Hortonville board discusses insurance claim
By John Faucher
The Hortonville Village Board selected a roofing contractor and moved forward with an ongoing insurance claim at its Aug. 4 meeting.
A storm that dumped a swath of large hail on the area April 12, caused an estimated $294,000 in damages to municipal roofs and exterior fixtures.
Village Administrator Nathan Treadwell informed board members that out of seven requests only two contractors responded with quotes.
Great Lakes Roofing returned a quote of $310,340 and Security Luebke Roofing quoted the village $294,037.
Insurance coverage
Treadwell said the insurance company is willing to cover $294,000.
“The issue is they’re not going to cover any of what they call cosmetic damage on the downspouts, gutters and fascia,” said Treadwell.
“Our insurance doesn’t cover any metal roofs either.”
“I get the downspouts because for most insurance companies that’s a 50/50 and most insurance companies try to make you reuse them,” board member Jim Moeller said. “Half of them say, don’t reuse them because they never match up and so they replace them. But the gutters are not cosmetic.” He added, “They’re all banged to crap and they’ll collect and rust and the paint’s cracked in them and they’re damage.”
Public Works Director Kray Brown agreed.
“Our insurance company is hanging their hat on a lot of that being cosmetic, and I look at it kind of structurally too. So if you have dings and dents it holds up the water from actually going down the gutter and whatever else. You’re absolutely correct, I think that becomes a little bit more of a structural side,” Brown said.
“I think for us especially the fascia when you have a building such as this, [referencing the community center] I don’t think we want to see this building look ratty because we didn’t get the insurance money to fix something,” said Brown.
Brown noted that the village would likely want to look at each building on a “setting by setting” basis and prioritize when making its decisions.
The village out-of-pocket expense to restore everything the insurance company considered cosmetic could cost roughly $45,000.
Negotiations, guarantees
Board member Julie Arendt Vanden Heuvel asked if the village had talked to legal counsel regarding the claim.
Treadwell said, “Not yet. We’ve talked to the potential contractor.”
He informed the board that it is difficult to move into negotiations when you haven’t approved a contractor yet.
“We’re really talking about approving the contractor here and then going forward in negotiations, but we wanted you to kind of think about which buildings you think we should be repairing if they don’t cover the rest of it,” said Treadwell.
He asked board members to think about it over the next few weeks while the village gets more answers in negotiations.
Village President Jeanne Bellile asked about time limits and if the potential contractor could guarantee the work completion within the legal timeframe for insurance claims.
“We need guarantees,” said Bellile.
Treadwell said yes there would be a contract in writing between the village and approved contractor.
Moeller made a motion to approve Security Luebke Roofing, Pat Lund-Moe seconded the motion and it was carried unanimously.