At last, a roof!

Yesterday I was confined to the house Waiting for Godot a plumber, and finally got through to my homeowners' carrier - in the sense of achieving communication with them. It has taken weeks to get a human being to respond and make a decision on supplemental funding for my new roof.

The first adjuster - let's call him Dick - came out in June, looked at my roof, and wrote me a ridiculously lowball check. I told him at the time that nobody was doing a roof for his quoted price, that he wasn't addressing the damaged roof vents, etc. Dick told me very condescendingly to have my roofer call him, and he'd talk to him about it (with a distinct undertone that obviously, as a woman, I was not qualififed to discuss manly things like this). Then never answered his phone again, or returned a voicemail message. Dick vanished.

One day shortly after, "quality control" people from the insurance company came out without calling first, and scared my daughter, who works nights, half to death when she woke to hear voices over her head. Never heard from them again.

So, last week I went through the 800 number's voicemail hell until I found a live human who actually was helpful, and then faxed a scathing little love note to them, attaching TWO estimates I'd received, both a good $2k higher than Dick's. Silence. Called again, found out from the 800 number that the file was transferred to another Dick, who of course didn't answer his phone either, so I left a message for that Dick and I passed his name to my roofer. So yesterday the new Dick called me. He told me in a very proud, "I'm your hero!" tone that he had spoken to my roofer and they had worked it out, and that my roofer had agreed to do the roof for - and this is where I burst out laughing right to his face - the price my roofer had quoted in the first place. So my insurance co. is going to come up the almost two grand and send me a supplemental check, and it only took six weeks of no response and leaving messages for various Dicks for them to "provide assistance to me" by returning a goddamn phone call and agreeing to meet the price quoted by a reputable roofing outfit they work with all the time. I gave the other Dick a restrained verbal ass-whupping, telling him I'd never had so much trouble with a straightforward insurance claim in my life, and was disgusted by the company's service. Hell, now that I dared file a hurricane claim (one insurance claim in 9 years on this property, and over 20 years with the company) they'll probably drop me next year anyway. They've dropped thousands of customers in FL who dared have hurricane damage. I have no reason to be nice to them.

So Monday my roof guy comes out for the shingle selection, and they're running about two weeks out on installations, so maybe by Labor Day I may have a new roof. It only took a year.