Homeowner’s insurance, Renter’s insurance, and most importantly Blessed Assurance
Hi Everyone,
Welcome back! If you haven’t read my previous post about “Fire Safety and protections from the flames” you might want to click the link to jump back and read it as this is going to pick up where that one left off.
When we last left off, I had our cat Mittens at the emergency vet and she was very dirty, but otherwise okay. My wife and kids are now staying with my in-laws and the house is still covered with soot.
After the fire had been put out and the Halleck Fire Department was cleaning up their gear and Mon EMS was asking if we were all okay. A big thank you to all our first responders and service men and women who help keep our country free! I’m sitting outside with my family and the two dogs thinking we lost Mittens. Well we had most of what we had thanked God for in our prayers. I try to call State Farm my insurance provider for my renter’s policy to start a claim. I soon found out it probably wasn’t the ideal time to try and start a claim. We should have had Additional Living Expenses (ALE) though so a hotel or a place to stay would’ve helped that night. I finally had to tell the claims people I’d get back with them to complete the information, because I had to keep discussing things with the various first responders on site and make sure my family was taken care of.
The house belongs to my father, and my family and I have a renter’s policy. So basically the structure is covered by his policy and all the belongings inside are covered by my policy.
I’m going to throw this right in the middle of this and I’ll keep emphasizing it over and over again as I go. You need an existing relationship with a lawyer. I had a professor who told us repeatedly everyone sometime in their life will be sued or need to sue someone. I hate to say it but she might be right. If you don’t have an already established relationship with a lawyer you might not be able to get one much like I haven’t been able to in over a year now. Next, as bad as I hate to say it, you probably should have insurance either homeowner’s insurance if you own the home or a renter’s policy to cover your contents if you don’t own the home. Now there are some differences as I found out at least in my case. My dad was allowed an actual person for an adjuster, not just someone in a call center. Bare in mind that we both have State Farm Insurance. I practically begged for a real person for an adjuster and was repeatedly denied.
The next thing I would recommend doing no matter who owns the structure or what type of policy you have is to have a good quality home inspection done every few years maybe five years at the most. Much like a septic system needs inspected to see if it is time to be emptied the condition of your home changes over time and repairs are made as well as upgrades and remodels. I’ll say right here I’d be happy to help with the inspection portion, and if you don’t use me that is fine too, just make sure the condition of your home is documented. Click here to go to the West Virginia Fire Marshall’s list of Certified Home Inspectors. Click here to schedule your home inspection with A & J Home Inspections, LLC. Next you want to have your contents documented. If there is ever a claim the insurance company is likely to ask all sorts of questions regarding your contents. They’ll want proof you had these items and sometimes like in our case even with the items still on site and still contaminated with soot it isn’t enough. I’ll be happy to assist with content documentation as well and again use me, don’t use me, but absolutely have your personal property documented.
Now your lawyer, in the unfortunate event you ever have a claim contact your lawyer right away and let them deal with the insurance company. I had hit a deer in my pickup truck several years ago and during the claims process two separate garages made the truck worse and I finally ended up fixing it myself. I learned from this experience to document everything. It is hard to document everything and especially in the midst of a tragedy while trying to juggle life and family and figure out what your policy requires what it doesn’t why your adjuster lies to you. Take my advice, have a relationship with a lawyer and call them to help with the claim.
Alright enough of my sidebar there, back to the events. Claim gets started. My dad starts a claim on his end as well. State Farm like some other insurance companies have preferred vendors. I wouldn’t recommend using anyone associated with your insurance company at all, you’ll see why soon enough. You’ll need existing relationships with a trusted contractor. Someone you know and trust to do the work correctly.
My wife and kids are at the in-laws and the two dogs, cat and I are sleeping in my bedroom in the soot covered house. My bedroom door was closed and I typically make my bed every morning so the damage was less intense in there and there was no where I could take the dogs and cat to that late in the evening on a Friday in Morgantown. My dad sleeps in his car in the driveway. He drove all the way to Morgantown from Clay to make sure State Farm got the house remediation underway.
Remember back in the last post how I was appalled by contractors doing shoddy work? Well just wait to see what remediation companies do to people. First company comes out very next day. Saturday morning they install scrubbers. Say they’ll be ready to start work Monday and our house will be as good as new in 3-6 months. Okay we gotta figure out somewhere else to stay during that time.
Monday no one shows up to do work, call to find out what is going on. Remediation company can’t get in touch with adjuster for my renter’s policy and doesn’t have green light to start work. I try to get in touch with my adjuster assigned to my case, no luck. Try every number to State Farm that I can, they want to settle the car claim immediately. I could care less about the total loss of a car sitting in the driveway, I need a place for my family and I to live. Can this company come in and do the work needed to get the house ready yes or no?
Left message after message for the claims handler, people at the claims desk say anyone can help, but then send me to her. I’m not even sure she exists, but then First remediation company calls and says they need their scrubbers back. Okay, aren’t you going to do work on the house? No, State Farm canceled our contract they tell me. So I meet with them they pick up their scrubbers. They are all loaded up and ready to leave and then the come back with a stack of papers wanted authorization to do work. What? You tell me State Farm canceled your contract and you need your scrubbers back immediately, and now you want me to authorize you to do work? No! Another thing to keep in mind, do not sign anything without reading it. I’d go so far as to say don’t sign anything without your lawyer I mentioned earlier reading it. Or in my case I just didn’t sign it. They go to leave again and then come back, now they want to take pictures of the contents in the house. Umm? What? No! You got your scrubbers you retrieved your property, State Farm terminated you contract… you are done.
Okay now its 10 days later on July 22nd. I talk to someone who claims to be my adjuster. So, she might actually be a real person, could’ve been AI for all I know. So Second remediation company had called and says State Farm told them to come out and begin work on the house for my dad and my contents for me. I want to check to make sure this is okay given what just happened with the first remediation company. Your lawyer could help you with this as well as your already established relationship with a reputable contractor.
Sorry for the sidebar here, Do you folks out there want me to name the companies? I could, but without a lawyer to advise me I’m being cautious to make sure they can’t claim something against me. Maybe I can use abbreviations to make it easier… First Remediation Company (FRC) they didn’t do much so not much to tell. Second Remediation Company (SRC) and there will be a Third Remediation Company (TRC) also the worst of the lot between them and their subcontractors.
Alright SRC comes out takes some pictures. Says they can start cleaning right away. They show up the first day in a mini van and if you’ve ever seen the old cartoons where all the clowns get out of a little car, I wish I had pulled the security camera footage of that. Should have been a big red flag, I should’ve taken my own advice that I mentioned earlier and called a contractor I had an existing relationship with, and consulted with my lawyer, but I didn’t know any better. Learn from my mistake folks.
Okay this guy claims to be a pastor he’s got to be on the up and up right? Yeah it’ll be okay. So they set forth to cleaning. One of the major concerns my dad and I had the whole time was the furnace A/C system. You see when I was taking the course to become a home inspector my wife called one morning really early saying the Carbon Monoxide detector was going off. This was in October of 2023. She got the kids, dogs, and cats out of the house all by herself that morning. They went and sat in the car. The furnace’s heat exchanger had broke and it wasn’t combusting the fuel properly. It was still warm enough it didn’t really matter. And Jeff Stewart from Jeff Stewart Heating and Cooling installed a new system for us in November of 2023. Click here to visit Jeff Stewart Heating and Cooling’s website if you need HVAC work. My kids loved Jeff Stewart and his crew. They did a great job and we thank God for him in our prayers. So the furnace was actually off when the car caught fire in the garage, but it got so hot in the basement area that the upper limit switch kicked on and the blower pumped the soot all through the duct work and all through the house. Keep this in mind it will be important in the next installment.
So I’m trying to stay out of the cleaning crews way. I don’t know what they need, I don’t know what language they speak. I find out later their version of cleaning is to just dump things into other containers and since they moved from one place to another they somehow got cleaned in the process. Again this is a place for your lawyer and contractor you already have an established relationship with. Otherwise you need to be on them like white on rice on a paper plate in a snow storm. Document everything. Video tape them OSHA violations and all.
How would you sit down and put the list of these items together, amid a catastrophe while trying to take care of your family and find a place to live? Notice the pink princess tea set? I bought that to have tea parties with my daughter like Nick Fretias says to do.
Click here to watch the video on YouTube
My daughter just started having picnics in her room this past week. I wish her daddy had time to have a tea party of a picnic with her right now. Or just a place to work on things with her she can use the tools she has in her pink tool box.
The SRC didn’t really have a schedule when they showed up to work, they just kinda showed up and sometimes they didn’t. While they were there they did advise me of things to claim on my renter’s policy. So I’m sitting on the back porch and they are piling up all this stuff saying claim this claim that. This is where you need that home inspector to document your contents. I had to have practically year, make, model, when I purchased, where from, how long I owned it, serial numbers, etc. I haven’t seen my family I’m all alone with the dogs and cats trying to wade through this stuff. Then on August 12th I get a call saying they were done. Done? you can’t be done you didn’t even look at that furnace I mentioned earlier. The lady gets mad at me because I won’t sign off on them being done and she tattle tales to the insurance adjuster. Wow! That’s what it takes to get in touch with the adjuster. I’ve tried for a month and only talked to the adjuster once and these people got her on speed dial. So I tell State Farm I want a new adjuster. State Farm finally gives in and gives me a new adjuster. I had already started a claim with the WV Insurance Commissioner because I could tell things weren’t going right. Something was wrong. When you get that feeling deep down in your gut that something just isn’t right, believe it. You aren’t crazy, find someone to look at it from a different viewpoint. Make sure you have a support group. Make sure you spend time in prayer to God. Ask his son Christ Jesus for guidance for he has promised to never leave you nor forsake you.
A silver lining in the midst of all this chaos… The eggs that were incubating hatched 4 days early.
Okay I get a new adjuster, maybe now they’ll come back and do the things right. Nope! Nice Try! What do they do they tell State Farm none of my belongings were claimed. They say everything was salvaged and not to pay me anything for my personal property. What!? That can’t be right, what about this mountain of stuff previously piled up on the back porch. I start looking around and discover they hadn’t really cleaned anything. I didn’t do my part and didn’t pull the security camera footage, but they had hauled away at least three trailer loads of our belongings while my wife was there and I was at work. I don’t know what they took, I don’t know what is missing. I found parts and pieces to my wife’s motorcycle I was working on spread into all the rooms of the house. So much for having the things laid out in order to reassemble. Disgraceful!
I’ll leave off this installment here and continue later, but I want you to know dear reader. Insurance on not, lawyer or not, and relationships with contactors or not. There is one relationship that means more than anything here on earth. The relationship you have with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is the ultimate assurance. Without Jesus Christ as your Lord and master you’ll one day stand before the throne to hear the words “depart from me” God has given him a name above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
If you’d like to keep reading about our experience with this fire and the clean up and the things that happened to us you can check out my third installment here “What are you prepared to do? Where will you go? Who will go?”
