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?

I got all the documentation from MIL. I don't know who this adjustor is, but he clearly has less homebuilding experience than me. He totally missed the ballusters, handrails, misidentified the species of wood. The roof is damaged. There are chunks of siding missing and he didn't account for that. She does have replacement coverage, so I don't get the depreciation thing. I need to call them, but I need the contractor to add more detail to his written estimate as well. Tree removal is way more than $250 around here. You won't even get someone to come to your house for that. Plus there is nowhere to take them. The nearest disposal for trees is an hour away, so there is 2 hours of labor plus the dump fee there. It's a pine, so no one wants it. This was a huge tree, over 24" diamter. I don't know how to handle the siding and roof issue. The siding can probably be matched good enough, especially if we powerwash and restain the entire side (can I ask for that? It's cheaper than replacing the siding on the entire side). There is no way to match the roof, but the roof is circa 1990, and it isn't visible from the ground. Do we just patch that section and have it not match? I don't want to over reach, but I also don't want to not ask for what she is entitled to.

A person who owns a home can file a claim to the insurance company that they pay a premium to-THEY pay the premium and in most cases it is up to them as to whether they use that money for repairs or otherwise. If they have a mortgage, usually the check is made out to the homeowner and the mortgage company-and because the mortgage company is part owner, they want the damages fixed and will normally inspect the project to assure that something they are vested in is repaired. It's the same with owning a car-if you own your car and get a dent, insurance will pay you but if you don't have it financed, you can choose to fix it or not with the check. The down side to that is-if you do not have it fixed or the home repaired with the money, the insurance company can refuse to renew your insurance when the time rolls around.

"The mason just left. He went and GOT insurance to do our job." We hired someone to do a job and we required that he have liability insurance. He, too, "went and got insurance to do our job." I contacted the agent to make sure it was legit and he confirmed that a policy had been issued. Unfortunately, since I knew the guy we hired, I did not require that the agent send me a binding certificate right away and told him he could send it on Monday (he asked if that would be okay). The job only took about a week, and I was still waiting for the certificate to arrive when the job was completed. I called the agent to see what the delay was and he informed me that the guy we hired had called him (apparently right after he started the job on Monday) and canceled the policy. I asked the agent how that was possible when he himself had told me that a policy existed, he said since he hadn't issued the certificate yet, the policy could be cancelled. I took him at his word that a policy was in effect, but I should have made him give me the certificate right then and there. I was disgusted, but it was my own fault ... I should have been more diligent and less trusting. Lesson learned ... if the guy has insurance, have the agent send you a certificate proving it. And don't take anyone's "word" for it. Any legit business will be able to have their insurance company provide you with a certificate. And if he truly did get a policy just to do your job, they will be able to issue that certificate immediately.