Water Damage Update

Little to report, much to say.

Carolyn and I arrived in Texas about a week ago. We are still recovering from the stress of traveling with the dogs.

Rudy on the TGV from Montpellier to Paris. We’re less than 4 hours into the trip at this point!

Many of you will recall that we arrived in France last September to discover significant water damage in one of our rooms. We wrote a post about it. While we have learned much in the last three months about how the French insurance system works (spoiler alert: SLOWLY, it works…s o f u c k i n g…slowly), I’m sorry to report we have made absolutely zero progress, not one tiny bit of work has been done.

I (Roberto) took the lead on dealing with insurance and contractors; as long as the interactions were via email I could use translation apps and and have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on. As soon as a phone call or in-person conversation was required, Carolyn had to take over, since my language skills are not yet to that level.

A notated image I sent to a contractor working with us to replace our existing water heater. As long as the communication is written, it was surprisingly easy to communicate with subs in French.

Between September and November we have had half a dozen visits from les expertise, contractors sent by the insurance companies who come to try and determine who is at fault and whether the problem that caused the damage is ongoing or has been repaired, sometimes they bring people capable of estimating the repair work. The number of visits was baffling. They looked at our apartment on their first visit, but couldn’t get into the apartment above us which had suffered damage from the same leak (the claims at this apartment had been paid), nor could they get into the top floor apartment where the leak originated. Les expertise would leave and return a week or two later, never contacting the owners of the other two apartments to schedule their visits. They just kept showing up at our door hoping the people upstairs (one of whom was THEIR client!) would be home. In the end I suggested they try reaching out to those people directly since I was never going to be able to provide access to apartments I don’t own.

Twice, the insurance company brought along tradespeople who provided estimates to do the repair work. The first of these contractors, M. Nino Mora, spoke French, Spanish, and a little English. Nino’s estimate was for €3,084, his scope of work included flooring, plasterboard, painting, protection of the existing floors and furniture, waste/recycling fees, and an MDF enclosure that surrounds the existing water heater (MDF or Medium Density Fiberboard is a panel of compressed fibers and glue, it shares many properties with wood and is commonly used for trim and cabinetry). It was a thorough proposal and included everything except cleaning the stains and streaks from water running down the stone wall. (I have my doubts about the stone cleaning; I think the stains are oxidation of iron in the stone and I’m not sure we can scrub it away.)

As a design/construction professional, some of the “tells” of a thorough estimate include providing costs for cleaning/protection, identifying work that’s needed but not covered by the estimate, and pointing out where what they are proposing might differ from what was discussed in the field.

About a week before we were scheduled to return to the US, I emailed our insurance agent, Kevin. I needed to (politely) express my frustration with the parade of experts and lack of progress. We’d soon be leaving France for winter and the repairs wouldn’t be able to start until we returned in the spring. Carolyn and I are constantly reminding each other of a book we read early in our planning for France, the authors claimed that the French respected people who were discerning and demanding. We can do that without being jerks, right?

Kevin replied quickly and asked if I could meet les expertise on site one last time on November 28th. We had flights back to the US scheduled before that, but we arranged for our long-suffering real estate agent and friend, Agnés, to attend on our behalf. Fortunately, this was agreeable to everyone.

In working with one of our subs, I read the installation manual for the proposed water heater (in French!) then sent back marked up pages asking whether they had included various recommended and required parts. Exactly the kind of work I was doing in my professional life.

Agnès reported back to me after her meeting. The insurance company had a new estimate for €2,104 (significantly lower than the previous estimate) and they offered us two options. Agnès asked me to choose an option and send the signed copy back to her. We could:

1. Accept a global coverage of up to €2,104 paid directly to contractors by the insurance company, or

2. Accept a one time payment to us of €1,642 with the understanding that they’d reimburse us up to an additional €462 if we provided receipts for covered work.

The proposed amounts were accompanied by an estimate from a company called Stelliant Expertise. This estimate was nowhere near as detailed as the first from Nino Mora. Stelliant had included only plaster work, painting, and replacement of one MDF panel from the water heater enclosure, nothing for floors, nothing for cleaning the stone walls, nothing for protection or disposal

The second estimate we have received is from Stalliant Expertise. There’s much less to their proposed scope of work, nothing for cleaning, protection, disposal.

My plan is to ask Agnès if she thinks we can negotiate a higher settlement based on an average of the two estimates that were provided and extra money for the work that was identified but not priced in either estimate. We will probably opt for an immediate payment since we already have a plan to replace the existing tank water heater with something smaller, more efficient and wall-mounted (hopefully eliminating the MDF enclosure altogether).

We’ll be getting back in touch with Agnès this week and we promise to keep you updated as the claim gets resolved.