No word on insurance coverage 3 weeks after house collapses into sinkhole
Three weeks after their home partially collapsed into a sinkhole, a family from Falmouth, N.S., is still awaiting word from the insurance company as to whether it will cover the "catastrophic loss."
"It's been an agonizing three-plus week wait to know what our future holds," says homeowner Chris Strickey.
He and his wife have been staying at a friend's cottage while their two daughters stay in residence at their boarding school.
"There's so much to think about, but I just want at some point to have us all back together," says his wife, Heather Strickey, her voice cracking with emotion.
Insurance investigation
The Strickeys' insurance provider, Wawanesa Insurance, says it has retained outside engineering consultation to help determine the exact cause of the sinkhole.
"There was a test that commenced and finished last Friday, and this was a guy from Ontario who came down with a unique piece of equipment to scan the ground with a radar," says Chris Strickey.
On Monday, there were crews on site drilling for samples to determine what type of soil and rock exists beneath the surface, in an effort to find out what caused the house to collapse. The Strickeys say they've been told it could take a couple of weeks to complete.
Wawanesa is not currently covering the cost of the family's living expenses but did pay a company to help them remove some of their belongings.
Exploring options
"I don't know where we go from here, what options are available to us," says Heather Strickey. "The ones we've been looking at are horrific, to be honest, and not what law-abiding people would ever have to want to do."
She says she and her husband remain hopeful the insurance company will cover the cost of the damage, but they have been forced to consider things such as bankruptcy or forfeiting a loan.
Having purchased the home two years after it was built, they're also asking questions about its structural integrity. The Municipality of the District of West Hants has not responded to interview requests.
