Godspeed to you and your family, Jolly Roger. I’ve had nothing but good experience with USAA so I hope yours is good as well. Please let us know if we can do anything for you. You have a Doper family here as well as an extended military family.
Jolly Roger I’m very thankful that you and your family, including the fuzzies, are all safe and sound and I do hope Patches is settling down now. I reiterate many voices: if we can help, say the word.
A word from experience: last year after the major blizzard, my carport collapsed on top of my car in much the same way your garage came down on your cars, without the wind issue, of course. If it’s close, push for the insurer to total the cars. The financial hit you’ll take in buying suitable replacements may very well be better than the nickel and diming of repairing all the things that will crop up down the line from this kind of damage plus the loss of value at trade in time.
Thanks for the advice. I was thinking the same thing, actually.
Glad everyone’s safe and you’re covered.
i think i saw you on cnn. i do remember a guy talking about his missing cat. then later on in the afternoon there was a fellow talking about his 2 missing cats.
cats are tough when they get scared. i have one guy who just can’t break the “scared” cycle. he gets scared and then everything scares him, the couch, the food dish, you name it he just jumps at everything. and the look in his eyes is just heartbreaking. i found that taking him some where quiet, talking softy, and giving him treats will break his fear feeding on itself.
i’m glad you all came though the tornado. let us know if there is anything we can do to help.
Wow ** Jolly Roger ** that is one of most harrowing tales I’ve heard of tornado. I hope your family is moving past the ‘but for the grace of God’ stage.
Unfortunately the next few months will be a constant reminder. There will tons of paper work. USAA is a good company they treat their policy holders well. But if you have any questions on the claim process shoot me an email and I’ll help explain things as I can. I have handled a number of house fire and tornado claims. I can help explain any of the jargon or act as a back check.
Glad you are all OK JR. My Mom left the Lowe’s that got hit in Sanford 15 minutes before the tornado ripped it to pieces. I live in Durham and we barely even got any rain. Many of my friends had damage, but no injuries or loss of live (human or animal). I hope it doesn’t take too long for you to get rebuilt.
I’m just glad you’re still here among us & able to post JR.
Does anyone know what options I have for the cars? I had full coverage on both. As suggested above I’d rather they were totalled out and just get new ones than go through the issues they’ll most likely have for the rest of their lives. A month ago the suspension on my jeep failed from a manufacturers fault and incurred 3400 dollars worth of repairs. (I only had to pay 600 but still). The resale value obn both of them has gotta be zip. Do I have the option to tell the agent I want them totalled?
I’ve never been through something like this. Everything is pretty much gone.
If you have the comprehensive coverage the damage to the cars should be covered. You can tell the agent whatever you want. Tell him you think the cars should be totaled. Whether or not the cars are total losses is going to depend on the amount of damage done and the age of the cars. It may not even be close.
If it’s a close call remind the adjuster that you will be making claims for rental cars while these are in the shop. This assumes you have rental car coverage. You can also talk over the adjusters estimate with the body shop. See if you can find things they missed. Is there water damage to the interior? That’s often over looked. Ask that the cars be completely repainted given damage to most body panels. In short make sure the damage estimate is thorough. This make sure you receive all the proper repairs if the cars aren’t totaled.
One thing you might want to ask you agent about is the company’s policy on multiple deductibles. You will likely face deductibles for your house and each car. Sometimes adjusters can be convinced to waive one deductible or even two deductibles. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
Glad to hear you’re all okay! Sending you best wishes.
(Consider buying a lottery ticket, you’re kind of a lucky guy, in my opinion!:D)
Glad everyone is safe, and be glad you are with USAA. They are simply awesome. Frankly being able to use USAA for everything is one of my primo benefits from my service.
I have to say, the speed at which you were hit is terrifying. We had sirens go off last night, but no touchdowns and my house just had strong winds, thunder and torrential rain, but it happened at 3AM and there’s a delay between hearing them and deciding to wake up the munchkin, as you don’t want to rip a kid out of bed for no reason, but I may need to rethink that strategy.
We have full coverage on both vehicles so we can rent cars on both accounts, but we’ve only rented one so if we need to use the other rental we can when the initial one runs its limit.
I went to the USAA commmand post that they set up today to switch my bank account to them. It makes it easier for the money to put into my account from them, and to be honest, my bankwas a credit union in Germany so it needed to be changed.
Theres no deductible on the house. We were informed that the damage estimate is higher than what allows for a deductible today. (no shit, the house is gone, destroyed). USAA is giving us about 26 k more than we bought it for to rebuild. The agent said he’d walk us through the process tomorrow.
I’m focusing on finding a temp home and getting the cars taken care of tomorrow. The auto guy from USAA saidb he’d meet with us in the morning. In my miind they (the cars) are a loss. Totalled. Its not worth it to repair thm. My wife’s car is a 2006 chevy aveo. After bearing the weight of the garage door struts for three days its frame is most likely worthless. My car is a 2007 jeep wrangler…i bought it new, it has onlty 24000 miles,but its nearly paid off and I’m not going to want to try to keep it running since it has already sustained damage from a manufacturewrs fault. The guy at the USAA command center agreed that it’d be best to just get new cars. We’ll see what the appraiser guy says tomorrow.
then i have to focus on getting bids for building our house. There are some changes we both want to its design, but they are on the “would like to have but can live without” list. (like a deck, and a bar built into the den and a bigger bathroom for the master bedroom). If anyone else has experiences with USAA or rebuilding, please share them, good or bad. This is all new to us. But then I’ve NEVER been in a tornado before.
I’m so glad to read that you and yours (YaY for pets included) are okay. Good vibes heading your way that you can get your needs taken care of quickly
Yeah - I think I live in the same location as you, and we DID drag the kids downstairs at 3 am, but then I was regretting the decision, because it woke everyone up and the storm had basically moved on by the time the sirens went off anyway. Now I am thinking, maybe that wasn’t such a bad move.
Jolly Roger, I am just now seeing this thread, and so glad you guys and your cats survived and that you have good insurance. What a nightmare scenario. :eek:
I live in the same area as both of you, and thanks to this thread, we were downstairs immediately upon hearing the sirens. Kid slept through almost all of it, but she can sleep through damn near anything. Makes me jealous.
I’m glad the ball is already rolling on getting everything back to normal. I know it’s going to be a long process, but I figured there would be weeks of paperwork and waiting before you’d hear anything about repairs.
I thought of this thread, too, as the sirens were going off this morning. When I turned on the TV, they were reporting that the storms had already passed through town, so I stayed in bed, but…man, that was not a pretty storm.
Glad things are starting to be taken care of. It’s wonderful that you have such good insurance.
Going to talk to the auto guy in an hour or so. We’ll see what he has to say, but I’m not in the mood to hear about how the cars can be fixed. While I risk exposing my secret identity, this picture from a local paper shows them in the background with the entranceway to what was a garage lying on top of them. Yeah, theres another car back there with the garage door wrapped around it and a wall leaning on it that you can barely see.
The wife and bI met with our realtor yesterday evening. She rented a house to us when we firtst moved here, and sold us our now destroyed home last May. Nicew lady and she’s always been helpful. But she didn’t really have anything available for us to rent at this time. So we’re considering an apartment for the time being. A little less hassle with no yard to worry about while the house is being rebuilt. I think I agree with that. While I’d rather have a house I’d rather have MY house.
I hope all went well with the auto guy, JR. Unfortunately it boils down to economics. If it costs less to fix the damage than what the car is worth, the insurance company will pay the cost of repairs. I’m just so grateful that you all got out safe and sound. That picture looks horrible.
What a horrible story and one well-told. You made my palms sweat in the telling of it. I hope you will keep us all up to date with your recovery.
Will the local area have enough rental housing to soak all the suddenly-homeless?
What does it take for a BC to actually visit rather than just call?