Some guy drove his car into our living room

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Colorado

So here's the situation: Some guy lost control of his car and drove his into our living room. There is very extensive damage as he has completely destroyed our patio and the entire wall along with the electrical box, all our personal property (furniture, TV, etc) in the living room. We live in a townhome and we did not have any renters insurance at the time of the accident. All we had was the HOA insurance which is supposed to cover the exterior. So from my understanding, the drivers car property liability should cover the cost of all the repairs, replacement of our personal property, and our living expenses because we are currently displaced from our home.

We got a bid from a contractor on how much it would cost to rebuild. Now its gotten messy because our HOA cannot figure out what part of the contractors bid covers the external damage that the HOA is responsible for and what part of the bid we have to file a claim as personal property. Whats making it worse is that it has been 6 weeks since the incident and we are still living in a hotel and they haven't started construction yet. The hold up is that our HOA insurance will not allow the contractor to start work until they figure out what they cover so we are stuck in a hotel. At the sametime, my fear is that the drivers insurance company is not going to reimburse us for our living expenses because our HOA has held up construction for 4 weeks now while they are messing around trying to figure out what they cover. And the HOA will not reimburse us for living expenses either so I don't want to get stuck paying for living expenses which are going to be around the $9000 by the time this construction is done since I am in no way at fault.

What can I do?

Do you own the townhouse? If so, why would you refer to renters insurance?

If not, you should be speaking with your landlord.

Further, the auto insurance is unlikely to be willing to pay for your lodging if the hold up is the HOA screwing around.

We do own the townhouse. We were told that we had to get a separate "renters" insurance policy because the HOA townhome policy does not cover personal items or internal damage. i.e. if somebody broke into our house and stole our stuff then the HOA policy does not cover the loss, or if the staircase in our house collapsed for some reason then the HOA policy would not cover that because its inside the house. So instead we are supposed to have separate insurance along with our HOA insurance.

Thats what my fear was that the drivers insurance company will say that they will only cover 4 weeks of living expenses (reconstruction time) and a couple of weeks for the claims to be filed which is only six weeks. Seeing as how its already been 6 weeks now and we haven't even started I think I will have to get a lawyer and try to sue our own HOA then...

I'm more upset at my HOA then the guy that drove his car into our house at this point

Actually what you should have is a condo policy. Renters insurance isn't right.
You're running a big risk not having it. I don't know how you squeak through on the financing without it either.

You should be taking proactive steps on your own (moving your valuables, etc...). You should have been on the HOA's insurance adjuster from day one.

Is it possible to have the contractor simply replace the wall and fix the outside seperately and then do the inside afterward? This would clear up perfectly what the costs are for each. Obviously having a wall is part of the "outside" of the home since without it there simply isn't a home at all. Besides, once that part is done you could move back in if you needed while the inside is finished.

Since the auto insurance is responsible for ALL of it, why even involve the HOA policy?

ecmst12 said:

Since the auto insurance is responsible for ALL of it, why even involve the HOA policy?

Click to expand...

Thats what my question was to our management company, because it would have been much quicker to deal directly with the drivers insurance company. But I was told that the HOA had to file a claim for the damage because there was some damage to an adjoining unit as well as the general grounds (trees, grass, etc).

Now the new annoyance is that they've finally completed the claim and construction began yesterday. (It took 7 WEEKS just to get started!). Now the new thing is that our bedroom is on the first floor next to the living room. There is a door that leads from the bedroom to the living. The living room carpet was damaged by the accident so now the adjuster is saying that they will only pay to replace the carpet in the living room, so now we will have mismatched carpet from the living room to the bedroom! How is that right? Now we are being forced to pay $1500 out of pocket to match the bedroom carpet to the living room carpet, I don't get how that should be my responsibility...

Lots of people have different carpet in different rooms. There's a door between them. Don't sweat the small stuff.