Family continues legal battle with Heritage Insurance

A husband and wife will not quit the fight with their homeowner’s insurance.

On Tuesday, the water poured through the couple’s home like it does every day it rains, and there’s no end in sight.

When the rain started pattering on the roof Tuesday afternoon, the water rushed through Jeff and Ginny Rapkin’s home.

There wasn’t much room for it in the buckets already overflowing from Monday night’s storm. Hurricane Ian ripped off the roof, and It’s been open ever since.

When the rain stopped, Ginny started to cry, and Jeff got angry.

He is angry with Heritage Insurance, as he has been so many times in the last two years.

“I’d like to set them on fire. I really would. I like to beat them all to a pulpit. What’s happened here is wrong? This is a lack of common human decency, a lack of humanity,” said Rapkin.
“I’m as mad as a person could be who’s been rendered homeless for two years. You know, nothing like being 54, years old, paying for a house.”

• RELATED: New details emerge confirming state investigation into Heritage Insurance 

The Rapkins believe Heritage changed the licensed adjuster, Jordan Lee’s initial damage report.

Lee said there was $231,000 worth of damage. Heritage sent them a check for $15,000.

“If I’m making up fraud. Take a look. Page four, page five, page six, page seven. This isn’t a matter of him making a mistake and yanking things out,” said Rapkin. “This is a 261-page report that the adjuster did for us, and somebody at Heritage decided they would change it to a 14-page report, and they numbered it separately, and they just yanked some things out, put some things in.”

That’s why Jeff filed a lawsuit. After he said, he first filed this claim with the state’s Department of Financial Services.

“My father passed February, and he was a retired circuit judge, and before he passed, he helped me draft a breach of contract lawsuit,” said Rapkin.

The Rapkins tried living in this home for 7 months.

“It killed our dog. The mold you’re about to see killed our dog and almost killed our kid. My daughter, like I said, she has autism. Both went into kidney failure,” said Rapkin.

Now, the family lives in an apartment, but they still make trips to the home. Each trip, Jeff told WINK, is painful.

“A home is more than the sum of its parts. We spent Christmases here. We learned how to make strawberry jam downstairs in that kitchen. You know, my kids, I’ll never forget,” said Rapkin.

The Raskins are still paying Heritage insurance. They can’t drop their coverage, and their premium is now four thousand dollars a year.

Jeff is representing himself in his lawsuit. He is a lawyer but an adoption lawyer.

Jeff told me he fears he won’t win his case, but he’s going to court because he knows there are tens of thousands of people like him fighting their insurance companies and can’t stand up to them like he can.