On 9-14-16 At&T Uverse was laying fiber optic cable in the neighborhood. When they were working on the right-of-way in my yard they dug in the wrong place & hit our neutral line which caused a power surge into our home. It was a very scary event. This was not covered under our Metlife homeowners.
Trying to make the story short, we 1st filed a claim with the energy co. per the advice from the guys that came & made the repair.
That claim was denied, they said go to AT&T Uverse. At&T referred me to their ins. Co. The claim was denied weeks later. They said I needed to take it up with AT&T’s subcontractor.
I contacted the subcontractor, Ansco. They referred me to their insurance. Co. Claim denied, they said to take it up with Ansco’s subcontractor’s Ins. Co & they did give me a contact to do so.
I filed the report with the ins. Co. & provided them with my list of claims. They said they would have to determine if it was their clients fault or the fault of the utilities locating company. Finally, last week, the ins. Co. accepted the responsibility and agreed to settle the claim.
My claim came to $15+K. That included an additional $5K I added on for punitive damages & any issues that might arise in the future. They’ve offered a settlement of ~$6k.
My husband & I are seniors and self-employed. We didn’t have the funds to make necessary repairs. When we realized this was going to be a long process we finally took money out of our IRA acct. to repair the refrigerator. The repair cost was over $1,600. (It was a fairly new French door fridge I inherited & the 1st repair est. was $1300 so we said go ahead. Of course, repair man found an additional problem for another $300+). We went from Sept 14 to after Thanksgiving without a refrigerator, living out of a cooler. We lost the food that was in the refrigerator, & I had to go to the grocery store at least every other day since there was nowhere to store cold foods.
Now, it’s acting up again, the repair estimate is another $450. We’ve decided to replace it. A replacement cost isn’t in my original claim.
My Viking wall oven is older & parts are no longer available for it, so it’s totaled. I based my replacement estimate on a used identical oven off Ebay. Our sleep# pump was fried as well so we’ve had a small compressor in the bedroom to fill up the mattress as needed. My computer died, I gave them a repair est. & didn’t ask for a new one. The power company had to destroy a 25 year old Crepe Myrtle to get to the damage, and so forth..
When it was clear the process was bogged down in finger pointing, I filed a complaint with the NC Dept. of Justice & the NC Utilities Commission & I think that was helpful in moving it along. The thing that bothers me the most is there was no guidance on how to handle this situation from the beginning. A for profit company came on my property and caused damage which has been a serious hardship on us. It seems to me in a perfect world AT&T should have handled this immediately then they could sue the appropriate subcontractor.
I have no intention of settling for $6k. I would be grateful for any advice.
Submitted July 08, 2017 at 01:36AM by rmd4922 http://ift.tt/2sz1550 legaladvice
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