Category: Insurance

June 3rd, there was this. A pipe for the fire suppression system burst.

So the living room is flooded, everything is soaked. Despite the fact that I ran though the water, (with live electrical connections sitting in the water…) shut the fire suppression unit off stopping the water, the damage is considerable. In hindsight, I probably should have taken no action. Maybe I should have just let the system free flow for a while.

The system only ran like that for a couple of minutes.

Then I began the cleanup.

As it turns out, cleaning up the water was only the beginning of the nightmare.

The REAL nightmare began when the insurance company was called.

First the agent supposedly handling our account didn’t return the phone call, AND NEVER DID Call back regarding this matter. She ultimately did call me when she was notified that I’d chosen another agent. Note she only called when she realized she was losing a paying customer. Uh Huh, funny how that got her attention.

This happened at about 3:00 PM and she should have been in the office but as usual I was only able to leave a message. Sigh… called the corporate 800 number and got the claim started. They said to call Service Master to begin the remediation.

Service Master came up, took a lot of photos, did a lot of scanning for areas of water intrusion, and looked very efficient. Notice, I said “looked”. Turns out, apparently little of that information collected went anywhere except the iPad of the person taking the photos. Supposedly, all that information was being uploaded to Service Master’s systems and then was going o be sent to the insurance company.

Uhhh, NOPE!

While waiting for the insurance claims adjuster to call. I kept cleaning and drying things out.

I was trying to actually save as much as possible. Hoping to keep the insurance premiums down by doing the right thing. At the time I was wondering if it was actually worth it.

I wondered if I should have just left the water running. I wondered if it would have be simpler and easier on me to just total everything. It would have been more comfortable to allow the house to be so damaged that we got sent to a hotel on the insurance companies dime. At least then we’d have been in air-conditioning.

In my innocence, I actually thought that minimizing the damage would be appreciated.

I was a MORON!

This is what the place looked like after I’d scrubbed, cleaned, and dried everything as best I could.

I’d taken everything that was soaked through out to the front deck where it could do no harm. I’d dried and with some neighborly help, moved everything that could be moved to the other end of the room.

The house was open and has been wide open since. The temperatures have been high, and the humidity low. A fortunate combination if you’re trying to dry something out. I’d wet vac ed the standing water out, then I’d scrubbed and mopped. All I could do was trust physics at this point.

Then Service Master came back. They packed out everything. Pulled down the drywall, opened up the ceiling yanked out the wet insulation, and exposed the rafters.

Then came the drying machine that actually raised the humidity in the house rather than lowered it. This machine only pulled a single cup of water out of the air in the house over a 24 hour period. Impressive! Opening the windows and doors dried things out much faster and more quietly than the Service Master option.

Physics of a warm dry wind blowing through an area 1. Technological intervention -5.

The culprit pipe was exposed. It spent the next 2 weeks dripping into a bucket. Service Master didn’t know how to drain the system. Nor did I.

Turns out, it’s pretty easy if you know which valve to open. Sadly, I didn’t because when it comes to the fire suppression system I leave it in the hands of professionals.

Which brings up another point. The insurance claims adjuster in AZ kept telling me to just call a plumber.

Uh no… This is California!!! ONLY CERTIFIED Fire Suppression professionals can touch a sprinkler system. Which means that I had to wait until one of the two possible certified companies, within a 70 mile range could come out to work on this thing…

The Claims guy kept pounding on calling a plumber. It’s REALLY sad to think of all the folks this guy may have told to invalidate their certifications on their fire suppression systems and how that may (or may not) affect their abilities to sell their homes later on.

Of course this guy will have moved up, or moved out of the claims department and will later say categorically, “I never told anyone to do that…”

Uh yeah..

I knew stuff the Claims Adjuster didn’t because I’d already been through this with previous repairs to the damn system. Expensive, numerous repairs.

What annoyed the piss out of me with this guy was that he kept calling the system “Plumbing” and saying that I was responsible. As though we were talking about a sink or toilet. A sink or a toilet is simple. go to Home Depot by the parts ya need to fix it and DIY.

I personally hate doing plumbing for a variety of reasons but I can. I can also choose not to have a working sink, or toilet. I’ve got two bathrooms if one is broken, it presents no hazard whatsoever to use the other while I get the parts, and figure out how to fix the problem.

I have to have the Fire Suppression system, it must be certified, it must be maintained, it must be inspected and tested yearly. I have no choice in the matter. (If I did, I’d turn the system off, drain it, and be done with it.) But, I have no choice. It’s State, County, and locally mandated.

To my way of thinking, that makes this a straight-up insurance company issue.

When I was fortunate enough to speak to another Claims Adjuster, she agreed with me. She even found a rule in the policy stating so. She also agreed to pay for the fire suppression repairs.

My usual Claims Adjuster called, all on his own without my having to leave 4 messages, the very next day… He was trying to weasel out of the commitment the other claims adjuster made.

Huh… NOPE!

I pointed out that the system had apparently passed inspection with a critical component missing. The claims adjuster practically orgasmed. Oh, I know he was thinking about subrogation and being able to recoup the costs.

He wanted to know if I knew who installed the system in the first place. I told him I did not. But that he could look it up.

This confused him. I told him that his company had paid for the rebuilding of this house 10 or 11 years ago. That rebuild had been done through one of their preferred vendors and the insurance company (his company) must have a list of subcontractors they paid.

I enjoyed being able to say, if subrogation was involved, that he’d be in subrogation with his own company. There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. The conversation ended pretty quickly after that.

I would happily roll the entire policy up and shove it up this guys ass. Paper cuts can be a real bitch!

My Claims Adjuster really doesn’t like losing. I get it. I like winning, especially when I bare my fangs and get to sink ’em into someone. I like watching the light fade from their eyes as they realize they’ve lost.

I think my Claims Adjuster has put me back on ignore… In a sick way I’m hoping he has.

Metaphorically, I’ll be able to go for the jugular. My patience with this whole thing has come to an end.

It’s strange that after a month of looking at open ceiling, and screwed up flooring. It’s almost normal now. Another month two and I won’t care at all.

Since the ceiling is open, and the insulation is gone, the living area is open to the rafters. There are vents in the roof to allow heat to escape from the attic. Meaning that it’s pointless to run the air conditioner. It’s been in the 90s here for the past two weeks.

It would be nice to run the A/C especially at night.

Since I don’t know how long it will be until the reconstruction crew is going to get up here. I’m considering taking The Martian approach. While I’m not going to have to “Science” the shit out of this, I think I am going to get creative.

A roll of insulation, a sharp hawksbill knife, a couple of 10×10 sheets of heavy plastic drop cloth, a staple gun, some duct tape, and a ladder should about cover it.

Hell while I’m at it, maybe I’ll go into the attic and do some maintenance on the duct work too. I’m sure the ducts have leaks simply because the duct tape used when the house was built appears to be breaking down.

At least then, I could close the house and turn on the A/C.

If I work it right, I should be able to bill the supplies to the insurance policy too.