Consumer complaint received 2024-04-12
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Trying to communicate with the company to fix an issue while managing or servicing your loan
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (CA)

When we purchased our home in XX/XX/XXXX, we took out a loan from XXXXXXXX XXXX  a.k.a. XXXX XXXX. We also purchased homeowners insurance from XXXX. The insurance policy was renewed in XXXX, with the premium being paid out of escrow. It was renewed again in XXXX, also, with the payment being made from escrow. 

In XX/XX/XXXX, Chase took over as the mortgagor after acquiring the mortgage from XXXX XXXX. At that time, Chase received all the information concerning the mortgage, including information about the homeowners insurance policy from XXXX, which again, had been renewed with a payment from escrow for two consecutive years without fail. Despite this, when it came time to pay the renewal premium for the insurance, Chase did not pay it, and they allowed the policy to lapse. 

In early XX/XX/XXXX, I received a letter from Chase informing me that Chase did not have proof of active homeowners insurance. I contacted XXXX and received a copy of my policy, which I uploaded to Chase 's website, as instructed in the letter. At that time, I was informed by XXXX that the payment for the premium needed to be made through escrow. In fact, there was no option to pay the premium myself on the XXXX website or app at all. The payment must come from Chase through escrow, as it had in XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. 

After uploading my insurance paperwork to Chase 's website, I received another letter from Chase, indicating that they did not have proof of active insurance for the home. The letter threatened that if I did not promptly upload proof of active homeowners insurance, Chase would purchase insurance on my behalf at a higher cost and with lower coverage than what I could purchase on the open market. Again, I contacted the insurance company, and they told me that the payment needed to come from escrowi.e., Chase . At that point, I am running in circles between Chase and XXXX and facing threats that Chase will take actions to my financial detriment. To avoid an unreasonable charge for deficient insurance, I purchased new insurance from XXXX ( XXXX ) and uploaded the information to Chase 's website. 

A few weeks later, I received an email from Chase indicating that they had paid the insurance premium for my new XXXX ( XXXX ) policy out of escrow. In other words, after I provided proof that I had purchased and paid for a new insurance policy based on threats from Chase about buying insurance on my behalf, Chase made a duplicate payment for the premium. Accordingly, I contacted Chase to find out : ( a ) how to get a refund for the duplicate payment of the premium; and ( b ) why Chase did not pay the premium to XXXX through escrow in the first place, which again, had occurred in two consecutive years without incident. 

My call with Chase was incredibly frustrating to say the least. We got into a long discussion about a technical issue with the policy where they were claiming they could not pay the premium because they did not have a " renewal declaration for the insurance policy. Rather than contacting the insurer to get the requisite information, they allowed the policy to lapse, and then, claimed they couldn't pay for the policy because it had expired. 

Lets pause here, as there are XXXXhree points I want to make sure are clear. First, we did not request to have our mortgage transferred from XXXX to Chase. Chase chose to take over the mortgage and informed us that it would be our mortgage handler as of XX/XX/XXXX. Chase requires proof of insurance for its mortgages. When it allowed our policy to lapse, I received a letter the very next day. In our recent conversation, their insurance team confirmed that they did indeed receive the information about our insurance in XX/XX/XXXX. Simply put, they had the information they needed to maintain our insurance and failed to do so. 

Second, our insurance carrier was baffled when I attempted to pay for the premium directly. According to the carrier, the payment should come from escrow, which is why they did not even have a payment mechanism on their website or app to pay the premium directly. 

Third, Chase never contacted us to work with us on getting whatever they claim they need to renew the policy for a third consecutive year. Rather, they sent a letter threatening to buy expensive deficient insurance on our behalf unless we uploaded proof of an active policy. As a financial institution working directly with consumers, Chase could have made a minimum amount of effort to keep our policy active. They also could have contacted our insurer to get that information, as again, they had all the policy documents when they took over the mortgage in XX/XX/XXXX. Instead, they chose to send us a form letter with confusing and ambiguous threats. 

Chase 's actions were irresponsible, and their attempts to shirk responsibility now and blame us for their failure to pay premium out of escrow is shameful. It's hard to understand what exactly their endgame is with this oversight and lack of accountability, but it has shaken our confidence in the company. By failing to pay the premium and allowing our policy to lapse, Chase potentially put us at significant financial risk, and their bad faith behavior evidences an established practice and procedure of failing to perform mortgage obligations and attempting to shift blame onto their customers, who are ordinary consumers.