By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
Rick Fillipone doesn’t want to scare homeowners from buying near the beach. As an agent for Atlantic Shores Realty, his office in Jacksonville Beach is just two blocks from the ocean.
But from personal experience he knows the system that’s in place for hurricane recovery is not perfect.
Fillipone owns a house in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., a barrier island that was struck by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Nearly two years later, he’s still battling to collect money he feels he’s owed from insurance. On top of that, he’ll be required by federal policy to raise the elevation of his house, tacking on another huge expense.
Fillipone grew up in Point Pleasant, a small family beach town, and in 1994 bought a home there. He lived there for almost seven years before moving to Jacksonville to work full time as a Realtor. He kept the New Jersey home, but rented it out.
At the time Sandy struck, a family with a 12-year-old daughter was living there.
On Oct. 29, 2012, in between tracking the storm on CNN, Fox News and the Weather Channel, Fillipone was texting his tenants from Jacksonville, urging them to evacuate. The family, like many others on the block, wanted to stay in their home.
When the storm surge hit at 1 a.m., the water level rose in minutes from puddles in the yard to flowing above the family’s beds. They climbed into the attic for safety. The flow of salt water into the house reached 3 feet.
“Like most flood water, it wasn’t clear water,” Fillipone said. “It was muddy, mucky and mixed with diesel from the marinas nearby.”
It wasn’t the worst damage Point Pleasant homes would face. In some places flood waters breached the barrier island, creating new inlets 500 feet wide and washing entire homes into the Intracoastal bay.
Of the town’s 8,000 homes, 2,000 were damaged.
It would take Fillipone 10 months to rebuild his house.
He gutted it down to the studs and ripped up the floors. He installed new plumbing, electric, sheetrock, insulation, siding and ductwork. The water heater and furnace, located in the garage, were replaced. The entire kitchen and bathroom were remodeled.
Fillipone was lucky. He had savings to help pay for repairs. His most difficult problem would be getting reimbursed.
FEMA brought in insurance adjusters from all over the country, but they still were overwhelmed. It was six months before Fillipone saw the first dollar.
“You can’t wait; you have to start demolition immediately,” he said. “Mold can form in January.”
When reimbursements did come, they weren’t large enough.
The insurance company agreed to pay for the kitchen’s lower cabinets damaged by the water, but not the upper ones. The house had been built in the 1960s. There was no way to match the upper cabinets.
The adjuster recommended a company for mold removal. Fillipone thought the quote, $12,000, was high.
“They weren’t price gouging. It was supply and demand,” he said. “People lined up to get the service. They were desperate and they would pay it.”
He shopped around and got a company to do it for $6,000. The insurance company paid $3,000.
Fillipone hired a public adjuster to advocate on his behalf, but never heard back from him.
The adjusters are paid a percentage of the insurance money collected and many told customers they would only handle claims of at least $200,000.
In all, Fillipone paid $100,000 in repairs. So far, insurance has covered $60,000.
It wouldn’t be the end of his problems.
Fillipone will also have to raise his house 5 feet — one foot above the height of a 100-year flood. That requirement comes from the Biggert-Waters Act, a new policy passed by Congress in the summer of 2012 to reform the bankrupt National Flood Insurance Program.
He has two more years to comply, or pay up to $10,000 annually in flood insurance premiums.
Insurance will pay $30,000 for the job. A contractor’s estimate puts the project at $60,000 to $70,000.
Fillipone says struggling through the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy has given him a better understanding of what to say to customers about flood insurance.
He tells them to get it — even if their mortgage company doesn’t require it.
“Even though I’m upset with how hard I’ve had to fight to try to recoup the money, they have given me $60,000. Without that, I wouldn’t have been able to rebuild the house,” he said.
Fillipone said it was a once-in-250-years storm, but when it came, it was devastating. The house he lives in on Jacksonville Beach is owned by his girlfriend. Hurricane Sandy affected his feelings about that house, too.
“Right after this happened I said, ‘Is there any way we can get more flood insurance?’”