Insurance is a downer

I've been trying to keep things light-hearted by suggesting the best part about my house fire was the fire.

I have house insurance, and when I switched to this company when they were doing a recruitment drive at a corporation I used to work at, I kept the deductible low even though they warned me it would be a higher annual premium.

Since I've never had a house insurance claim, I'm not understanding how only having a deductible of $250 helps me because it seems my possible financial burden after insurance has completed what they will pay for will be substantially more than $250.

The insurance company has not concluded their assessment yet - even though I now have passed the 8 month anniversary of my fire.  And my hands are tied because of this statement in their initial letter 'Should you choose to proceed with the work before our review is complete, we may decline your request for additional payment.'

Their initial payment was itemized so I can see everything the insurance company doesn't think they should be responsible for.  Here's a minor example that they claim my lack of construction expertise makes me unqualified to judge: there was a dead-bolted door that the firemen went through to gain access to the basement - that's where the fire was.  What remains is a chunk of wood attached to hinges.

 The insurance company has walked through the house multiple times, and then came back in at the six-month mark to inspect again because they wanted to close my claim if I had begun making repairs, based on the statement above about 'proceeding with the work'.  Based on their expertise, what this door requires for restoration is 'prime & paint door slab only - exterior (per side)', and they sent me $10.26 to cover that.



In my pages of detailed response, I listed a request for a new door with deadbolt and other hardware like a knob.   So we're at a impasse for months because all I seem to be able to get is warnings about insurance fraud and statements that insurance is to repair and replace not to improve my house.  Improve?  In this very narrow example, the day of the fire began with a whole door there.

Likewise, I used to have ceilings and walls that they removed as smoke damaged, but now do not want to replace.  And with my lack of construction experience I erroneously think things like this look unsafe:

ceiling light without ceiling and bulb no longer seated in fixture

light switch lying on floor after wall removed

Get Back to Living Your Life (Not!)

So I'm supposed to 'get back to living your life' - as the professionals who handle all these fire, insurance and renting things say - and I'm with the pets at a furnished, wall-to-wall carpeted townhouse with a lot of stairs because I said I have pets and no one will rent to me.  Finally someone said, we will for $$$$$.  I have the insurance coverage to fork over the $$$$$, and my dogs have been outside for 50 nights, and I've said 'yes' to every house that didn't have visible repairs made with duct tape and string.  Problem solved when the insurance company said OK.

No, problem temporarily solved.  30 days later, I'm living my life at work because that's where I think I should be Monday - Friday, and I get a call from my short-term company who collects the $$$$$.  The complex where the townhouse entered my unit and found pets.  I have to go.

Even though I did have a foster cat named Keyser Soze in the past, I'm not a criminal mastermind that can disappear after walking out of a police station with my SUV full of pets and their supplies, so I had a reality check with - I told you I have pets and other people in the complex have dogs (some also have 2) and other people have cats.

Not good enough, even though she admitted I had honestly rented and fully disclosed my pet head count when renting from them.  It's not them, it's the complex - and they hadn't thought they entered units 'at will'.  Yeah, I don't like this 'at will' thing either.  They didn't even lock the door when they left.  It was closed, but not locked.

Meanwhile, I can't repair and move home because the insurance company stubbornly thinks my house was a teardown with boarded up windows before the fire, so they're saying they're not paying to 'improve' the dwelling by replacing windows.  They also denied my request to winterize the house (drain the water from the pipes) because they don't think New Jersey ever has temperatures below freezing.  And if I do any work on the house they haven't pre-authorized, my fight for windows and drywall for where I used to have walls goes up in smoke.

It seems common sense to prevent pipes from freezing in an unheated house, but there's a lot of people from Sandy that either used their own savings, credit cards or an initial settlement amount,  and they started to get some work done because their houses were being taken over by mold.  Their insurance companies - home, flood and FEMA - then said any repair to their damaged house invalidated their outstanding claims.

After the lack of action on the part of the corporate, short-term housing experts last time, I started making calls on Day 3 of the Hunt for Somewhere to Live Part Deux.  Within an hour, I was speaking to a real estate agent who emailed me photos and showed me a house that evening.  I said 'yes' again, and since he already explained my situation to the homeowner he was ready with a lease.  I signed with the caveat that I need approvals from the insurance company because common sense seems alien to them, along with anyone giving a flying rat's ass that I will have nowhere to live again.

It's now Day 7 of the Search Part Deux - legally I'm now in a mess because the insurance company didn't give a 'yes' or 'no' within that 72 hour refusal period of the contract.  I'm antsy, and didn't settle for leaving voice mail so I kept picking up the phone and dialing.   What's the hold up?  Am I moving in 3 days or not?  Clock is ticking.  I need someplace to live.  If I can't live there, I want them finding me someplace because that's their profession not mine.  I know I'm a difficult case because my pets did survive the fire and I'm a cold-hearted bitch unwilling to cooperate and put them into a shelter (they have no clue about the definition of 'No Kill').  My pets are part of my family, and since I don't look for attractive pets they'll be euthanized if I go along with the professional advice on how to 'get back to living my life'.

Temp housing accomplished

Let me start off with the positives -

1. No person or animal was hurt or worse during the fire.

2. They are all still relatively well.

3. There is one company that will short-term rent to my family of one full-time adult, one part-time adult student, two dogs, and some cats (number varies due to foster adoptions)

After I consider all that, I suppose everything that follows is just aggravation.

One dog has to be retrained because he doesn't respect the gate after 50 nights of living outside.  I've had to crate him when I'm not present. He's good in the kitchen if I'm on the first floor with them.  I've restricted their 'hang with me' time because it seems to confuse the dog being crated.

I also have a third company that I'm not pleased with.  Since they have the contents of my house hostage right now, I'm grumbling about their shortfalls.  They were supposed to clean and pack a pile of items I made to take to the temp house.   A big pile of boxes formed while they worked, and I waited while wondering if I needed so much stuff - it hadn't looked like that much when I put it together.  I had a subset already with me where I was sleeping.

When the housing was finalized, they had said they'd move the items in their van.  Then when the time came, they backed out of it.  Inconvenient, and since the billing goes directly to the insurance company instead of to me - was that charged?  And because this was a professional relationship, my disappointment was greater because I'm used to personal acquaintances saying 'no' when I call them after they grab my hands in theirs and insist 'call me if you need anything'.  For some reason, I take that literally and call them.  I know, I know - it's only a saying that doesn't really mean anything.

I moved the pile, then began unpacking.  Then I had to unpack it all quicker because the stuff I was looking for wasn't there.  It could be in storage with everything else.  It could have been thrown away or stolen.  I won't know for months because I do not have access to the items put in storage until it's delivered back to my house.

It's stupid things, but I need some of them.  Like my printer - it made it, along with the USB cable that was attached to it.  But the power cord was removed, and I searched through all the boxes looking for it.  And I don't like getting lip about it must be my mistake when I put it on the pile - uh no, I unplugged it with all related wires and wound them once around the closed printer.  This one folded up into a nice rectangular cube with nothing sticking out.  And although I have another Canon printer and a box of spare cables, they were all packed up.   Amazon was more than happy for my purchase of a printer power cord and other little things that happened to be omitted.

What was in the rest of those boxes?  Well, in the lightest box ever were all the instruction manuals to my appliances that I had in a kitchen drawer wrapped in paper plus a lot of air.  I know I didn't request them.  Someone guessed I'd like to read about my dishwasher features while I'm washing dishes by hand daydreaming about moving home.  

The same stupid asses packed up every stuffed animal from my daughter's room to send with me.  Do I look like I need them?  She doesn't because she went to college without them.   Those are going back with the other eight boxes I already have repacked to go back to my house (I'll stick them in the attic to get them out of the way).

And you know why I think they did this shit on purpose?  To further aggravate me, my full boxes of cat litter had a hole stabbed in the bottom.    Lots left in them since I buy the 40# boxes, but it looks like someone shoved a screwdriver into the middle of the bottom through the tape into the plastic liner bags.  One box is an accident, two, three, and four is not.

They also misplaced the key to my house.  There's a lockbox on the front door, and when the next contractor visited, it was empty.  I had to leave work to admit him. They answered my question of 'where's the key?' with an accusation that I must have taken it.  

It's getting cold out

Sorry, I'm still obsessed about having no temporary housing after the fire.  Are all insurance claims turned into their version of Absurdism?   Loss of use coverage is needed the moment that my house is uninhabitable, or at least from the point their first adjuster has seen the house for himself two days after the fire.

48 DAYS later, my dogs are still outside, and I have nowhere to have my clothes that were whisked away for cleaning delivered to so I'm in shorts and sandals outside in the evening and during the night and in the morning with the dogs.

I fall asleep and then wake up worried that I don't hear my dogs, and go out and check on them.  Early this morning, it was 44 degrees. 

After being shown another house last week and saying 'yes, I'll take it' at 5 minutes after the time my appt was set for, I was turned down approximately 75 hours after that because the home owner changed her mind.

Something's wrong with this process if they claim they can get people into a temporary housing within a day.  One homeowner took 8 days to decide she didn't want to rent to me, and it took the insurance company 10 days to rule that one of the houses I was shown was too expensive because it wasn't comparable.  I have a 3 BR/1.5 BA house, and that 'yes, I'll take it' was on a 4 BR/3 BA house that I agree was too big but when all the other choices have been removed, I'm the only one that thinks I need to settle for something at this point.  Their obstructionism has already saved them over a month's rent.

Instead they want to push me into a house with two landladies who had a lot of verbal conditions like - don't use or go upstairs, only go down to the basement for laundry, don't block the driveway because we need to access the garage that we use for storage.  They provide electricity by stringing extension cords along the ceiling of the basement and I could see visible 'fixes' made with tied-off cord.  And the fenced yard is not directly accessible from any door in the house and the gate doesn't close properly so use it as your own risk.  So my 'no' ratcheted up to 'hell no'. I wouldn't obsess over it so much if they didn't repeatedly go back to the topic of that house.

So rather than working on showing me another house, they whine about my pickiness.  Their expertise has led to them showing me 4 houses in close to 50 days, and I've agreed to 3 of them.

Since I'm up most of the night checking on my dogs outside, either when it's warm and they won't be quiet, or when it's cold and they're too quiet, I got on the internet to look for other rentals.  There's got to be someone somewhere that can empathize with my situation and be willing to accept the insurance company paying rent.  I paid for coverage that included this benefit, and now after paying for years without ever having any claim, it's difficult to utilize in an effective manner.

Within 12 hours, I got a call and was shown a townhouse after lunch.  The agent who showed me the furnished townhouse equipped for short-term rentals for displaced or corporate rental was also a dog owner.  Peggy felt my pain, and she also pointed out an ideal window ledge for the cats to sun themselves during the day.

I increased my acceptance rate from 75% to 80% and called the adjuster with the information to get me in there.  He wanted to include the original short-term real estate experts even though I found the place, and the annoying thing is I have to grant them their cut of the deal to handle the direct rent payment, or I have to front all the security deposits and rent until the insurance company reimburses, and he estimated it would be 90 days from date of request to reimbursement check issued.

What an informational gem that call was.  Consider the following: 

Let's say I did as the insurance company suggested and found a hotel that would take us with at least the two dogs back on the night of the fire, and then waited for them to find the longer term temp housing.  I would have paid a nightly fee plus 15% hotel taxes for all these nights on my credit card - even cheap at weekly rate plus pet fees, I could easily see $100/night. They've already suggested monthly reimbursement for the future so on Day 30, I would have sent them the total of my hotel to date ~$3,000.  I could expect that reimbursement around Day 120?   Interest charges would accrue if I didn't pay it off each month.

Disclaimers:

I know I can buy more clothes, but I already have a lot of clothes.  They're simply out of reach at the moment.  I'm like my dogs when the morning sun comes up.  They don't move to the sunny part of the lawn to warm up, but stay next to the building.

I have considered boarding the dogs. As each house is found there's a lengthy wait of playing  'any minute now you can move in', and my guys have not done well with boarding in the past.  They go to the vet before the stay for the extra shots, then they come home sick and stressed and need another trip to the vet.  My canine boys want to be inside, laying around with their cat friends keeping them company.

Is something happening?

Things may now be trundling along  - on the house, not my writing.

Following my last update on Day 30 following the house fire, the insurance company granted permission for a company specializing in short-term housing to find me something and they would pay the rent.

That specialized real estate company called me on Day 30.  Her phone manner did not match the rave reviews I had heard back on Day 1.   They can 'get you in someplace in a day' and 'get you back to living your life'.  Uh, no.  It sounded more like I was being a pain in the ass for having a fire, having a second person (human) in the family not only lives in my house but claims the largest bedroom, and having pets that survived the fire.

So I answered the questions about people and animals with an idea in mind that I don't want a lot in way of live-ability because I don't want to lose a deposit buying someone else's carpet or furniture.   I live with pets, but I understand not everyone else does.  One of my dogs will shed by year end, and it's not pretty.  But ideally, I'd like a fenced yard and the ability to wash clothes.

On Day 34, I received a phone call back from them asking if I was available 'now'.  It was the morning of a work day, and I was working at home since the remaining contents of my house were being packed up to allow for demolition (smoke inside hollow walls - fire smoldered but never got to travel).

So it's my fault for the temp housing delay from Day 34 -> Day 35.  I was shown two houses on Day 35.  Both had laundry; one had a fenced yard.  I can walk my dogs, but the unfenced one had pre-stained carpeting and was really big.  I could imagine a multi-generational family living there, rather than one with a lot of kids due to the generous size of all four bedrooms.

Here's my question about the form I completed when I chose the smaller house - why does it matter if I'm employed and have an acceptable credit level?  I have been out of work, like many others have.  What effect does that have on my house fire and my house insurance company already approving they would make direct payments for my family's temporary housing?   I'm not even a risk in terms of disappearing because there should be awareness that I have a permanent house a town away.

What do they think I do - call up all the cat ladies and invite them over for an evening of the finest boxed wine and cat videos on YouTube?

I filled out their form anyway so I didn't add further to the overall delay. 

On Day 40, I called them to find out what happened.  What happened to tomorrow or the next day?  Since I was under the impression they only showed me houses that would accept -

1. Growing Angrier Cat Lady 
2. Mostly Absent College Student 
3. Barking Dog who generally behaves but must have the last word 
4. Yodeling Alarm Dog 
5. Cats (plural) who are all the same color.

Their response - how many pets do you have again?  And what breed are those dogs and their weights? 

I've answered this back on Day 30, and gave them the answers again.

Update on Fire Aftermath

Actually there is no real update, and I am counting days since the fire on Day 0.

After the initial two weeks of hurry up and get over there to disarm and arm the alarm (electricity restored on Day 3), and lock things back up, besides making sure if they've removed a board from a window that it's replaced (not always done), nothing has happened in the past two due to waiting for the insurance company.

They have been to the house twice already - on Day 2 (ok to hire electrician to turn on power), and on Day 25 to confirm the adjuster's assessment on Day 2 regarding future structural work to restore.

Their initial structural adjuster on Day 2 talked about smoke in the hollow walls all the way up to the second floor. (I realize how lucky we were to catch the fire that quickly due to that tidbit about balloon construction used for over a century) 

Before any approvals can be given to do more than cut peepholes in the wall, another insurance company rep needs to inspect the house.  He has an appt for Day 35.

Even if I try to see it from their POV (point of view), this seems inefficient.  Let's say their initial person dispatched has no authority other than to say 'yep, it was a fire', the second one should have some assessment ability to report back to them and begin the approval process.

Also, I am using their chosen restoration contractor.  Do they distrust this company so much they need to do this many reinspections?  

There's also my sarcastic angle.  I was told this week I will be out of my house 6 to 12 months.  If they send two guys a month out to my house to stick a dry sponge in their peepholes that long, will they eventually come out clean?   When that happens, they say 'No further work needed other than some spackle and paint'?

I've also let my not-so-nice side out of the cage to talk on the phone since I'm 'definitely not satisfied' with the ability to utilize my loss of use coverage through a company that specializes in short-term disaster, emergency, corporate, and government leases for temporary furnished housing.

At first I was not sure how long I'd be out of my house, and I realize a dog-owner with cats would be difficult to place.  However, I expected at least ONE phone call or email for me to list preferences, quantity, or any dealbreakers at some point because I was told they would call me on Day 1.  They didn't.  They didn't call for many days.

This morning I rec'd a response to my 'not satisfied' ranting - Day 30.  I'm told expecting any query regarding my preferences would be premature because they need insurance company approval first.

Am I supposed to empathize with these bureaucratic buffoons because I know what it's like to have a place to live with all the comforts of home, including my pets?  But apparently since my life is not their life, these numbnuts prefer to dick around for a month.

Meanwhile my dogs have been sleeping outside for a month.  They made it to their golden or senior years without ever doing that for even one night.

Due to my reliance on these companies at this time, I am leaving their company names absent from this blog post, but I intend to edit them in later once I get a sliver of deplorable service out of all these slower-moving-than-a-glacier incompetents.  Future updates may reflect an improved level of service, but at the moment I'm not classifying the insurance company or temporary housing specialist as efficient or able.

It's a fire. Call 9-1-1

Last week, I was in class to renew my CPR certification.  As in previous courses, we had a good time pointing at each other and saying, "You - call 9-1-1 ..." followed by a list of instructions.

This week, I'm pretty sure I pointed at my daughter when I said, "Call 9-1-1."

M's a college student, had only been home five days from her summer course, and will be returning to school in less than a month.  She made the call and helped me get as many animals out of the house as possible, then handled the dogs for close to six hours after they were removed from the backyard with borrowed leashes.

The fire was in the basement.  I couldn't see the flames when I opened the cellar door when I was trying to track down the smoke smell.

The smoke detectors didn't go off until after the call was made and we were running around, trying to stuff cats in carriers.

Our town and the neighboring town's fire department responded and acted aggressively to put it out fast.  I'm thankful they were so proactive, and once the structure was deemed safe, the cat rescue folks, who all showed up with carriers, swarmed the house to find every cat that remained.  None jumped out a broken window or ran out an open door.