Part 2: What Is It Like Working with Insurance on a Large Structure Fire?

Many people have been asking me for an update and have assumed we have collected some massive payout from our insurance company after the December 20th fire that destroyed our three-story condo located at Attitash Mountain Village. (Read Part 1: HERE) Unfortunately, I am here to report that that has not been the case. We have received only $10,000 for the rental income loss (We canceled over $21,000 in bookings just that week when we found out about the fire and have lost every day since, and will lose every day for most likely the rest of this year and well into the next year at the rate things are moving). We also received a check for LESS THAN HALF of the price of all of our personal belongings and didn’t get close to maxing out yet on our coverage. What does this mean? This means Liberty Mutual massively undervalued all of our items and is forcing us to jump through hoops with tons of paperwork proving what we paid to MAYBE get the rest…

I have spent countless hours working on spreadsheets, gathering invoices and receipts, and going back and forth with Liberty Mutual to make sure they have everything that they need. Thankfully for us, we keep very detailed records of everything and it hadn’t even been that long since we rehabbed the entire condo so we have every piece of paperwork that we need. We were told we would hear back on approval by the end of the week last week, but of course that did not happen. About 2.5 weeks ago, we were alerted that our adjuster had changed, AGAIN, which now makes this our fourth or 5th adjuster, I lost count at this point. So we have a new contact person trying to get familiar with our case that has been passed around with no attention to details from anyone.

We did receive an email last week that a $4,000 check was going to be sent to us, which didn’t come close to what is owed, so that got us all fired up. When speaking with a new adjuster, we found out that this was just for the missing items and that she missed all of the items that were undervalued and the 60+ invoices that I sent in with my file to be reviewed for approval. She is now working on that portion. To make matters worse, they sent the $4,000 check to our old address which had already been updated with the previous adjuster we were working with, or so we thought, so they had to stop payment on that check and will be reissuing a new check for the missing items.

What’s going on with the condo rebuild? We drove up about a month ago and it’s just sitting there rotting away. The demo has not been completed and no work is taking place. This has been the case for the past several months without any updates from Attitash. We did reach out to Attitash to get an update, and we have been told they hired a public adjuster and they are in negotiations with insurance to try to get approval for the rebuild. Once that happens, they will get estimates on the rebuild and finish the demo. In other words, just a bunch of hurry up and wait, oh, and make sure you pay your mortgage and condo dues while you wait and continue to hemorrhage money on a property that you cannot use nor rent… Attitash did let us know that we would have an update by the end of last week or the middle of this week, but that hasn’t been the case and we haven’t heard anything new.

We will be heading up over April vacation week as we sign documents to sell one of our other condos that will help us carry this one, so we plan to go up to Attitash and check on the property and see what it’s looking like. I find it sad that we have to stay on top of everybody to get updates and that nobody has any kind of open communication with us during such a difficult time. If I haven’t said it before, I don’t recommend Liberty Mutual at all. They have been less than terrible to work with during this traumatic experience.