Hurricane Michael, a personal view...

[wfooshee]

In Florida, your #3 is an Assignment of Benefits. The insurance industry just ran a successful campaign to get some parts of this limited, especially when it comes to litigation during and after the process. Basically an Assignment of Benefits puts the contractor and insurance in direct touch with each other, the contractor accepting what the insurance pays, the insurance agreeing to reasonable costs. Without it they are not allowed to work directly with each other, but only through the [clueless, in my case] homeowner. It's a no-brainer for people like me that don't speak the language. I can't do the "tell them you need this and that" and getting "we won't pay for that you don't actually need it."

The campaign portrayed the Assignment of Benefits as a scam-enabling process whereby you signed your rights away to the contractor, and people bought into it. The industry opposed AoBs, of course, because when you sign such an agreement, they're going to have much less chance of scimping out on the claim!

The new law, effective already as of July 1, didn't eliminate the AoB, but put a lot of restrictions on it. My contractor is not willing to go there until we get at least a new adjuster's report from the company, showing that the estimates are not inflated and unreasonable.

It's the same contractor that did the roof. The price was right, they did everything exactly as they said they'd do it, and it passed inspection the first shot. I have no issue with the contractor. He's also the only one that didn't keep saying, "We can get them to pay for this," as we went through and around the house. These guys actually said things like, "Yeah, they'd have to change the siding on the whole house to match if this stuff wasn't available any more, but it is. They're not going to upgrade your siding." So I'm not getting Hardie board unless I pay for it. The cost is similar so they might be OK doing the back in Hardie board, but then the rest (gables and porch face) doesn't match. i can't force the matching statute in Florida unless T1-11 suddenly came off the market.

FEMA claim was filed in the first week, just to get it in there. Don't know yet that I'll need it. The purpose was for housing, but since I have loss of use coverage, FEMA can't house me except short-term, and the only available at the time was at least 100 miles, not an option as I had to stay in town for work.

 

[wfooshee]

Update... sort of.

Absolutely no progress on the house since the roof, but I have a detailed bid from the contractor, and the insurance guy pretty much laughed at it. Literally chuckled on the phone. I insisted on a new report and they sent someone up, and now instead of almost 100K short, they're only 50K short of what's needed.

Everyone's telling me to get a public adjuster or a lawyer, but that's expensive. People say, "But my public adjuster got me 45,000 dollars over the original insurance settlement." Well, good. Now you owe the public adjuster 9 grand, which you don't get from the insurance company, that's your nickels. They say 9 is better than 45, but the issue is, I don't have the 9!!! I simply can't pay for a lawyer or a public adjuster without going into years of debt. This "no fee unless we can help" nonsense is just that: nonsense. In Florida, you cannot assign these fees to your insurance company, so the client pays all fees incurred. Not surprising, since the insurance industry owns the legislature...

Part of my rebuild is bringing electrical up to code. I don't have proper modern grounding, I have no ground-fault protection either at the box or at the outlets, and my outlet spacing in the bedrooms is insufficient (no more than 8 feet between outlets, and all the bedrooms only have one outlet per wall.) Electrical alone is over 15K, and the insurance adjuster said I'm covered for code update, he's just arguing with the cost.

So here I am, a year and a week after, and still living in a rented camper, while the insurance company keeps digging its heels while telling me how much they are trying to help. In yet another bit of wonderful news, the city and the county have announced that Code Enforcement is going to be going around looking at "derelict" properties and contacting the owners to find out what the deal is, why is stuff still sitting unrepaired. Can't wait for that to come to my house... In truth, my house is not derelict other than I'm being rather lazy with lawn care. There is no structure damage visible outside the house, no holes in the roof, no missing walls, no piles of debris where the house should be. What the city and county are trying to go after are properties like these, where the no effort at repair or cleanup has been made. Yes, these are current pictures, these places look like this today.

 

[Panman]

Just can't imagine having to go thru that, don't know what I will do when the big one hits here. Wishing you the best sir.

 

[hppants]

Your insurance company must provide you (in writing) a line by line explanation of the rebuild cost.  Anything that is excluded or not covered, they must explain using the terms of the policy.

Your policy may not have a "code clause", whereby if you have an insurable loss, your policy won't pay to bring to current code, only what it cost to put it back the way it was.  That will make a big difference.

Your FEMA claim could pay for some of those differences as well

If much of the discrepancy is unexplainable, then an independent adjuster could definitely help.  Using your example, paying $9K to get $45K is a no brainer, even if you have to borrow the 9K.  You should really consider that.

I'm sorry this is happening.

 

[Redfish Hunter]

I know I probably should not post after having a couple of beers but your dilemma has been eating at me.  I am so sorry you are dealing with all of this.

I can tell you that I have been the "victim" of a storm and I have been the contractor making money after the storm and I have been the guy working for free in other folks houses after the storm.  Your area seems to lack an Hppants or a Redfish sort of "help your neighbor" mentality.

After Hurricane Katrina I did some residential and commercial electrical work in New Orleans.  The guy I worked for was absolutely, 100% honest and did not jack up his rates.  We worked honest and it was appreciated.  No way we could do all of the jobs that we were offered and still maintain our "day" jobs.  

Doing the electrical upgrade yourself in a house that is being mostly gutted is not really that hard.  $15K for the electrical upgrade?  You have gotta be kidding me.  Installing GFCI breakers is EASY.  I personally took the time to upgrade and improve the electrical system in several houses after our 2016 Flood.  It's amazing how much difference a couple of added receptacles and maybe some under cabinet lighting can do for a home.

Lastly, I hesitate to post pics of my misery because I don't want it to look like I am comparing our dilemmas.  But I do want you to know that I was a Homeless Person after Hurricane Gustav.  I was about as beaten as a man can get.  But I refused to sell my motorcycle and I never gave up.  Stay Strong.  

Some pics of my Castle on Wheels after Gustav:

 

[wfooshee]

Yeah, some of that looks very familiar, and I have no issue with you posting it. And for HPPants' note about a code clause, I do have that coverage. Some of the code was the boxes the ceiling fans hang from! My blue plastic boxes aren't good enough for a ceiling fan?

I can snap breakers into an electrical box as well as the next guy, and I can put outlets into a wall box. Running new Romex and respacing outlets might be beyond my current knowledge, I'd have to read up. It's certainly a lot easier with no wallboard... But I work for a living, I shouldn't have to rewire my house myself to bring the cost down. If I rewire it myself, I should get paid the labor cost, it shouldn't make any difference on the claim!