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Nearly 6 months later, Round Rock neighbors frustrated with insurance agencies over tornado repairs
Residents of the Forest Bluff neighborhood were in the March tornado’s direct path. There are still visible signs of damage on some homes in the area.
ROUND ROCK, Texas — When a tornado ripped through their Round Rock neighborhood in March, James Goolsby and Cheryl Spencer hid inside their first floor bathroom covered in blankets.
“We could feel, like, our entire insides of our bodies being pulled up,” Spencer said. “It was like, weird. It was like the water in your body was just moving up with the house. It shook and it shattered, you know, it just moved. And you just know that your house was was being shook at its very foundation.”
Spencer and Goolsby are still fighting with Allstate Insurance about what will be covered in their insurance claim. According to Spencer, the original offer to repair parts of their roof and parts of their house totaled approximately $17,000. That went up as the cost of labor and materials continued to rise over the past few months and because the repair company found more damage than was initially reported by a claims adjuster sent out by Allstate, Spencer said.
“Six months later, I just don’t think it’s reasonable and I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think it’s just, the way they’ve been treating us as customers,” Spencer said.
Allstate said in a statement that it is still working through Spencer and Goolsby’s claim but has already completed 94% of the claims filed due to the March tornado.
Down the street, Sam Baker has a separate but also frustrating problem. Nationwide Insurance gave him more than $100,000 for his claim after the same tornado ripped the roof off his house, exposing the attic and his entire second floor.
According to Baker, Nationwide suggested selecting one of three different companies to do the repairs. Now, Baker says the company did shoddy work so he’s making some fixes himself.
Baker added that the workers did not seal a temporary tarp over the holes in his roof before a heavy rain storm days after the tornado. The tarp blew away, exposing his home and soaking the floors and carpet.
“Most importantly, I mean, is making sure your house is waterproof. So there’s a lot of caulking that has to be done here,” Baker said. “See that how that shakes and taps like that? Like, that absolutely, I shouldn’t be able to peel off my own siding to the house. That’s ridiculous. But the fact of the matter is that they didn’t put up plywood behind here, and there’s just old insulation.”
According to the City of Round Rock, Baker’s home is still uninhabitable despite the repairs that have already been made. He claims the company is threatening to put a lien on his home unless he pays them the rest of the insurance money. He said he plans to go to the City instead to see if they can help resolve the issue somehow.
“I want to stop being threatened for a lien on my home when I want them to come do the work and have an inspection on the work they’ve done,” Baker said. “If it doesn’t pass the inspection, fix it on their dime and then they get the rest of the money.”
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