Claims

Lots of our homeowner's claims for Wilma are through Citizens. That's the state's wind insurer of last resort, kind of like the national flood insurance program, and my homeowner's policy writer for this disaster. There's an Insurance Village set up not far from here to process claims through many different companies. Great idea, I like it.

My task is to avoid all such places. This is where my physical limitations show up as true disabilities. So I do this sort of thing on the phone and internet, not in person.

At the beginning of the week, I balanced the checking accounts, and then I called GEICO.

They were wonderful, as usual. When the electricity, all phones, and your computer access are down, you can't do your banking. Stuff can bounce even when you have funds, because you can't transfer your money between bank accounts, or do electronic payments. My most recent car insurance payment bounced, twice. Normally I would have been canceled.

Good ol' GEICO. While we were unable to reach them, they were busy. They put on a moratorium for everyone in the Affected Areas (going by zip code), reversed any cancellations, and set up the new due dates for us. Bless their understanding and efficient hearts.

They have a temporary adjuster's office set up quite close to me. They request this be done by appointment and said it would take about a half hour.

Good. Poor car. It got all scratched up, even sitting in the carport, by flying debris. The people I talk to at GEICO are perfectly cognizant of hurricane damage, which makes it so much easier.

Scheduling an appointment is still a bit problematic. There's one thing I have to set up first, the top priority of all.

I need a fair amount of diagnostic work on Poor Mr. Foot, which I set up for Saturday, 11/19. (The hospital's up and running again.) I have the pain doctor Monday, 11/14.

But I'm still beating my head against the wall trying to get into the dermatologist's for a biopsy. This is getting really important. Stupid BCBS Health Options Medicare & More is screwing around denying this urgent out-of-network referral; they've delayed it for a couple of MONTHS already. Even though it's the same dermatologist I've seen for years with their authorization. That authorization went and expired on me.

I have spooky lumps crawling up my right arm from around my elbow, probably some germ, and even my Infectious Disease doctor has no idea what it is. It doesn't look like MRSA to either one of us. I've already been to the ER once with it, it shot lumps out so fast one evening I really had to go. It's slowed again, maybe because of lots of oral antibiotics for the lumps, then for the eye-ear-sinus-upper & lower respiratory infection I've been battling. (Probably MRSA. The hurricane came before the culture came back.)

All non-cosmetic dermatologists in Broward on my plan have refused to do the biopsy on grounds that it's too complicated. Sounds like my oldie-but-goodie University of Miami/Jackson's World's Greatest Blister Doctor is the one for me, huh? Now BCBS wants a Medical Note from my primary, stating this is follow-up diagnostics using the same dermatologist as before. Duh.

But the primary's office got blasted by the hurricane. Both the office and the records are in shambles, and closed, and the office manager is up to her eyeballs in alligators. Suddenly, little Medical Notes aren't so simple. I told BCBS today, See, we had this hurricane come. They said, in essence, So what?

So as the lumps crawl up my arm closer and closer to my heart, the HMO screws around denying the authorization, making up new requirements as they go. If this thing croaks me, please, dear readers, get together and sue the HMO to death for me, ok?

I don't want to schedule GEICO until I see if I can ram this biopsy through. I want to be available for the earliest biopsy appointment I can get.

Today I called the homeowner's insurance agent. They told me which policy the claim went under (Citizen's, windstorm), and where to call, and what my policy number was. Citizen's adjuster will be out here in 10-14 days. Keep all receipts...

Next stop: FEMA. I applied online, and it was nicely simple. Deceptively so.

See, there are several different FEMA and related avenues for claims. The one you think is the "one" is actually only a part of it. Others are the Small Business Administration - I kid you not - and at least one other FEMA program. Since the federal government doesn't explain this, we learn it from the local news media.

But you generally start with FEMA's Individual Assistance program. So that's done.

And I can now tell you, Wilma's Federal Disaster Number is 1609.

I figured that was enough for one day.

So I got in the Saturn and picked up some nice wood.