Consumer complaint received 2025-03-27 00:00:00
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: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: WA

Complaint narrative:
To Whom it May Concern : Recently in the XXXX, WA area, ( XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  ) there was a wind storm that caused extensive damage to many homes. 
I was hoping by sending this out, that someone would investigate this and get the word out to try to fix this process and help the thousands of people who are negatively impacted by a very flawed process. 
With the many natural disasters that have occurred in the United States recently, my experience with the insurance proceeds disbursement from my lender must be something experienced by many, many people with much larger claims. The banks must be making interest on property owners funds or other benefits by not disbursing them timely. 

-Hurricane Helene : XXXX Approximate insured losses in the range of XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Approximate insured losses of XXXX XXXX -California Wildfires : XXXX Approximate insured losses range of XXXX - XXXX XXXX On a home, the insurance proceeds are usually required to be made payable to the lender and property owner, to ensure that the proceeds are used to restore the property. 
To get those funds disbursed to the property owner to pay for restoration, this is the process I have experienced with Wells Fargo Bank Lender : Wells Fargo Bank Processor for Wells Fargo : Insurance Claim Check -Insurance Proceeds paid to Property Owner -Property Owner endorses and sends the check to the lenders processor, in this case Insurance Claim Check. 
-After documents are uploaded to their site, Insurance Claim Check, will disburse a percentage to the property owner. In my case, it was about 30 %. However, by this time, I had paid out of pocket for quite a bit of emergency repairs to secure the home from further damage. 
-Above and beyond emergency work, once done with 25 % of the restoration, you are to request and inspection. In my case, I was approx. 40 % complete and requested an inspection through their process. 
They are supposed to contact you within a few days to schedule an inspection. 
I submitted my request for inspection on or about XX/XX/XXXX, received a call on XX/XX/XXXX, acknowledging my request, stating that an inspector would call me to schedule. I waited and never heard back, I called Insurance Claim Check and was relentless in trying to find someone to help. On my calls, they acknowledged that the inspection group that they assigned to my claim was non-responsive. ( Then why use them? ). I insisted on another inspection company. I got an inspection on XX/XX/XXXX. Had I not been insistent and kept calling, this would not have happened on the XXXX. 
-Inspection : the inspector comes out and has the information on the claim. By this time, the restoration was at about 50 %. 
His report that he submitted indicated I was 10 % done. Any lay person could look at photos of the claim report and clearly see that there was substantially more than 10 % complete. Again, I called and called and the rep I spoke to at Insurance Claim Check, agreed with me from looking at the original claim photos and the inspectors photos, that I was well beyond 10 %. 
They then have to reject the inspection and request a revision. That takes several days. 
They will not disburse funds until they have a corrected inspection. 
I have been calling almost daily and on XX/XX/XXXX, Insurance Claim Check said that they made a check printing error and needed to deposit back the check they issued and wait 3-5 more business days to reissue. 
That is ridiculous, if a check is printed incorrectly, any accounting system can void, why would it have to be deposited? 
I have taken time out of my day and work schedule to call them almost daily. I have spoke to managers/supervisors and no one can really help. All they keep saying is that it will be 2-3 business days. On the XXXX it was 2-3 business days, on the XXXX it was 2 more business days. 
It is now XX/XX/XXXX and I still do not have a disbursement to pay my contractor. Over 1 month since I started the process for my 1st inspection. This is due to 2 of their incompetent inspectors and a flawed process. Again, I have had to contact Insurance Claim Check or their inspectors consistently to get where I am, which is really no where since I still do not have my funds. Imagine if someone did not have or make the time to do this. 

I want to emphasize that these are my funds from my insurance carrier.

My story and the amount of money is small compared to the collective amounts of insurance proceeds being held by lenders for the natural disasters that I mentioned above. Think about the billions of dollars that the lenders hold in escrow that belong to homeowners that have gone through a natural disaster and are trying to repair their homes and get on with life. This is such a disservice to them. Whether or not they earn interest on these escrow accounts, the lenders are benefitting somehow by holding on to billions of dollars of property owners money. 

I am fairly savvy when it comes to finances, construction and business, being in the real estate industry most of my career. I have been relentless in contacting them, almost every couple of days. The summary above is only a snippet of the conversations I have had with someone in this process. Imagine those individuals that don't understand the process, don't have the time to call these people everyday and can't rebuild without the funds being disbursed. Disaster. 

I am hoping someone picks up this story and does a thorough investigation of this problem.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation