The Long Road to Recovery After a Fire with Jefferson Wagner

March 7, 2023
75.  The Long Road to Recovery After a Fire with Jefferson Wagner

In this episode, George Siegal invites Jefferson Wagner (aka Zuma Jay) to share his experience of rebuilding his home after losing it in the Woolsey wildfire in 2018. Wagner was denied insurance by his insurance carrier, Allstate, and he had to fight hard to get his insurance money without having a mortgage company to support him. Wagner stresses the importance of knowing your policy and having documentation after a disaster happens. Furthermore, they discuss Malibu’s precautions against future disasters, such as hardening homes and fuel modifications, and Malibu's 2018 fire that wiped out many communities due to a lack of disaster preparedness. They also touch on topics such as insurance policies, earthquake mitigation, and the impact of disasters on mental health. Siegal and Wagner offer insight on how to not become a victim of natural disasters, giving homeowners a few preventative remedies to avoid a catastrophic loss.

In this episode, you will learn the following: 

 1. What is the best way to ensure that you don't get caught in an insurance dispute like Jefferson did? 

 2. How are Californians adapting their homes to better survive fires?

 3. Mistakes you can avoid from hearing Jefferson’s struggles.

Important quotes from the podcast by Jefferson Wagner:

"Knowing your policy and actually just not signing the document, but actually reading the document, tell yourself, I am going to read my policy and pick out five or six spots in the policy that you don't understand and get clarity prior to sending them the check. That's the best remedy I can help you with as a policyholder." 

"Don't be a victim and a victim. If you're a victim of a natural disaster, there's nothing we can do about it. But don't be a paperwork victim as well."

"If you're not prepared and don't think about that between the months of September and January, then you're naive and shame on you."

 Here’s how you can follow Jefferson Wagner:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zuma.jays/ 

Important information from Homeowners Be Aware:

Here are ways you can follow us on-line:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeownersbeaware/

Website: https://homeownersbeaware.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/

If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact

Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Thanks for listening!

Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Welcome to the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. This week's episode really sums up what I think is one of the most important things that I wish everybody considered, and that's how to not become a victim of a major disaster. In my documentary film, the Last House Standing, we met several people whose lives were turned upside down by hurricanes fires and tornadoes. We heard from experts who talk about how long the recovery takes with some never getting back to where they were before the disaster. It's life altering. One of the people I interviewed in the film at the time was the mayor of Malibu, California. Jefferson Wagner, known as Zuma J. He's also the owner of Zuma J Surfboards in Malibu. His house burned down in the Woolsey fire in 2018, and when we spoke recently, he still hasn't been able to finish rebuilding. He has great advice from firsthand experience that everyone needs to hear and learn from. I'm George Siegal, and this is The Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. Every week we introduce you to people who are working on real world problems and providing actual solutions. Tell Us How to Make. It Better is partnering with The Readiness Lab, the home for podcast webinars and training in the field of emergency and disaster services. Jefferson Wagner, AKA Zuma J. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.

Jefferson Wagner: 1:20

Well, thank you for having me, and good morning.

George Siegal: 1:22

Hey, good Mor Well, good morning or good afternoon. I guess we're on different coasts, but I first met you after the Woolsey fire and that was quite an experience for the folks in Malibu. Give us an update how you're doing today, how, how, how have you come out of this thing.

Jefferson Wagner: 1:36

Uh, thank you. I'm no longer mayor of the city. Uh, now I'm just a former mayor. Uh, I'm moving right along with the building rebuild process of my home that I lost in the fire, and I just got planning approval.

George Siegal: 1:51

Wow. And that's a long time after the fire. Now you had a very interesting experience that you shared with us. We didn't include it in the movie, the last House standing, but it was kind of dramatic. Can you tell us what, what that was like and what they put you through to get to this point?

Jefferson Wagner: 2:06

Yes, uh, physically, uh, during the fire, the event was recorded by LA County Fire. There's 46 seconds of, uh, footage of me defending the house during the fire storm. The house was lost afterwards, uh, to the embers landing on the roof and the ladder melting so I could no longer access the roof to put the fire out. Uh, right now the, uh, building process in Malibu, we have built 120 homes in the city of Malibu 772 were lost in the 90265 area code.

George Siegal: 2:41

Now, one of the biggest challenges in disasters, and we've certainly heard this from a lot of people, In a lot of places around the country is when it comes time to collecting the insurance that you thought you had on your house. It's not a slam dunk that they just Jake from State Farm is not coming out and handing you a check the next day. What was that adventure like for you?

Jefferson Wagner: 3:00

It is an ongoing adventure at this time. I've still been declined the policy by my carrier, uh, in was Allstate and, uh, I had full coverage. I don't even have a dog. And I even had dog bite insurance on the property, and I had paid the policy for 10 years in a row. All this is on, on, uh, you know, in real world. And I had paid it a month early each year, and I paid it in one payment, not monthly payments. So I was declined because they said the house was not insured for enough. It was only 1.5 that I insured the house for, and it's gonna cost around four to rebuild it. So I'm still in debate with that. But Southern California Edison paid me enough of the lawsuit to start the construction of the home.

George Siegal: 3:57

Now there was a, we were talking at the time, and you had expressed that. you thought one of the reasons they made it more difficult for you, and, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, um, was you didn't have a mortgage. So they didn't have a mortgage company to fight. You think it would've been different if they had to go up against a financial institution, um, rather than an individual?

Jefferson Wagner: 4:17

Uh, fair enough, very good. Uh, kind of idea of what went on. I did not have a mortgage. I had paid it off in 2016. I was mortgage free at 65. And, uh, I thought that was what the big goal in life was about here in the us. Own your own home when you retire. Uh, yes. Uh, no Mortgage made it easier for them because I didn't have B of A or Wells Fargo or Chase Bank with me in the lawsuit. If I had had their attorneys making demands with a big law firm behind me, it would've been a different outcome. So I had to go procure my own attorney and bank of attorneys and attach my claims to the lawsuit.

George Siegal: 5:07

So what seems to be just such a recurring pattern is victims get further victimized and life does not get back to normal very quickly. That's one of the things we were stressing in the last house standing. We're making a new film pretty soon. And the idea is how do you avoid becoming a victim? How do you avoid having to live the hell that you and, and many of your friends and neighbors have gone through where you're first, you're punished by the disaster and then you're punished by the recovery. What? What would you tell people? What is the takeaway here? What could you have done differently? Or is there nothing? And it's just, sometimes it's just bad luck and people have to dig themselves out.

Jefferson Wagner: 5:43

I'm trying to be brief. There's two remedies to this. The remedy that satisfies us out here on the west coast in the fire situation or maybe a potential earthquake situation, and those in the Midwest and the East coast, which are usually hurricanes and tornadoes or blizzards. So knowing your policy and actually just not signing the document, but actually reading the document, tell yourself I am going to read my policy and pick out five or six spots in the policy that you don't understand and get clarity prior to sending them the check. That's the best remedy I can, uh, help you with as a policy holder. The other part is when the disaster happens, is you have to have a lot of documentation and the first thing is to get that FEMA number. When you get your FEMA number, you have some reality. But insurance companies have to respond to a FEMA number. That's your disaster declaration number from fema. So those two things are quick remedies that would help you out get out of the situation I was in.

George Siegal: 6:56

Now, I grew up in Pacific Palisades, which is uh, south of where you guys are, and every year we still had the same fear when the fires would kick in when the Santa Ana winds would be blowing and that hot and dry. I mean, you look out and you see that ocean, but if the wind is blowing offshore, It's not helping you much. So what are people doing as they rebuild out there to maybe do it better? Because it seems to keep happening, maybe not always in the same spot, but it seems to keep happening.

Jefferson Wagner: 7:22

Correct. They always have these great terms and politicians will tell you, Hey, we're gonna demand hardening, which means you build a harder home, do harder clearance. Right now, going through this process for myself and the other 700 homes in Malibu, We're having to go through a fuel modification plan that's ratified by LA County Fire or LA City Fire if you're down in the Palisades area or Topanga area, and it's actually recorded on the deed and it's recorded by the county Register, that you will do and maintain the fuel modification plan during your rebuild and after you're completed and you get your sign off from certificate of occupancy. So that fuel modification plan, in my case, costs around six or $7,000 to do with the architect and the engineer and another $2,000 to ratify it and have it put on the title. So fuel modification. And then the next thing up is they're demanding sprinkelering, which I get it, uh, it seems logical, but if you don't have a water supply to your interior sprinklers or your exterior roof sprinklers, it does no good. So some of these things will work, the fuel modification and some won't. If there's no water supply, there's no sprinklers.

George Siegal: 8:51

What is fuel modification? What, what? I, I haven't, I don't know that?

Jefferson Wagner: 8:55

Sure. Uh, fuel modification is the, uh, reducing of the plant matter, the organic plant matter surrounding your house. So they have a zone A, zone B, and zone C. Okay,

George Siegal: 9:07

now I know it. So no palm trees right next to your house, which go up like Roman candles when, uh, when there's a fire and, and, and, and people have those open vents in their attics, you know, where the air gets in. It seems like there's a lot of, I just know it under a different term. I've never heard it, um, expressed that way, but that is so important. And, and even though some of the houses we saw that burned down, they could have done all that. And when that firestorm comes over the hill, there's not much you can do.

Jefferson Wagner: 9:36

No, you can't do anything about the embers from your neighbor's house that didn't have fuel modification. Or with the, the WUI Wildland Urban interface, that's W U I. Uh, you have huge areas that, you know, 40 to a hundred acres that have nobody occupying them and they're left natural as open space and those areas burn and they send the enders, embers towards you. The palm trees, we call them California candles. There's certain palms that don't have enough moisture in them. The fan palms and the queen palms. However, the date palms in my situation did not burn because they're fruit producing. They have a lot more moisture in the palm tree themselves. They didn't even burn. So now it depends what kinda plant palm trees you're planting.

George Siegal: 10:26

It's time for emergency preparedness to go mainstream. Smart, innovative, practical solutions that match your needs. Instinct ready, educates, prepares and equips the everyday person for disaster. With promo code make it better, you can access comprehensive preparedness courses and premium go bags. Visit instinct ready.com with promo code make it better today. Preparedness starts at home. Sure. What? What do you think it is in our human psyche that makes us think it's not gonna happen to us? And, and then these disasters keep happening because I know fires are nothing new to California. It seems like every year there's a tragic story or two that comes out of communities that are wiped out paradise, which was pretty much at the same time as your fire. I mean, they didn't even have ways out of there. They had, they had no plan for a disaster. Malibu things kind of just, everything fell against you guys. Why aren't we all taking this more seriously? Or do you think people are now, I, I don't know that people change. They just forget.

Jefferson Wagner: 11:26

It's difficult. Um, they forget over time. For the first couple of years, it was the premier talk in this town. Right now it's the talk is about the next fire that's gonna come, and I can predict that the next fire will take place will be from Lost Flores Canyon. If you Google Map and then head toward the Palisades, it will consume all of Topanga. The last time that area burned was 1993. It's ready for another good cleansing or burning, but, uh, the topic won't be around for the next couple of months until the Santa Anna's come back.

George Siegal: 12:05

Yeah, and those canyons when I was growing up, they hadn't really gone back into some of those and developed them. Now there are so many. Houses and, and neighborhoods and communities back there. And I wonder if people think about that when they buy those houses. Are they thinking if they have defensible spaces? Are they thinking evacuation? Are they thinking do, because I know I live in Florida and a lot of my neighbors have no fear of hurricanes, even though we got brushed by one, that would've wiped us out last, uh, last hurricane season. Are people aware of this or are they just, you know, just walking around aimlessly like, this is paradise, we're gonna live here?

Jefferson Wagner: 12:42

You coined it. This is paradise. We're gonna live here. Uh, once you get landed, once you get your mortgage settled, once you get the kids in school, all those wonderful things are what your daily life is about. But they're not thinking of the long term effect of one of these catastrophic fires. And they will come and they will happen again and again. In 2007, my canyon burned across from me. Only seven or eight homes were burned right across from me, probably 500 yards away. And one of those super tankers came in and nailed our neighborhood and was just like, nothing's gonna burn now. Cause we had the fog check or the red stuff and, and it was just done. We had good fuel modification at that point. So some canyons will get away with it and some canyons won't. But if you're in a canyon that you haven't prepared, an evacuation plan. How to get your car loaded up quick. Are the kids in school? Are the kids not in school? If you're not prepared and don't think about that between the months of September and January, then you're naive and um, shame on you.

George Siegal: 13:55

Yeah, I mean there are so many sad stories of people that lost so much. and, and I know I, I've heard some comments where people go, well, fortunately they have money, they can afford it. That doesn't minimize the disaster when your house burns down or all your mementos are gone. You can't replace those things.

Jefferson Wagner: 14:14

No, it's usually, it's just like back east with the hurricanes and the tornadoes. Uh, you lose all that material that you became accustomed to having and sharing with your kids or sharing with your neighbors and having good memories about when those were all gone your life is cleansed without your appreciation. I mean, I didn't get to throw anything away that got old. It all burned. And some of my childhood memory, little toys and little trinkets, probably I could put 'em in a box two feet by two feet. That's all I had at my age. But it's gone. Uh, and I'll never retrieve those. I think of all the people across our nation in other nations like with the last big earthquake in Turkey and Syria, they lost a lot more lives, in Malibu we only had three people die. Three or four of us were hospitalized, myself, one of them. But up in Paradise, we lost 80 or 90 people, uh, in one day. So I just, I just do this a lot and now that I'm so well educated in it, I don't mind sharing that education and that process with others.

George Siegal: 15:25

Another problem that you guys had is a lot of those houses back in the canyons were houses that had been in families for generations. They, they're, they're houses that were probably way underinsured. So now your house burns down and people don't really look into this. You can't just throw your house back up there because it wouldn't cost the same as it cost to build that house 60 years ago when it first went up. That's gotta make it even a worse nightmare for a lot of people that, that never thought they would have to be dealing with this.

Jefferson Wagner: 15:53

Perfect. You've hit the nail on the head. In my situation and in about four to 500 homes in Malibu that still have not been rebuilt or the applications haven't been turned in. The city did what it could with the planning department. All plans to the original homeowners that lost their homes and all the plan check fees and every fee that's associated with rebuilding your home was zero for the city it passed, when I was mayor. We just said, if you rebuild your own home, zero costs paperwork wise through the city, that was the best we could do. Unfortunately, when you built a home, I built my home in 90, it cost me around 175 to two 50 a foot. Ballpark. Right now the quotes are coming in at between five 50 and six 50 per square foot. The house was insured for the, somewhere in between and uh, I'll make it happen. I'll take a second mortgage out or something. But a lot of older folks my age that lost those homes and the young people that inherited those homes didn't insure them for six 50 a foot. They, they were insured for three 50 to 400 a foot like mine was.

George Siegal: 17:03

And you probably couldn't, I don't know that an insurance company will, maybe you get a replacement value clause in your contract, but it, you know, they look at the value of your house and they say, okay, well this is what we estimate it's gonna cost to rebuild it. I mean, I don't know that that helps in, in that situation, especially for, and a lot of times we, we interviewed a guy who had some classic collector cars that weren't running, so he didn't have 'em insured.

Jefferson Wagner: 17:27

Yeah. Those possessions is a different part of the contract. I had some artwork from, uh, some well-known artists and that was lost in the fire, but it was named in my policy. It actually was said, well, here's a, a Hansen from the 18 hundreds. Uh, here's another piece. I had several art pieces and that was named in my policy and they didn't even cover that, but I had it on tape with the appraiser walking through going There is a Hansen. Uh, okay, John. I just want get back to that one statement. You've got to read your policy and make sure that those couple of questions that you have are when you ratify 'em. You can take that part of the clause out, Xerox it, make it bigger, and then write down things in it. And if you don't, you'll be in the same situation I'm in.

George Siegal: 18:23

Insurance is such an adversarial relationship. I mean, it's such a bad relationship. I, I've had a few good experiences when I've had small claims where they, they've stepped up, but when you have the big stuff, even if they do, I don't know, in fires, but with, if you ever ding your car, or if you have a leak in your roof, they tattoo you on rate increases and penalize you for it. Are, are they doing that for people with fires as well? Is there some kind of punishment that comes in when they go to reinsure? Your new, your new house? Because I've, I've, I'm paying for that now.

Jefferson Wagner: 18:53

Yes. In Malibu. Uh, my house, uh, the replace value, I had it at 1.5. Uh, my insurance per year was around 5,000 to 55 hundred at that rate. Everybody that's rebuilt now, the 120 homes or 125 homes that have been rebuilt for the new rates, they're paying between 10 and $15,000 per year. So it's about a thousand $1,200 a month to insure a 3 million to 5 million home in Malibu. So yes, the insurance companies have to recoup those funds and they have to make sure that they can cover their obligations in the future when there are future disasters. That's the name of the insurance premium upgrade, and that's why they can afford celebrity people to do their advertising for them. When you buy insurance and you look at the ads on television, you're paying that premium and that premium cost is going up. The cost of replacement is going up, and the cost of those actors and all those ads that you see are going up.

George Siegal: 20:08

It's crazy. And would, would you say that, do you sense a lot of people are, are moving away from California? I mean, I know we get a lot of jokes about how Florida is, but people are moving here in droves even though it's risky. So when we have a disaster, that's gonna be a lot more people here, how, how are things out there?

Jefferson Wagner: 20:24

If you look at the numbers, don't take my perception or my, my statement, but if you actually look at the numbers, people are leaving California. and they're going to Austin in Texas. That's become the New East California is Austin. Yeah. Um, Irving, Texas. There's a couple of cities that are just gathering Californians. A lot of Californians are moving north to Oregon and driving the price of homes up in Oregon. That's where my brother lives. So all these things, you can see that, uh, Arizona, if you look at Scottsdale, some of these nicer homes in Scottsdale, all being consumed by Californians that are getting outta California and moving east, and they'll put up with not seeing the ocean and the perfect weather, uh, for a simpler lifestyle.

George Siegal: 21:17

Yeah. On a beautiful day in California, it's tough to match that, but it's all the other days. Um, do, do you worry about earthquakes at all too, or do you figure you've been pre-disastered? There's not, uh, it's not gonna find you.

Jefferson Wagner: 21:28

The earthquakes. You know, when, when the big ones come, they're usually in the six to seven to eight foot, uh, eight range. On the Richter scale, those will do damage. It's usually infrastructure damage. So you'll see bridges fall, uh, freeway bridges that collapse. Uh, as we saw up on the Nimitz Freeway in the San Francisco quake in California, we had, uh, an earthquake where the, the bridges fell on the five and the 14 freeway. Uh, those collapse. Uh, occur in infrastructure. You'll see pipes break, hy fire hydrants shooting up. Uh, but our housing has become so adaptive to the insur to need for the earthquake. To get the insurance, you have to do the earthquake modifications, which I'm going to do. Uh, they you shake, you wiggle, you move the cats run the dogs panic. you don't see a lot of housing collapses because our housing out here in California is fur further apart. You don't see a lot of housing collapsing on top of each other, as we saw in Turkey and Syria where one building fell into another. Here everything's two or three stories. Even if it's a rental operation into condominium complex, it's two or three floors, and those don't shake as much as something that's 10 to 15 floors. But we do think about earthquakes out here. We just had one a couple weeks ago. It made the news, but there was no damage because we're adaptive to earthquakes. And all the newer homes require earthquake mitigation, which you can shake the heck out of these things. You can go in eight or a nine and they'll still stand. You may lose a few windows. Um, you, you know, you're gonna have some damage, but the, the structures will still stand, especially the modern structures.

George Siegal: 23:20

Yeah, I was on the top deck of Candlestick Park for the 1989, uh, earthquake. That was the scariest thing I've ever been in. I mean, I thought that whole stadium was gonna collapse. Um, and then our hotel collapsed. The, you know what, we know what happened with the, with some of the roads and bridges there. It's absolutely frightening. Now, our expert that we had in the last house standing. Earthquake expert. It's not so much the residential houses, as you're saying, although there's a lot of older houses in parts of la. Um, it's the high rises. He predicted 50 or 60% of the buildings would be uninhabitable if a big earthquake hit there. So, I mean that's, I, that's why I prefer a, a hurricane to an earthquake cuz at least you somewhat see it coming. Earthquake. You're just sleeping and boom.

Jefferson Wagner: 24:01

Yeah. Uh, and you have collapse. Hurricane, tornadoes yeah. You see it coming. You got a couple hours notice. Even if you got an hour or two, you got a basement to run into. In a high rise there's no basement, cuz that's where it's all gonna wind up landing. Yeah. So, uh, we, we kind of laugh here in Southern California about the, the leaning tower of Piza in San Francisco. The one building that, uh, yeah, Joe Montana invested heavily in, uh, it's leaning, it's 3% leaning, it's sinking and tipping. I mean, who's gonna occupy that? I mean, the, the seismologists are telling you this one's going down, I think it's 70 stories or 60 stories. You could Google it, but it's 3% tilting and dropping as we speak. And it's brand new, I think it's five, six years old.

George Siegal: 24:51

Yeah. You wonder how that happens. We, we could do a whole other show on the building industry. Um, I mean, hopefully you have a, a good builder that you're comfortable with for your., um, watch 'em watch everything they do, because if you don't, that's when they just get sloppy.

Jefferson Wagner: 25:06

Yep. Yeah. You can learn this stuff. It's all there. Like a show like this, it gives you an idea of what to do and then you can go deeper into it and follow the construction and make sure the quality assurance is there. And if you have any problems when the building inspector comes out from the county or the city, just write it down when he is there and say, I have a concern about this, this, and this, and let him address it. That's what I'm gonna do. If I have any issues, I'm gonna go right straight to my inspector while I'm, while he's there and I'm paying him to inspect the work, I'm gonna say, is this good? Is this good? Is this good? Real easy?

George Siegal: 25:43

It is. But most people don't. They don't wanna be bothered or they get intimidated by the builder, like, we don't want you looking over our should. and I encourage everybody, you make sure you're looking over both their shoulders, you, you, you make sure that you're watching everything. And, and as a, a two term mayor, you probably saw it takes a long time to change a rule or a law or an ordinance, but people can do things right away by just becoming their own best advocates.

Jefferson Wagner: 26:08

That's so correct. Uh, that's what I'm, that's what I'm pushing here in Malibu. When people ask me, quite often the local media comes and asks me questions and I say observe, you're writing a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to these vendors. They want their check. I want surety. And the surety is when the inspector comes be there that you should not be intimidated by your investment.

George Siegal: 26:34

I think they play the bully game. I think that they're like, how dare you question us. We're we do this all the time. but it, you know, I, I've never seen an industry where your work can get destroyed so much, but you still come out and keep building stuff and it's not really a testament to building something that lasts.

Jefferson Wagner: 26:49

Right? Well, I tell my new contractor, uh, hell, I'm just helping you out. Let's fix it before it becomes something wrong. On the next inspection, when the plumbing inspection comes or the electrical inspection comes and they see something that you didn't complete right or didn't get done by the last sub, I always blame it on the subcontractors, not the contractor himself. Cause oh my goodness, you know, he knows everything. I'd say, Hey, this sub didn't do this right or this sub didn't do that. Right. And then they can get on your side or you can get on their side and go vendor, vendor fixing before it's all encapsulated and you got a certificate of occupancy.

George Siegal: 27:28

And whoever the superintendent is, make sure it's not their last job with the company because they clearly don't care. You wanna , you know, that's, and also the day they're putting the drywall up, make sure you're out there because all the food wrappers and garbage and beer cans and crap tickets gets thrown into the walls will be with you forever.

Jefferson Wagner: 27:47

And when they're cutting it, it all, all the stuff that they're cutting goes inward and it's all left there. I I, when I did the first house, I had my own vacuum, my own wet and dry vac. And I did it all as they were there. It took me one day. It was spotless inside. I never had one mouse, one rat, anything in 30 years. Zero infestation from my little neighbors in the WWI Wildland urban interface.

George Siegal: 28:11

All right, so now you're gonna have your own fire department too. Next time. You had said you have to have B Y O B, bring your own brigade, I think was your term.

Jefferson Wagner: 28:19

Right? That's another movie that was done. Uh, bring your own Brigade. That was my quote. Um, one day I'll show you that 46 seconds of, uh, footage of me defending the, the, the property. And you'll see what you're gonna have to do the next big firestorm coming through.

George Siegal: 28:35

All right. Final takeaway. Jay, what, what would you tell people? What's the, uh, you kind of, you did touch on it, but let's hit, let's hit it again. I'm buying a house. I'm building a house. What's the most important thing I have to think about?

Jefferson Wagner: 28:45

Reading your policies for your insurance because replacing it will be difficult.

George Siegal: 28:49

That's great advice. And you know, one of the problems they had here in Florida, some people had flood insurance and homeowners insurance, and the two entities were fighting over who was responsible for paying. So the people that had two policies still had to wait a long time to get their money. I think it's just you want to do everything you can to avoid, avoid being a victim.

Jefferson Wagner: 29:09

That's that's the best statement right there. Don't be a victim and a victim. If you're a victim of a natural disaster, there's nothing we can do about it. But don't be a paperwork victim as well.

George Siegal: 29:21

Is there a date of project, a projection of when your house will be done?

Jefferson Wagner: 29:24

Uh, I'm saying about a year. I don't want to go through framing when the Santa Ana's start. So, uh, right now we're in foundation modification. The cassons are fine. The grade beams need a couple replaced, but once the concrete work is done, then the framing starts, I think about a year from now. I'll be moving in.

George Siegal: 29:43

All right. Well, hey man, thank you so much for coming on today and talking about it. You were great in the film and, and you were great today. I appreciate you sharing your story.

Jefferson Wagner: 29:51

Oh, I hope we don't have to share it again.

George Siegal: 29:53

Let's hope it's let, let's hope. That's, I, I say that for everybody cuz it's not worth it. It's not worth going through that.

Jefferson Wagner: 29:58

Yeah. Let's be a remedy. Not a, not another story.

George Siegal: 30:01

Exactly. Thanks Jay. Thank you for joining me today on the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. If you've experienced damage from a disaster or have ever had a horrible building or remodeling experience, I would love to interview you right here on the podcast. There's a link to my contact form in the show notes. Fill it out and I'll get in touch with you. And if you liked what you were listening to today, please subscribe so you can listen to future episodes, share the link, and even leave a review. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.