Now that some time has passed and the dust has settled (and believe me, there’s a lot of it), we’re finally starting to get some figures on the damage.  After insurance, it looks like the out-of-pocket expenses are going to be around $5000.  The biggest discrepancy between coverage and cost is coming from the homeowner’s policy.  The lesson to be had here is to never, ever use the insurance carrier that your mortgage company suggests.

First, the car.  The Element is covered through State Farm, and they’re beoing good sports about the whole thing.  Embers and intense heat from the flame pitted the paint all over my car, resulting in about a million good places for rust to seep in.  Since I bought the car from Faulkner Honda, and since Faulkner Body Works is a certified State Farm Happy Place (or whatever they call it these days), I can just roll the car in for an estimate and State Farm will take Faulkner at their word.  In other words, I pay my deductible, take a rental for eight days, and get a shiny new car in return.  So State Farm has been pretty painless.

The house is another story.  While I’m glad that the place only sustained minor damage in the form of some melted siding, the expenses incurred by going through the insurance company are going to exceed the cost of going to Lowes, buying siding out-of-pocket, and doing the repairs myself.  For starters, there’s a $500 comprehensive deductible on the property.  The insurance policy only pays “actual cash value”, which means that they will pay to replace the damaged pieces of siding, but will not pay to restore the home to its original appearance.  Given that the siding is 20 years old and somewhat faded, this means the home is going to have streaks of bright, new light blue against a background of faded, 20-year-old, almost-gray light blue.  Since this looks like complete crap, I’ll have to tear off the existing siding and replace it all, entirely at cost.

Not only is the siding damaged, but the insulation underneath is now waterlogged and will have to be replaced.  After the fire, I put a heavy-duty tarp over the affected siding in order to keep the rain out.  Said tarp was the heaviest tarp that Lowes carried, and was screwed into whatever stable surface I could find using 1×2 furing strips.  Remember those 40- to 60-mph winds we had the other day?  They ripped the tarp almost completely off, leaving the insulation exposed to the rain.  Short of putting some manner of rigid, durable, permanantly-installed sheeting over the insulation (such as, oh I don’t know, siding?), there was nothing that could have been done to prevent the insulation from getting soaked.

But it gets worse.  That insulation is holding the moisture against the joists in that wall — an exterior, load-bearing wall.  I can’t just pull the offending insulation out of the wall, because the adjuster has to come out again and see the waterlogged insulation first-hand.  He will in turn submit his findings to my insurance company, who won’t do anything until they get the official report from the fire department, which is not going to release it any time soon because it’s currently being investigated as a possible arson.  To complicate matters even more, said insulation is also holding moisture against the interior wall in that room (I have no idea where the vapor barrier is, given our climate extremes here).  Only nobody can tell if that wall is actually wet, because the knucklehead previous owner thought it would look cool if they put up wood paneling in that room (remember, built in ‘87).  And, once again, nobody can so much as breathe on that wall without getting Prior Written Approval ™ from the insurance company.

So, in summary, State Farm has made the car a non issue.  The homeowner’s carrier seems hell-bent on making this as difficult and expensive as possible.

But I do still have a home.

Technically.