than the healthy. Still, as a matter of

morality, Michelson says Citizens should take care of Leven.

After Hurricane Wilma, Leven's house had cracked tiles and damaged

roofing paper, says his roofer, Melendez of Miami.

'I told him, `Call your insurance company because you need a new

roof,' '' Melendez says. ``He had leaks all over the place.''

LEVEN'S ADJUSTMENT

A Citizens adjuster allowed $785 for roof repairs and $30,000 for

fixes inside the house, Leven says. A second adjuster later upped

the amount for roof repairs. In total, Leven received about $63,000

after his $3,700 deductible.

When Leven reported further damage after the May storm, he says

Citizens opened a new claims number -- which would trigger another

deductible payment.

For now, buckets are scattered around the house to catch rain,

though they were dry on a recent visit. He's using six fans for

cooling because he was told air conditioning spreads mold spores.

'You would think they would want to do the right thing with a guy

who has tremendous, life-threatening medical problems and say,

``Let's help this guy,' '' Leven says.