There will be no meeting this week since our schedule has changed (since the beginning of the year) to the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month. Our next meeting will be on Sunday February 27 where we will have the City and the County building departments there to answer questions about the building permit process. We meet at 2PM at the Calvary Baptist Church which is 3701 Sierra Way in San Bernardino.

District Operations Manager for Southern California Gas Company has changed

This last meeting I gave you Cedric Williams name from Southern California Gas Company. This week I contacted him and he said that he no longer holds the position of District Operations Manager. Jeff Graden has taken over. I am still clarifying the phone number of this new person.

For safety reasons the gas company will not even start the process of installing the gas lines until the contractor is 100% complete with the home. At that point an appointment is made to install the underground gas piping. Only when the installation is complete will they make the second appointment to install the meter. As you might guess, this can add a couple of unexpected weeks to the move-in process since you can not get a certificate of completion and move into your house without gas and a final inspection by the building department.

I mentioned this because a couple of survivors experienced long delays on getting the gas installed to their homes. It took several weeks to get them out to install the underground lines and then it took a couple more weeks to get an appointment to install the meter. This delayed their move-in date by over about 6 weeks and they had to pay an additional 2 months rent which the insurance company was unwilling to reimburse them for.

Unfortunately I didn't learn about this until several weeks into this process. During a Community Partners conference call which included Dave Stuart from Rebuilding Mountain Hearts and Lives he gave me Cedric's name. When I brought this particular homeowner's plight to Cedric's attention he said he would get right on it and he did. He also mentioned that they were putting fire survivors at the top of their installation schedule. He said that if it happened again in the future that we should contact him.

Free Mechanics Liens seminar for Fire Survivors

This last week at our San Bernardino meeting Frank Williams from the BIA was there to talk about working with contractors. He mentioned that there is a seminar being put on by the BIA in their Rancho Cucamonga office that is solely on avoiding Mechanics Liens. Mechanics Liens are the liens that any contractor, sub-contractor or supplier can place on your home during the construction process. Among many other ways, this can happen because you pay the prime and they "forget" to pay a sub-contractor or supplier.

The process of avoiding this type of lien is simple, but you must follow each step specifically. This seminar is usually only for BIA members and there is usually a $35 charge. Frank said that any fire survivor who wants to come is welcome as his guest and he will let you in for free. The meeting is at the BIA Mt. Baldy office in Rancho Cucamonga and the date is Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM. You can check out the schedule and get the location by visiting their website at http://www.biasc.com. Please contact Frank for additional details. frank@biabuild.com or 909-945-1884.

I have attached a copy of the registration form which has all of the details. Make sure your members put Old Fire Recovery Group guest of Frank Williams on their registration forms so the $35 fee will be waived.

Course of Construction Insurance

Several people have brought up questions about Course of Construction insurance. They want to know if it's needed and where to get it.

We have learned that Course of Construction insurance covers different things than Homeowners insurance. Most of us kept our homeowners insurance to make sure our new personal property was covered as well as to keep the liability portion of our insurance or because our insurance company told us that we wouldn't be able to find new coverage if we let ours lapse. Many people have called their insurance agent or company about course of construction insurance only to be told that it is not needed since they still have their homeowners policy.

I have been told by other survivors that they followed this advice only to be told that a certain loss that happened during construction was not covered. For example they were told that appliances (and other construction material) that are not installed are not considered part of the house and are not covered (although it seems to me it might be considered personal property, but hey, I'm not the expert). Another example is that if you have custom cabinetry en-route to your house and the truck is in an accident and the cabinets are ruined they are also not considered "covered". These and many other examples which I can't even begin to know about are reasons to get course of construction insurance.

Also remember that Laurie Delgado from Escrow Funding Services said that if you have Course of Construction Insurance and you move even one stick of personal property into the house (including the garage) your Course of Construction Insurance is null and void and will not cover any further loss even if you do not yet have a certificate of completion by the local building department. She has seen this happen when people decide to save money and start storing stuff in their garage instead of the storage facility they've been renting. Then something happens that would normally be covered by course of construction insurance, but because they had been storing personal property in their garage, they were no longer covered.

Please be sure to call an expert (hopefully an agent or a broker will know and I'm sure George with CARe will know) and confirm all of this since I am only relaying 2nd hand information. If you're looking for coverage and don't know where to go, here are two referrals I got from people in the San Diego area. Both of these companies will write policies in San Bernardino.

Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 10:22:10 -0800 (PST)
From: Kathy Kassel <kathykassel@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: course of construction insurance question

We used a local company who specializes in construction insurance. He is just a broker and the policy is with Zurch. He is a nice guy. The policy fee is based on the cost of construction, approx. $2.00 per $1,000. Here is his info.

Paul Caccamise
Encircle Insurance Services
619-937-4000 ext. 101

Tell him Kathy w/ the Lakeside Chamber referred you and that you lost your home in the fire also. Good Luck & hopefully you are building soon.
Kathy

[Lila's note: I just called Paul and he said that based on $300,000 of coverage the premium would be approximately $687 for the year. He said to get coverage the very last thing [the day or two] before construction starts. It takes only 30 minutes to bind and they will take payment over the phone via credit card or you can send a check in the mail. This is a 12 month one shot policy. He made it sound like they would not renew so construction had to be complete within the 12 month period which is why they recommend doing this last thing before construction starts so that you are covered for as much of the construction period as possible.]

Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 06:57:04 -0800 (PST)
From: Ron Avera <sargeof9@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: course of construction insurance question

I used Micheal Jacobs in Alpine. The office is located in Alpine and the phone number is 619-445-5797. They got me insurance with Zurich for $500. The policy is for $275,000.00. What I like about them was that the policy was good for a year. Everyone else I talked to wanted $500 for 6 months.

Take care and good luck

Ron from Harbison Canyon

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OFRG Contact information:

Lila Hayes
Old Fire Recovery Group