The Abegg Love Letters : Excitement, Cracks and Insurance

The Abegg Love Letters

To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ; mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance. -Jude 1:1

As Missionaries with United World Mission, we serve in Latin America to provide support & training to missionaries on the field. We work with Latin Partner Ministries that focus on everything from theological education to medical care, from children’s homes to retirement homes. Our goal is to come along side organizations & amplify their impact for good and the Gospel.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Excitement, Cracks and Insurance

A few weeks back, around 10:00 AM, Claudia, Jeremy and Nico were at the dining room table doing their morning classes when the house gave a short, violent jolt very similar to the small Californian and Chilean earthquakes we used to experience. The jolt was immediately followed by the sound of shattering glass from the boy’s room where their sliding glass door had exploded sending glass debris throughout their room and 20 feet into the back yard.

The sliding glass door had exploded as a result of our cement back patio dropping up to 5” in places and creating giant cracks that now crisscross the entire slab. We thank God that this happened when the boys were out of the room (they could have been in bed or playing with Legos in their usual spot right in front of the door) and that nobody was hurt.

So we boarded up their room with the hurricane shutters (essentially turning their room into a dark cave), reported the insurance claim and started thinking of how to deal with this new challenge. In order to make sure that we weren’t sitting on top of a sinkhole the insurance company sent a geologist team to our house who spent two days hammering and boring holes, dragging measuring devices around every corner of the house and measuring things like elevation changes, water levels and who knows what else.

For now we need to wait for the report before any possibility of insurance assistance comes through, but here’s the catch (as I understand it): If there is a sink hole under our house, the necessary repairs will be covered (new sliding glass door & replace patio), BUT we can pretty much plan on never being able to sell a home that has a sink hole attached to it’s permanent record. If there is no sinkhole we don’t have to be concerned about being swallowed up by the earth in the middle of the night, we can sell our home in the future, but we are on our own with the repairs. (Oh how I love insurance companies). So... I’m praying for wisdom and discernment on how to navigate this and would ask you to do the same.

Thanks!