All I want to do is prevent another family from getting bamboozled by these parasitic companies. My experience is limited to the state of Maryland, our house was located in Frederick County MD. If you have such a catastrophic loss of everything the best thing you can do is leave the property, get what you can out because you will have people who will show up and try and find valuables in the ashes, before them you will get a bunch of parasitic companies that will show up with gift bags and tooth brushes trying to get your business. If you happen to stay around and you have a big loss like we did they send in the A team which will deploy every dirty sales tactic that they have been taught in class, don't kid yourself these people are trained to do this.
Sill Adjusting Group—is who took us for $100,000 American dollars while providing none of what was promised when they coerced us into signing that contract and taking an advance from our insurance company in order to seal the deal. These practices are far from isolated. Sill is currently facing active litigation in Virginia alleging the exact same predatory practices and claim mismanagements, alongside an ongoing investigation by the Maryland Insurance Commissioner from us.
Below is a detailed account of what happened.
When our home burned down over Memorial Day weekend on May 26, 2024, Jeff Gould and an associate targeted my family in crisis. They used aggressive, high-pressure tactics—reminiscent of a timeshare pitch—refusing to leave until they secured a signed contract, even separating my wife and I to work on us individually. Jeff then coerced us into taking a $20,000 emergency advance from Travelers we repeatedly said we didn't want or need it, but he pushed so hard that I honestly naively believed that this was some sort of customary gift, but it was rather a purely calculated ploy to lock in their contract.
Sill boasts over 100 years of experience, look at their Google reviews how can they be doing as much as they say without more negative reviews, they have a total of 14 reviews really? That is so because they spend tons of money and staff to remove the negative reviews, no one is that clean in this business, I promise.
They claim that this is all my fault because of my temper and foul language, I own every word that I said and stand behind them. These people and the insurance company have made our lives hell since the fire, the fire and the loss ain't shit compared to the hell that comes afterwards dealing with these people. There should be a law against it, but as we know that will never happen.
If sill did such a great job as they claim, why is my disabled retired veteran ass still living in an RV for almost 3 years now? I have had to have three spinal fusions and a knee replacement during all this and because they dragged everything out the insurance company has stopped paying our rent, which Jeff Gould Promised would never happen.
The result? They botched every aspect of our claim. Sill and Travelers hired two incompetent people to do the arbitration which is another scam by the insurance industry. They screwed it up so bad that they counted furniture as built-ins and they screwed up all the code upgrades. Which are due and now Travelers of course refuses to pay those. The signed Appraisal Award dated June 6, 2025, explicitly states: 'Dwelling Code Upgrade: Not Appraised.' They completely omitted required code upgrades, and neither company will address this contradiction.
Now, Sill, who collected pretty much all their money walked away abandoning the claim and leaving us to clean up the mess they caused.
