Support Gene and Heather’s Family in Their Time of Need

On April 4th, while the state was having a major winter storm, a very large set of trees fell on Gene's house while he was home with his wife and two infant sons. The fire department from Kittery responded and looked at the damage to see if the house was safe to stay in as long as he didn't use his chimney, which was his main source or heat. Gene set up buckets throughout his house to catch the rain as the storm was still very active and the tree put numerous holes into his living room.

Gene somehow showed up to work at 7am to do his shift as he is a good person and felt guilty having someone ordered in if he called out sick. Just like you we fielded hundreds of calls during that shift.

When things calmed down Gene reached out to the local state farm agent who said to not worry about it and just call them when he got an estimate on the damages. ( I must say it is quite different than the process I went through with travelers when they sent someone out the next day to do a very thorough check and fast payment). Gene was able to get Lee tree out that same afternoon to remove the tree from his roof and as he expected to get up on the roof to tarp if for the temporary waterproofing to his surprise Mike Lee offered while he had the bucket truck and everything to put the tarp up.

With all of this going on, life continued and they did the best they could stay there and keep the house heated with their secondary heat. However, the ceiling of his living room was so damp that a large section fell down. Since our command staff was concerned for his family, they paid to put them up in a hotel for a couple of days. Gene stayed at the house dumping the little water out that was still getting in still.

Flash forward a bit and he got a couple of estimates for the damage, it was about two weeks later at this point living in that situation and he reached back out to Statefarm insurance and made his claim on the house providing them with the $88,000 estimate. They questioned him as to why he took so long to report it and treated him like he was trying to commit fraud. He had to explain that he had already reported it that day to local office who told him to get estimate first.

Statefarm sent out a assessor who looked at the ceiling in his living room and that tarped roof outside, did a couple of measurements and left. He even asked him if he would like to look into the attic, and he said he didn't need to.

A few days later Statefarm advised they would be paying about $29,000 towards the damages, but with a $6,000 deductible is really $23,000. We all knew that they would come in lower than the contractor, and he expected that he would be paying some money out of pocket, as well of course the construction company likely had a slightly inflated estimate as well, but this difference was not reasonable. Gene attempted to talk to them about the fact the insurance assessor didn't even look into the attic and see that there were approximately 18 rafters that had to be replaced after being cracked. That the outside wall and bay window had structural damage. That the whole side of that roof needed to be replaced with new wood and shingles, not to mention all of the damage to the sheetrock in the house which had gotten worse while waiting for the insurance company.

Flash forward to today. Gene is still living with his family in the house, and it is still not fixed. The insurance company refused to come back out to look again. The contractor set Gene up with an independent assessor whose job it is to come up with what they think is a fair estimate and negotiate with the insurance company. Statefarm refused to negotiate and refused to budge. This independent assessor said it is the first time he has seen this and that it is in his policy that he is entitled to appel the findings and do such things like this independent assessor yet they were refusing.

He was told of another option. A department with the state that basically helps with issues with insurance. At first they said it sounded like a civil thing, but then after reviewing it they did agree to be involved and sent off a letter to Statefarm. At the very last moment before time was up Statefarm responded to the state, and to Gene telling them that it was not changing their findings and would not be participating in this process. Again, Gene is not expecting $88,000 from them, just for them to at least offer something reasonable.

So as of this time, we are approaching cold weather again, and his house is open to the elements. He is left with two options, spend more money attempting to sue the insurance company or start working on the house with less than ¼ of the money. Leary of spending more Gene is left with no other option but to take out a high interest loan to do the work for now and hope to get his house buttoned up before winter. This is the most ridiculous process I have ever seen in my life and if I had Statefarm i would definitely be switching companies.