Insurance frustration

Q. I’ve had it with my insurance company. Their engineer said my Hurricane Sandy damages were “pre-existing” — the floor cracks were already there, the foundation had already sunk — and the money I got was based on prorating my damages “due to age.” I still can’t rebuild, and I don’t know what to do. They sent me $186 for a sinkhole. I’ve read your comments about how insurance companies are like gambling houses, except they get to decide whether to pay and how much. They took our money, made a bet and lost, and now they’re playing games. What can I do to get my life back?

A. Well, you fill out a form, go to a trailer at the school, where you fill out another form, then find out the form you filled out yesterday has another side. It seems endless. I wonder if anything was really learned from Hurricane Katrina. Three years ago, five years after it happened, I wrote about potential flooding here and the concern that many victims were still not back in their homes.

If you feel let down, join the crowd. To get results, we need to challenge those who said they would be there for us. We should all get our stories together and tell people who watched the news for a week or two (and then went about their lives, forgetting us) what we’ve learned and how to avoid similar treatment. Paying your insurance company because you had to in order to keep your mortgage, then being treated like you’re committing insurance fraud when all you want to do is go home, is maddening. We need to put together the story for the rest of the world to see.

I’m writing this from California, where I’m assembling a documentary film crew and arranging copyright. We’ve been planning the logistics of needed equipment, story angles and budgets, and it’s time to get to work. The cost of a small film like this is around $50,000 for the film crew to locate, film, edit and print. Distribution comes later, but timing is everything, and we’ll need stories, pictures (still and video), people to interview, and funding. So far, in the few days I’ve been here, we’ve raised $5,000.

The goal is to show the human side, and to get agencies and corporations to get their act together to help Americans, not ignore them. Every sponsor will be credited in the film, and hopefully we can explore how you weren’t in such “good hands,” how they weren’t “like a good neighbor,” and how they said “it pays,” but they didn’t. Of course, if you’re unable to sponsor, it’s truly understandable. That’s what this film will expose: how the storm didn’t discriminate against rich or poor, but reduced so many to needing help. Contact me. Let’s get results.

©2013 Monte Leeper. Readers are encouraged to send questions to yourhousedr@aol.com, with “Herald question” in the subject line, or to Herald Homes, 2 Endo Blvd., Garden City, NY 11530, Attn: Monte Leeper, architect.