riley605: Sorry, long again. I am very familiar with your feelings as I have seen this many times. When homeowners fight long and hard to build their home, the new or nothing approach is common in these situations. Usually its an emotional flinch reaction and if you understand the entire process, that will go away. Living in temporary housing no matter how nice will have its challenges. Your family will probably have some squabbles over this. There will probably be sleepless nights and a ton of hand wringing while this is going on. There will be times with a ton of stress as this whole process will be a major disruption in your lives and a major pain in the @$$. Heck the material selections for roofing, flooring, paint colors, tile, fixtures, etc. etc. etc. is alone very time consuming for a big home. The material selections are the easy part of the restoration process also. If it was me, my priority would be to find the "RIGHT" contractor to be my advocate so I get my house "PROPERLY" repaired ASAP. Once the house is repaired, I can get my family back in and our lives back on track. After months or even a year of this, it can wear on people so doing it right and being expeditious should be approach. Without seeing the home (you can send some pictures if you like) its hard to tell if a full tear down is necessary but it doesnt sound like it. A complete demolish and start over will add so much time to the rebuild. Not sure about Oklahoma, but here, if its a total rebuild, I will need site plans, a full blown set of architectural plans with all mechanicals just to get my building permit. If you are just repairing the home, the permit process is much easier. Also if you demolish the home, youll probably need to redo you septic or sewer connections, electrical connections and water connections. The disturbance to the yard is going to be much greater and you could need to redo sidewalks and driveways. All these things can take a ton of time and I dont recommend if its not necessary. Also, if its not necessary, State Farm will have a legitimate reason to delay and fight the costs. State Farm is terrible when it comes to claims IMO. Like a good neighbor my @$$. State Farm is the 600 pound gorilla in the industry and their adjusters are usually not the best. They will try to get by on the cheap if they can. Understand those words "IF THEY CAN". All but a handful of insurance companies will try to settle cheap "IF THEY CAN". Its up to the policy holder to make sure the insurance company gives a fair and proper settlement. How do you do that? First option is to hire a "good" public adjuster because a bad PA will only make matters worse. The public adjuster works on your behalf for usually a 10% fee. Sometime the PAs are useful but when they are involved, it takes forever to settle. If you hire a PA, dont count on moving back into your home soon. You may not even start the restoration process for a full year if you hire a PA. PAs can be useful on very large losses or commercial losses where business interruption and complicated policies and legal issues exist but for simple sticks and bricks issues, I feel they are more trouble than they are worth. Second option is to hire a "good" restoration contractor because a bad one can again make matters worse. A "good" restoration contractor is not going to be the cheapest as State Farm would prefer but the insurance company is obligated to pay fair and reasonable pricing, not the cheapest. The contractor will be doing the negotiations with the adjuster for the repairs. Final option is to hire the contractor that State Farm recommends if that do recommend one. During these large storms, they may not recommend someone. If you are in a very rural area, State Farm might be using the best company around because there are no other companies available. Normally I only recommend someone use the insurance companys contractor if the contractor is the only good player in the area or if its a minor claim. The contractor doing the repairs should already be involved. Usually when we do a rebuild, we are on the scene scoping the loss within a day or two. I know there was much damage in the area, but this is even a bigger reason to find your contractor now. If there is a good amount of rebuild work due to the storm, you want to be on the front of line so youre not waiting for the contractor to finish other work first. If you need help finding a good restoration contractor, I can possibly help. I know companies in the industry all around the country and if I don't know a good one in your area, others that I know will. If there is a good one operating in your area, they won't be too hard to find. Who is currently scoping the loss to write the estimate? Is it the adjuster or did the adjuster send in a contractor to write the estimate? In order to properly write a scope of repairs can take a week or two on the site, measuring, photographing and documenting. Then the estimator will have another week or two in front of the computer entering the data. Its not uncommon for a month or two to go by before these scopes (estimates) are properly prepared. Your contractor should be doing this NOW!!!! What the 2-story home roof specialist suggested???? Never heard of that title before but if you are missing parts of the roof in different areas of the house, why would you need to rebuild the second floor if the wall framing is in good shape. If the roof is trussed or even stick built, you can remove the entire roof, reframe it and leave the second floor framing intact if its in not damaged. This project is going to need someone to be the tough guy, pit bull, champion or whatever you want to call it. If your husband is not that person and you are, then you should be handling this. I have had many clients in the past where the Mrs. wears the pants on these projects and I rarely see the husband. There is nothing wrong with this because if the Mr. is not the one who will push and you will, you should be the one in charge of this process. It sounds like you were anyway when the house was built. If the house doesnt need to be demolished, rest assured, a good contractor will rebuild it to your standards and possibly even better then it was prior to the storm. Let me know how I can assist, BTW, was anyone hurt when your home was struck?

Ahhhhh....deep breath. Thank you all for your wisdom and replies! I'm going to look into the companies you suggested as we still have time to change before our old coverage expires. Now that I'm calmer (!), I think I wouldn't have hit the ceiling if yesterday's email from Esurance had included a statement like: "Please note: if this vehicle was purchased within the past XX days, please confirm that the registration has been updated to reflect your ownership" or something to that effect. I simply opened the email and was blasted with the notice that they'd found something that we'd apparently hid from them, and my interpretation of that was that it was slamming our ethics. I'm not saying that very well, but you get my drift. I also find it terribly creepy that they put the full name of a stranger in our email. When we purchased the truck last week from a long-standing reputable dealer, never in any paperwork was the previous owner's name listed. Frankly, we're buying a used truck, and the previous owner's name is none of our business. So that email on top of the previous one that claimed we'd provided inaccurate information about a gap in our coverage on top of our current insurance agent's genial incompetence on several occasions (not that his incompetence had anything to do with Esurance!) was enough to send me around the bend. We have excellent credit and a clean driving record other than a deer hit at the end of 2009 (the deer hit last fall didn't count against us since no insurance was paid out) so this should be SO simple. Thank you all again. I'm off to do some internet research! You guys are the best!

Dad of Stamford Fire Victims Plans to Sue by Anthony Buzzeo STAMFORD, Conn. � Matthew Badger has filed a notice of intent to sue the city of Stamford for negligence in connection with the Christmas morning fire that took the lives of his daughters Sarah, Grace and Lilly. The notice was delivered to the Town Clerk�s office Friday, May 4, by Badger�s lawyer. The Shippan Avenue home destroyed by fire was owned by Badger�s estranged wife, Madonna, who was one of the two survivors of the blaze. The notice names the city's director of operations Ernie Orgera, City Engineer Louis Casolo, Assessor Francis Kirwin and Building Official Robert DeMarco for their or their office�s part in allowing the girls to be in the home at the time of the fire. "[Badger] suffered damages as a consequence of the aforementioned parties� negiligence, carelessness, and actions, including but not limited to the wrongful death of the children on December 25, 2011," the notice said. The notice points to several actions by the city that might have led to the deaths, including the wrongful issuance of permits to Michael Borcina and/or Tiberias Construction Inc., and to Michael Foley and/or Foley�s Fine Carpentry Inc. It also alleges that city officials either did not inspect the construction enough or did so carelessly, failure to follow up on inspections despite the home's being in unsafe condition for the children, and for allowing the children to live in the house without working smoke detectors and a fire alarm system. The notice described the demolition of the home the day after the fire as "intentional spoliation of evidence." By Tuesday afternoon, Town Clerk Donna Loglisci said she had not yet received the actual suit. Messages have been left for both Joseph Capalbo II, director of Legal Affairs for Stamford, and Richard Emery, Badger�s attorney.

I would guess the OP and her DH would not have had difficulty getting a reasonable rate if they had gotten their policy before they had started construction, rather than looking for something now that they are 7 mos in. I believe our construction insurance would not prorate less than a year (second year they did prorate)? As to the insurer's remark about concerns the OP might be running out of money, insurers are good at imagining all kinds of risks :-) for example there is a 30-day waiting period for flood insurance.