Art and Joan
Newbury, VT
Carpenter and dental receptionist
Co-op members for 3+ years
Art and Joan
"I've certainly been impressed"
It was just a couple of days before Christmas. We were getting ready to go to work and had the woodstove going. I just had a feeling something was amiss. I looked around the house, and finally saw a little smoke. I did what I thought would curtail what was going on, but when more smoke came out, it was time to call the fire department.
Creosote had sealed off the chimney right above the flue; there was a raging fire above the pipe and smoke was coming out in the house. The fire department had to take apart one little wall and work hard to break through the creosote, and the house got pretty smoky in the meantime. They used a dry chemical, so it obviously made a mess, but it wasn't like water. The firefighters were nice (it's a small community, so we know most of them) and certainly tried to keep damage to a minimum, but it looked pretty much like a shambles here when it was over.
I called my agent first; he was great. He said he'd call an adjuster who [he thought could] be there within an hour or two. Sure enough, an hour and a half later, the adjuster came. He assured us we were in good hands, checked everything out and said they would try to supply whatever we needed. That seemed to happen. Really, within a couple of hours of the fire, we were set to start putting things back together again.
The adjuster told us that if we felt we should, we could stay in a hotel or motel, but we didn't feel it was necessary. By the end of the day, with eight of us scrubbing everything down as well as we could, the house was livable. He did recommend calling a professional cleaning service that Co-op would pay for. A couple of days later, [the service] started working and cleaned everything, even more than I would have expected. So within a week, our house was basically put back to where it had been. A little later, [we found] a fellow for the chimney [from Co-op's list of approved vendors]; he was a terrific guy who did a great job.
The adjuster had told us that Co-op was a great company and there shouldn't be any problem, and there wasn't. We've been with them a little over three years now, and have them for both home and auto. I've certainly been impressed, and have no intention of switching. I'll continue to recommend them to other people.