A few weeks ago I went on a TikTok rant about what’s really happening neary a year after Hurricane Ian. I want people to know that it’s not just as easy as filing a claim and waiting for a check. So many of our friends and family are shocked by this. We have been left to fend for ourselves like orphans.
Let’s talk about something that’s happening in this country, or rather, let’s talk about what’s happening in Southwest Florida.
On September 28th 2022, a Category 5 hurricane ripped through Southwest Florida’s Lee, and Charlotte counties, impacting hundreds of thousands of people in varying degrees. There was loss of life, complete loss of homes as in; wiped out gone away don’t know where the building is now, all the way up to just a couple holes in the roof or a fence that blew away.
Explain to me why so many of these people are still fighting with their insurance company to get any amount of their policy limits out of their insurance policy to put their houses back together.
Explain to me why my mortgage company gets to hold HALF of the small payment the insurance company made to us in the beginning, (they were required by law to do so by a certain date after loss by the way)
Explain to me why the mortgage company gets to hold that insurance money but they expect us to make the repairs to the house out of pocket and apply for reimbursement after a lengthy wait for an inspection and some very vague rules about what percentage of work has to be done, though no one can tell me what completed items consitute what percentage of work completed.
I’m not talking about a $650 shingle repairm I’m talking about our whole house, The whole house. We have had to rebuild or replace evertyhing but the frame, including item that required upgrading because of current building code.
We are are middle class working people. We don’t just have $200,00.00 in the bank to cash roll a rebuild/remodel and then wait for our insurance company and our mortgage company to decide that they might want to help us out.
I’ve gone over this situation one million ways in my head and for the life of me I cannot understand how this is still happening.
I worry for our elderly who don’t have the emotional and mental stamina to go through a year of this battling and uncertainty.
I’m young, I have have access to resources as simple as a scanner and a printer. I can get things done quickly and efficiently in order to keep things moving as fast as possible. I can navigate the internet and complicate application processes like the SBA disaster recovery loan portal, or IRS.gov. I can be resourceful but I work a full-time job as well and this is like working two of them. So I worry about the elderly people that are just rolling over and either living in moldy, destroyed homes or having to walk away from their homes or living in garden sheds!
(Fun fact, it was less than 30 days ago when a FEMA trailer park was erected near us, so some of these folks been displaced for nearly a year.) We chose to camp out in our house even though it was definitely NOT liveable.
Part 2
In response to some comments and direct messages I got yesterday about this story, I’m dropping a little part two to my insurance rant.
What I didn’t mention yesterday but I have mentioned in previous videos Is that our insurance company, United Property and Casualty, went bankrupt at the end of January
I found out about it because at the end of January (after being transferred to our fifth desk adjuster at noon on a Sunday) I decided to call the biggest public adjuster firm I could find and the public adjuster is the one who told me: “you do realize your insurance company is in the final stages of receivership”.
Fast forward to early August. The claims for UPC have been taken over by an organization called Florida Insurance Guaranty Association. I got a call late on Friday night about a month ago from a representative from FIGA (who was not very nice)
Just a little side note here: through much of this process homeowners, myself included, have been made to almost feel like you’re a crook, a thief, and a dishonest person trying to snag something that doesn’t belong to you.
The FIGA rep basically said “what’s the status of your claim”? I responded that I got $70,000.00 from UPC and I’m still waiting to get the rest. She responded “Well I need to close this out, if your public adjuster can get touch with me (and in there she inserted a bunch of derogatory comments about Public Adjusters) We can close this claim out in one week”. You can imagine that this sounded pretty amazing to me, and I was really excited.
So I then called my public adjuster and said “You have got to get in touch with this lady ASAP she said she could close this claim out in a week” He responded with “Well of course she told you that, and she will close it out in a week for pennies on the dollar”. I responded with “Whatever! Please call her.”
So I have followed up and followed up and followed and he basically tells me that FIGA is sending out blanket responses saying that because of volume and because of difficulties gathering client information it’s going to take us at least 30 days to respond to any inquiry. Do you see my problem here? The FIGA rep that called me, told me she had my file on her desk and she wanted to know the status of my claim. I’m guessing that my file has been bounced off to someone else now. At the time I am posting this, it’s been 30 days since my PA made contact with FIGA.
In response to another piece of feedback from yesterdays video: The checks that come from the insurance company are written to the homeowner and to the mortgage holder so the check is endorsed and forwarded to the mortgage company. We then have to request inspections through an online portal an wait several weeks after the inspection to find out if we are eligible or rejected for more funds. (They’re currently holding $36k.)
The amount of hoops that you have to jump through are ridiculous and I’m sure many people give up and walk away so this brings me to the next part of my my my video.
In conjunction with FEMA, the SBA rolled out a disaster recovery loan. There was a deadline to apply for the disaster recovery loan and I missed it. Then I found out that they would accept late applications so I applied late, stating my reason that I applied the very day after I found out our insurance company had gone bankrupt.
It has taken me 6 months to get my application approved and now I’m in the very time and labor intensive closing process.
So far every person I have talked to or emailed with from SBA has been fantastic they talk to you like your human being they don’t make you feel like you’re a pain in their ass and a thief and a crook.
Insuring homeowners is a gamble for the for the insurance companies. “I have this vision of the insurance Executives watching The Weather Channel you know the night before the hurricane and saying “oh shit, this is going to be expensive”
Buying insurance is also a gamble for the homeowner, but for those of you who came for me in the comments saying how stupid I was to live in this area and expect that the insurance companies could afford to put us back together….this is what insurance companies do. They can’t honestly expect to collect, collect, collect, and never pay out!?
I do believe that we are on the road to getting what we need to put our finished putting our house back together.
This whole experience has taken a toll on my mental health and also my physial health. It’s difficult to endure a SWFL summer with virtually no A/C. It runs on full force all day but only cools to about 95 degrees.
It’s not for the faint of heart. We keep our our bed and our dogs in a one bedroom that has been insulated and drywalled so we can run a portable air conditioner to further cool that room.
This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. This can’t be legal? I want to spread awareness. Please share this post.
Thoughtfully,
Marie