They SURVIVED ONE OF CALIFORNIA’s DEADLIEST FIRES, but then, another battle…
For many people trying to put their lives back together in the wake of California’s catastrophic wildfires, the process of rebuilding can feel like a second hardship — one not inflicted by nature, but rather, by the insurance company they thought would protect them.
Among the more than 4,600 homes destroyed in the Tubbs fire in October 2017 was that of 72-year-old Narsi Samii. When fire exploded through his neighborhood in Santa Rosa, California, in the middle of the night, Samii and his family fled to a hotel and eventually a two-bedroom rental apartment.
From that rental unit, less than a mile from their burned-down home, he and his wife hoped to begin the painfully slow process of rebuilding their 5-bedroom, 3-bathroom custom house. They’d called it home since 1989; it’s where they raised their two children and where Samii enjoyed cultivating his mature orchard and garden.
“I’m paying $3,500 a month for a property that doesn’t exist,” said Samii, who was evacuated again last week because of the Kincade fire. After an assortment of delays, the Samii family says they have not even been able to break ground on their rebuild.
A retired businessman, Samii relies on social security payments that don’t come close to matching the cost of his combined rent and mortgage payment.
And then, on Oct. 7, things got much worse.
Until recently, Samii’s insurance company, Nationwide, helped by covering the cost of his apartment and rental furniture every month. This was covered under his insurance policy’s 24 months of “Additional Living Expenses,” or ALE benefits. ALE benefits are funds that insurance companies must offer policyholders following a disaster to pay for items such as food, housing, furniture rental, and other costs.
But, with the two years up, there would be no more rent payments to DeDe’s Rentals on Samii’s behalf.
“I asked if they could leave it a couple days and they said, ‘no,’” he told NBC News. “They literally took everything: the pots and pans I used to cook, the furniture I lived with for two years. There was no bed to sleep on,” he recounted, referring to Nationwide.
On the Oct. 9 anniversary of the Tubbs fire that burned down his house, time had run out on his ALE benefits.
Read the full story on NBCNews.com.