Birthing Beautiful Ideas

After Wednesday’s near-death-by-flying-awning experience, one of the few things that kept me held together (besides my gratefulness for my children’s and my own well-being) was the fact that the repairs needed for my car would be covered by the insurance company representing whoever was responsible for the awning.

So when that company’s insurance adjuster called yesterday morning, I was happy to give a recorded statement regarding the previous day’s events so that we could get the process moving as quickly as possible.

Giving my statements was not without its speed bumps.  As I told my story, M proceeded to completely freak out and scream and whine that he wanted to talk to whomever was on the phone.  After taking a moment to reassure him that I wasn’t talking to his grandparents or anyone else he liked talking to and that I needed to speak to this person so that we could get our car fixed, M just continued to scream and carry on even more loudly.  It was awful, and I chose to take him to his room to cool down for a moment while I finished my statement.  (And yes, this all happened while the adjuster was recording our conversation.)

Throughout the day, M had the same reaction whenever I talked about the awning incident with anyone else.  Turns out poor M has a lot of anxiety over what happened.  I don’t blame the kid–I do too.  And it breaks my heart that he’s feeling any lasting stress as a result of it.

In any case, after I finished my recorded statement, the insurance adjuster asked if we had contacted our own insurance company yet.  I informed him that we had not since we had expected the responsible party’s insurance to completely cover the damage.  And then he broke the bad news to me:

“Well, you probably want to contact your insurance company because this looks like this was just an ‘act of God,’ which means that neither Stride Rite nor Easton would be liable for the damage to your car.”

I was dumbfounded.  I don’t even remember what my response was.  Perhaps somewhere between understanding and fury.  I mean, of course neither Stride Rite nor Easton caused the actual gust of wind.  But it wasn’t as if a gust of wind blew a rock or a tree into my car.  It blew an awning–something built by humans and attached by human hands to a human-constructed building.

And you know what makes me especially angry?  If the insurance adjusters for Stride Rite and/or Easton determine that the incident was purely an ‘act of God,’ then Tim and I will need to pay the $500 deductible from our own insurance plan to cover the damage.  During the holidays, right after we’ve moved into our very first house, right when money is pretty damn tight.

And you know what makes me even angrier?  The cost of repairing our car is probably so “low” in grand scheme of things for our insurance company that it will be highly unlikely that they will fight with Stride Rite’s and/or Easton’s insurance company all that vehemently to ensure that we are not responsible for paying for the repairs.  And even though Tim could probably represent us in court, the cost of hiring an “expert” to support our claims against the other party’s insurance company would defeat the purpose of not paying for these damages.

And you know what gets me the angriest?  I cannot fathom paying a cent for something that was thirty seconds and a few inches away from killing my children and that, by all stretches of my imagination, could not have been purely an ‘act of God’.

But I’m going to need to perform a little bit of investigative work to find evidence for or against this claim.

First, I need to determine how this insurance company defines “an act of God.”  (Most of the legal information I found regarding “acts of God” yesterday referred to events that were not the result of human error or negligence and that could have been prevented with reasonable and responsible foresight and prudence.)

Second, I need to determine a) the manufacturer and make and model of the awning and b) the awning’s wind tolerance level (a rating which should include the wind velocity that the awning should be able to withstand when properly installed and maintained).

Third, I need to contact the National Weather Service to determine the velocity of the wind gusts on Wednesday, especially those at the approximate time of the accident.

And fourth, I need to determine if any of these awnings sustained any damage in last year’s major windstorm (the result of Hurricane Ike), which brought 100 mph wind gusts to the area–gusts that were much larger than the ones that occurred on Wednesday.

These findings would all be set within the context of the facts that this particular awning was the only awning of its kind (on this particular street) that appeared to sustain any damage during this gust of wind.  None of the other adjacent awnings blew off of the building.  And this seems strange given the fact that the awning that hit our vehicle blew entirely off of the storefront.

What’s more, the awning was removed from the premises before Tim even arrived on the scene, so I did not get a chance to inspect it and/or to take photographs of it.

In my opinion, the results of my proposed investigation would seem to be beyond subjective evaluation.

For 1) if the wind gust(s) that occurred during the time of the event did not exceed the wind tolerance of the awning, then the event was not purely an ‘act of God.’  Human negligence and/or error would likely be a contributor to the event.

And 2) if the wind tolerance of the awning was below the velocity of the wind gusts that regularly blow through the Central Ohio region, then human foresight or prudence could have prevented the event.  Whoever was responsible for choosing the awning should have chosen one that could withstand normal Ohio weather.

And 3) if neither 1) or 2) turns out to be the case, then I can probably accept the event as purely an “act of God” (or an event that was not the result of human error, negligence, or a lack of prudence or foresight).

Long story short?

This mama who was inches and seconds away from having her babies taken away from her is not gonna take a $500 punch to the gut without fighting back.