COLORADO SPRINGS — Robert Martin walks through what's left of his home in Colorado Springs. Everywhere he looks there's soot, smoke damage, and broken pieces of the home he's lived in since 1967.
Martin says he and his roommate were home when a fire swept through the house in December 2020.
"My service dog alerted me to something that was wrong," he said. "The fire detectors were going off."
Now, more than 8 months later, Martin says little if anything has been done to get cleaned up and repaired. He's thankful Allstate has provided him with temporary housing but it's little consolation for a man who's waited this long to go home. So he called News 5 Investigates with a plea for help.
Allstate refused to discuss his case sending only a statement that said quote:
"We have been working directly with this customer to resolve the claim according to their policy. We protect our customers and their privacy, so we do not share specific claim details."
"They've been saying that since December 14th," Martin said. What are they hiding? They have my permission, you have my permission to go through everything and anything."
When Allstate wouldn't give us answers, I sent his complaint to an agency Allstate had to answer: the Colorado Division of Insurance.
"They have to respond to us," said Assistant Commissioner for the Division of Insurance Vincent Plymell. "We regulate insurance in Colorado and part of that is regulating the insurance companies. They have to respond to us."
Within 20 days to be exact.
In the meantime, Martin says more workers show up to his home every day.
"Nothing ever happened until Channel 5 came along," Martin said.
He just wants them to finish what they've started so he can get back home.
News 5 will continue to stay on top of this story to make sure the work at Mr. Martin's home is complete.
The Division of Insurance says since the start of 2020 they've had 76 homeowner insurance closed complaints against Allstate. In most cases, the issues get resolved but the department says they can't always solve every complaint.
If you want to file a complaint with the division of insurance click here.
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