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?

We bought LTCI last year at the ages of 49 and 51, and we're glad we did. I did not go into this with eyes half shut. I did uncountable hours of research, attended seminars, talked to people, interviewed agents, etc. I'm the type of person who doesn't allow anyone to talk me into anything - period. We bought a great policy through an A++ rated company, John Hancock. The average age one should buy LTC is 60ish - before health problems begin and the premiums are outrageous if you can even get it with certain conditions. I wasn't waiting 10 years to do so especially since our premiums would double by then even if we remain healthy...but who knows how our health will be in 10 years. Sure, we're healthy now and healthier than our parents were at this age, but no one has a crystal ball to determine how our health and at what age, will affect us. I'm not taking chances knowing DH's parents history. We have no kids or family that will care for us should we need it now or later, and to put 100% burden on the other spouse isn't fair, IMO. And even if we did have kids, who's to say they would want to interrupt their lives to care for sick parents. As cruel as this sounds, I prefer not to care for my mother as she's a difficult one now and she's relatively healthy. This LTC is piece of mind for us. While humans are living longer these days, from my research, it states that a very high percentage of people will require some kind of nursing home facility and the average time is 2.5 years. Should that time come now or later, the insurance is already there to be used. If we were to invest $$ for a rainy day to use toward this, it will take A VERY LONG TIME to match what insurance money is available to us NOW. We hope to never have to use it, but good to know it's in place if we have to, and we're lucky enough to be able to afford it. I realize many cannot. There's much to know about the various companies offering this including their ratings, how their policies work with the options & riders offered, claims stats, etc., and then choosing what is right for each individual. While most people tend to not think about LTC or discount it all together, I really think more people should learn about it and give it serious consideration. (No, I don't sell it). Frankly, IMHO, your sister is wise in thinking about her elder years that way.

It's a sign of the times. More than likely the property will be coming up for renewal shortly and my guess is your company has had it's share of losses in the rental properties as well as primary residences. Insurance companies are going out and inspecting property's to reduce their risk for loss. Tree branches over a roof and gutters are a risk. High winds will snap the branches and can do damage to the roof and gutters. As a non owner occupied property the tenant does not have the same interest in your property as you do, damages can get worse if not attended to right away. The peeling paint, yes it a pride of ownership issue and generally not difficult to get around.

Wow. My husband and I are extremely lucky to have the insurance that we do. We are both retired State employees. We both have Medicare Parts A (hospitalization) and B (medical), and we also have a Blue Cross PPO supplemental plan which includes prescription drug coverage so we don't need a separate Medicare Plan D (prescriptions). We both receive a monthly retirement pension from the State as well as Social Security retirement benefits. Our Medicare premiums are deducted from our SS payments. Our Medicare premiums include the Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) for Parts B and D because our income exceeds the maximum to pay only the regular Medicare premium. Our Retirement Health Benefit reimburses us in full for our Medicare & IRMAA premiums and also reimburses us in full for the monthly premium for the Blue Cross PPO supplemental policy. The reimbursements are included in our monthly retirement pension payments. (Well, the reimbursements for the Medicare & IRMAA premiums are included. They don't deduct anything for the supplemental policy because it's covered by the Retirement Health Benefit.) The supplemental policy covers the Medicare deductible, and it also pays the portion of the Medicare-approved amount for services that Medicare doesn't pay (the portion that the individual would normally have to pay). And if Medicare doesn't cover something (hearing aids, for example), the supplemental policy covers it. We will never hit the "donut hole" on prescription costs because the supplemental policy would pick up the costs (but neither of us currently takes enough meds to ever hit the donut hole). So, we pay no premiums, and we pay no deductibles or co-pays. For medications, we pay $5 (or less) for a one-time prescription, and $10 for a 90-day supply of a continuing medication (like my blood pressure medication. If a medication is only available as a brand-name drug but it is on the formulary, we would pay $40 for a 90-day supply. For dental insurance, we each pay a $12.91 per month premium, which is not reimbursed by the Retirement Health Benefit. We each have an annual deductible of $50, and the maximum payout per year is $2,000. We also both have vision insurance through our employment with the State, and it pays for new (gas permeable) contacts for me each year and new glasses for Hubs. It costs me $35 each year for the contacts (and I wear true bifocal contacts), and for $60 Hubs gets a new pair of prescription sunglasses and a new pair of "clear" prescription glasses each year.