California E&S Insurance

Home insurance fire claim I need some advice about home insurance claims in California. Two years ago a fire in the in-law unit completely destroyed the in-law unit, the adjoining room that had some HVAC equipment, pool pumps and filter, and the connected garage/workshop. The fire slightly damaged the house too and burned some of the siding and the studs in the wall of the main house that was adjacent to the other building. TLDR: 1. How long after a fire is a reasonable and realistic amount of time before completing the repairs? 2. Are mitigating circumstances such as sickness of the home residents, and work challenges, acceptable delays? 3. How quickly does the insurance company have to approve and provide payment for repairs that were not included in their original estimates and payments, and have been identified after the fact? We moved the in-laws into our college kid's bedroom. However, as we approached the end of the school year and knowing that our kid would be coming home and was going to stay a while, we let the insurance company know that we'd need an extra bedroom. They looked and found a rental house for us, and we relocated. We have made slow progress on the repairs. When we made our first attempt, we hired a contractor to first fix the damage to the existing house so that we didn't have a gaping hole in our family room, and later to rebuild the missing building. The contractor went over the insurance adjuster's estimates and agreed to complete the repairs for that amount. That contractor let us down as the repairs just to the family room were subpar and mediocre. They couldn't even match the paint in the room, and it probably would have been easier to just repaint that room completely. Later, when I checked from the other side of the wall, which was shoddily boarded up, I saw that they left the burned studs in the wall! I decided that no way were we going to have this contractor do any more work. The next contractor told us that there was some amount of soil erosion from the water from the firetrucks, the burst pipes that flowed all night, and water that drained out through the pool plumbing. We needed some soil engineering to figure out how to fix that damage. It took a couple of months to select and get on the schedule of a soils engineer. They wanted plans of where things were going to go. We found an architect who created plans since we didn't have a good set from the 1956 original build, the 1970s and 1990s remodels. The plans we found on file, didn't actually match up to what we had standing so we don't know if what was in the plans were ever executed and then removed in another remodel, or whether they were plans that never got built. The architect also had to make some changes for code, but then started going down a path of making the house "more functional" for my aging in-laws. This was initially welcomed by us, but then we later realized that it was adding quite a bit more to house. We did end up with a plan, but the initial feedback from the city is that this isn't a simple rebuild, and we have to go through some design review etc. We may need to have another architect (or the same one if we can reign him in) to create a plan that only has code updates and nothing else. All of this has prolonged our groundbreaking on the rebuild. Almost a two years has gone by, and about one and a half of us being in a rental. The insurance company wants us to move back into our home, which they say should be repaired by now. They say that we have been working too slowly. That may be true: we've had a number of visits to the ER for the in-laws, and one for each of myself and my wife (getting old sucks!). We also have had some work stress. My wife and I both have had to work harder and dealing with an unscrupulous contractor, and doing meetings with the new contractor, architect, city, being around for visits from various other contractors etc. has been a real challenge to our business. Lastly, to replace the pool pumps and filters we recently had two pool companies come out to give us estimates for repair, they both said that they have to replumb the pool to the shell and they could not tie into the existing, half-melted, pipes. That means they have to dig up the concrete patio around the pool to do the plumbing, in addition to replastering the pool. And to match the repaired patio with the rest of the patio, they would have to redo the entire patio. In fact, they think we need to make the pool repairs first, before the other building is rebuilt, so that heavy equipment can be utilized around the pool. Otherwise the new replacement building will limit access to the pool. We sent those estimates to the insurance company, and they said that they look unacceptable, mostly due to the concrete patio work. Parts of the patio were damaged by the fire and there was spalling in spots. Originally the adjuster had said that if the spalling repair couldn't be repaired to match the existing concrete that they would pay to replace the entire back yard patio. Now they seem to be having a problem with this and have told us that they have to review it. Weeks have gone by. Based on the above, I have these questions: 1. How long after a fire is a reasonable and realistic amount of time before completing the repairs? We live in an older suburb of San Francisco, with relatively strict building codes and laws. The insurance company says one year, two at most. 2. Are mitigating circumstances such as sickness of the home residents, and work challenges, acceptable delays? There have been at least 5 visits to the ER for the older residents of the house, one that required a two night stay and surgery, and one that required weeks of tests and doctors visits and resulted in an upcoming tumor removal surgery. My spouse and I also work long hours and neither of us has a normal 9-5 job, and making time for the extra burden of rebuilding the house has been difficult -- especially with the health issues mentioned. By the way, we had to live and run our business in that house for weeks using a portable generator, before we had outside power restored. 3. How quickly does the insurance company have to approve and provide payment for repairs that were not mentioned in their original estimates and payments, and have been identified after the fact? 4. The original assessment of the damage was done relatively quickly and the insurance company sent us a check for rebuilding in a very timely manner. (Which was deposited into an escrow account due to our mortgage.) However, I am not sure what will happen when we go to procure building materials and the price of those materials has increased due to inflation. I assume that some increase will be reimbursed by the insurance company as most homes can't be repaired immediately, but in this case the insurance company can say that we're on our own to pay for any increases since it has taken us too long. Thank you for weighing in on this.

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