Pueblog USa
Friday, February 24, 2006
This Situation Really Stinks
And we can ALL learn some interesting lessons from it.
Another interesting article in today’s Pueblo Chieftain.
This one on the sad story of a couple who have, as of an earlier report, about $30,000 of damage to their home and possessions as a result of a backed-up sewer system.
It wasn’t their own fault, as it was the main line that served their house and another house, that had the same experience, only less costly.
According to what I understand from the initial report in the Chieftain, neither the city nor the insurance company want to own up to full compensation for the damage done.
Based on that, and THIS, I’m suspecting there’s going to be a law-suit SOMEWHERE in all of this. I say this because I know that if MY insurance company would not pay for the damage realized in such a disaster, I’d be suing THEM. And if they need to sue the city, that’s THEIR problem. Not mine.
I can see an easy out for the city here. They claim the people who manage and maintain the city sewer system serviced the main line which supports that house last September, in accordance with the requirement to do so every twenty-four months. Their records support the claim.
That’s nice….
However, I recall from MY experiences with the government, that records can be falsified.
The only way to prove the matter, one way or the other would be to examine the sewage pulled out line when the blockage was removed. I’m certain that such material would provide evidence as to how long it had been there. And aren’t we supposed to have something of a forensics expert around here….somewhere? Something about a ‘lab’ I’ve been hearing about of late.
But, if the city cleared the main, did they retain the evidence? There’s a question I’d ask if I were an insurance company executive. Or did they just throw it in a land-fill, never to be recovered?
Then there is the other matter; that of the report that the insurance company [American Family Insurance] says no insurance company pays out on these sorts of claims. I may have misread that one, because it makes absolutely no sense to me. I know that if MY sewer line backed up and flooded MY basement, and it was no result of some stupidity on MY part, I’d expect MY insurance company to provide assistance—in accordance with the deductibles—with the damages as part of my home-owners policy.
I’m going to watch this situation closely. And, I’m going to contact my insurance company to see what they’d do in similar circumstances.
More on this later…..
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