April 10, 2020, Cameron, Montana.  I had a small victory today—I received an insurance claim check for $1,034.31 from Travelers Indemnity Company. I have been battling with Travelers since September. There was a fire in the apartment above our NYC apartment and we had some water damage. The fire was caused by our neighbor’s general contractor who was insured by Travelers. Travelers was difficult and simply passive aggressive from the beginning. After several months of aggravating non-sense, I finally made peace with a Traveler’s insurance adjuster by the name of Dan S., and he agreed to reimburse me (I did explain to him that I received three estimates for the repair and went with the least expensive). I thought I was done. But at this point, Dan informed me that he was now handing me off to Karen Q. in Travelers’ Long Island Office. The passive aggressiveness began anew. Karen proceeded to send me the most one-sided legal release. I asked to make two small, reasonable changes—clarifying the event that caused the damage and putting a time on the payment from them to me. She said absolutely not. No changes are allowed. I made the changes nevertheless, notarized the release and emailed it to Karen. Karen quickly informed me that Travelers was rejecting my signed release. No surprise. I waited 60 days and then sent a demand letter to Travelers’ registered agent in Helena, Montana (Travelers does business in Montana so they have a registered agent here) and also emailed the demand letter to Karen in Long Island. She again informed me that they were rejecting my release and were not reimbursing me unless I signed the unaltered release. At this point, I informed Karen that I will be filing a civil action against Travelers in our county seat, Virginia City (population 207), Madison County, Montana and that Travelers is welcome to come to the court house and explain to the judge why they will not accept my two small, reasonable changes. Recalling my first-year law school civil procedure class, I was confident that Madison County had jurisdiction over Travelers in this situation. I explained this to Karen. Karen told me that I was wrong, I had to bring the action in New York, but that she would check with Travelers’ legal counsel in the morning. The next morning, Karen sent me a polite but curt emailed to inform me that Travelers was accepting my modified release as submitted and that she would be sending me a check in short order. Today I received a check! Still getting a return on my law school education. 😉. Travelers has to be one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with. They are difficult to say the least.