Insurance Has Been Amazing!

As I mentioned in our last post, our phones began ringing at 9:00 am on Monday morning.  When the fire happened, I was too emotional (and out of control) to talk to the insurance people, so Mark immediately took control of this.  On Monday morning alone, he spoke with three different people from Allstate who are in charge of the three areas of our claim.


Basically, the claim is split into three parts: structure, contents, and temporary housing.  Our structure agent is George.  Mark made an appointment to meet with him on Tuesday morning at 9:30.  Our contents agent is Teresa.  Mark made an appointment to meet with her on Thursday morning at 8:00.  Lastly (but most importantly at this point), our temporary housing agent is Wendy.  She found out the basic information on our living situation and immediately began looking for a rental home for us for 6 months.


On Tuesday morning, March 29th, Mark met George at our house.  They walked around the house and looked at everything for close to 1 1/2 hours before my mom, Kris (Mark's mom) and I got there.  It was very cold and we couldn't go inside the house, so we all stood outside and talked to him for another hour. He was factual and easy to understand and thorough. He let us ask questions and clearly explained the answers. He unfortunately didn't have much good news. Although it wasn't surprising to hear how bad it is, it was still difficult to hear how bad it truly is. It is bad!  Basically the whole thing will be gutted down to the studs and they will start over. Since the frame is brick, they will keep that and work from the inside.  It is amazing that it will take longer to fix a house than it does to build one from scratch. We do have replacement cost on our insurance, so we will end up with a new house just like the one they had. Our insurance does not, however, cover any additional cost to bring the house up to new codes. With a 50+ year old house, this could be an issue.  He gave us a name of an Allstate approved contractor that we decided to go with, so George called that guy and got the ball rolling.  He said the contractor would come out and look at the house and write up the final estimate of how much time and money it would take to rebuild.


George had brought with him an investigator who was going to try to figure out the cause of the fire.  It is clear to her that the fire was not the result of faulty wiring in the house but from either the surge protector itself or something plugged into the surge protector. There were four things plugged into the surge protector: Mark's saltwater tank, Mark's Sirius Radio dock, our HP Wireless Printer, and the base for the dog's electric fence. Insurance wants to determine what caused it so that they can potentially issue a recall on the item and/or go after that company for some of the money.  The investigator sifted through all of the charred ruins in the office to find any clues that she could.  A lawyer has been called (by Allstate) and an electrical investigator has to come back and join them.  The office has been sealed and is not allowed to be touched.  Since that Tuesday, they have come back out twice and have had zero luck in determining what caused the fire.  They had a few guesses, but there was not conclusive evidence to go with any one option.


On Thursday, March 31st, Mark met with Teresa (the contest agent) at our house.  She basically is in charge of placing a value on every item in our home that cannot be saved and then telling us how much money we will have to replace those items.  She suggested that we pretend to turn our house upside down like a salt shaker and shake everything out.  She is in charge of anything that would fall out- clothes, furniture, electronics, TV, fridge, oven, and much more.  Teresa and Mark went room by room, drawer by drawer in the 7 rooms on the top two floors of our house.  She said that the smoke was so bad that nothing can really be saved.  They opened drawers and counted how many forks we had, how many tshirts we had, how many tank tops we had, how many books we had, how many Wii games we had, how many DVDs we had, and such.  I think Teresa was shocked at how much Vera Bradley I had! :)  Inventorying the entire house took Teresa and Mark about 8 hours!  After they had completed the inventory, I met Mark and Teresa at Chick-fil-A.  I looked at all of the pages on inventoried stuff on the sheets of paper.  I was able to look through what they had written down and also the suggested values that Teresa had placed on many of the items.  We feel like she was very fair and very gracious.  While going over the forms, Mark gave Teresa her VERY FIRST Chick-fil-A Sandwich!  She told us it would take about 4 weeks for her to look up brands and item numbers for some of our items and then she would get back in touch with us about the replacement value of everything.


As I mentioned in the last post, our insurance people have been amazing!  They have gone through this journey with us step by step.  They allow us to ask questions.  They've given us their cell phone numbers.  They've been honest, but not overly optimistic.  They are helping us to truly view things correctly.  Both George and Teresa have said to us, "You are both so smiley.  How can you be that way when you basically lost everything?"  We are just thankful that we have more to life than shirts, dishes, DVDs, and Vera Bradley.  We fully trust that Jeremiah 29:11 is the truth- "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. They are plans for GOOD and not for disaster.  Plans to give you a FUTURE and HOPE." 


Each day is a process.  We learn something new each day and then act upon it.  God has given us the opportunity to fully trust and rest in His arms and that is what we've decided to do... each step of the way!