On January 20th, 2022 a fire destroyed our family home along with everything we owned. An electrical short in some old basement wiring ignited the fire which spread to the entire house in minutes. We have a good, solid homeowners policy (so we thought) with one of the top national carriers that should have more than covered us for all of the losses we sustained, we were so very wrong. We’ve always been proud of never having to ask anyone for help and being the ones people could turn to when they needed help. It’s not a good feeling being in this position.
We bought our house on Long Island in 2000. Over the last 22+ years that we’ve lived in the house, we invested $150,000+ to update the house and make it as comfortable as we could. It’s not a huge house, 4BR/2 bathrooms and a small yard but it’s ours and we’ve worked very hard to get it to where it was before the fire. When it came time to issue the claim payments for everything we lost and the construction of a new house, we were blindsided by the offers made by the adjuster. They are only willing to pay us 1/3 of our coverage limit to replace the items we lost and 55% of our coverage limit for the construction of a new house. Given the current rate of inflation, cost of building materials/labor etc…it’s not going to be nearly enough to cover all of the expenses. At the moment we don’t even have enough money saved to make up the difference which will be at least $50,000-$100,000+. Together with my wife and our 14-year old son (who is also developmentally disabled) we have been doing the best we can to support one another while we continue to fight with our insurance company but they aren’t giving one bit.
We are hoping and praying that just maybe, for all of the times we paid it forward and did the right thing when no one was looking that it will come back to us when we need it most. We are out of options and have nowhere else left to turn. If someone has the ability to help I can’t express how much it would mean to us. Thank you for taking the time to read our story…
https://www.paypal.me/AugustWest74