Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

It was two weeks ago today that fire gutted our next door neighbor's home and singed our own property as well. Since then, crews have cleaned up the debris next door, torn down the garage and are in the process of tearing off the charred remains of the roof.

Meanwhile, next door at our home, zip. The melted vinyl siding still clings precariously to the side of our garage and our outdoor shed which also partially melted stands pretty much the same as it did the morning after.

Dealing with insurance companies can be fun, can't it?

This is partly my fault as we're not exactly in a big hurry. We have a carpenter on-site already replacing our patio roof, a project that was in the works long before the fire occurred. I thought a second crew working literally just a few feet away might interfere.

But I'm also playing tag with my insurance adjustor, my insurance agent and their preferred contractor.

The morning after the fire I contacted my insurance agent who got in contact with an insurance adjustor. He was at our house the same afternoon as the fire. He gave us an estimate of repairs the next day. So far, so good.

He suggested a contractor who came out the next day. She basically agreed with the estimate, except that she thought our shrubbery next to our garage was also irreparably harmed. The adjustor hadn't included that, though he included a few hundred to restore our scorched lawn. The contractor said she would do a revised estimate that included replacing the shrubbery.

I got back with the insurance adjustor with that information. He asked if we were going to retain the services of that contractor. I said we would decide once we received her estimate. I was supposed to get that in an e-mail the next day.

But I didn't. Nor the next day or the next. She finally called, saying that she had computer problems. We waited for her estimate all last week. She finally faxed it to my wife's work fax, after my wife had left work on Friday. So we didn't see it till yesterday.

When I looked at the estimate, I discovered that she had omitted any costs of repairing our outdoor shed. *sigh* But she did remember our scorched shrubbery. In the meantime, our on-site carpenter replacing our patio roof gave us an estimate of repairing our siding too.

So I e-mailed our insurance adjustor, asking if we can go ahead and have the construction outfit already on site repair the siding too. And seeing if he can do a revised estimate of damages to include the scorched shrubbery.

And now we're back to waiting, waiting, waiting . . .