The Core Problem
Every burned building has at least one owner — often a couple or multiple people — and most of those people have never been through a major construction project that involves their insurer, the city or county permit department, an engineering company, an architect, a general contractor, multiple subcontractors, a landscape company, PG&E, the weather, their mortgage company, and whatever else may be going on in the economy.
People are conditioned by consumer culture to expect fast results. You can have food within minutes of wanting it while driving, or order almost anything on Amazon and have it same day or next day. Burned and water-damaged building recovery does not work this way. Ever.
The First Three Months: Not Much Happens to the Building
Coast Construction cannot rebuild your building until two things are in place: the money to do it is pre-approved by your insurer, and we have a building permit from the City or County.
After you file your claim, the insurer dispatches an adjuster who will come and look at both your house and our scope of work and pricing (if we have one by then — many adjusters won't look at our work until they complete theirs). Weeks later, they finish their estimating. Then they take more weeks to review our estimate, quibble about details they may hope to exclude to save their company money. Our estimating focus is on completeness, which can increase cost above the adjuster's preliminary and likely less complete estimate.
After the adjuster's estimate and our documented scope are reconciled, the whole reconstruction package and pricing figures get sent through the insurance company's claims department chain of command — a process that can take months as each level reviews and audits the proposed total figure.
Why Insurers Are Slow
Your insurer is a bureaucracy that is institutionally terrified of getting taken to the cleaners for large amounts of money — because that is what happens when they are not careful. Therefore, your five- or six-figure claim will probably silently be reviewed and approved or adjusted at three to five levels above your adjuster's head before they are permitted to agree to any figure.
Building Permits
Coast can't legally start work without a building permit. We must take our insurer-approved scope of work and have it put into engineered drawings so that the government building permit department can know that what we will do is up to current building code.
What year was your building built? Does it meet the current building code? The building department will insist that it does before we're done. Every building department we work with takes weeks or months to process permit applications — there isn't a permit office we work with that is efficient or convenient. We work to compress this timeline wherever possible, but it is not within our control.
Good news: Coast can frequently get the insurer to agree to pay for engineering plans early on, so that the plan and permit process happens at the same time as the insurance funds approval process. We learned to do this to compress the wait time.
Project Kickoff and How Work Actually Happens
As a general contractor, we self-perform portions of projects and subcontract parts that require their own individual license — plumbing, electrical, drywall, and other trades. Coast performs project management and acts as the single point of coordination, but there are usually multiple companies involved.
Each company is given a scheduled block of time on the project calendar to complete their tasks. Rarely will these people be working on site every day of their calendared block. Most people go to work at their job daily — and some are surprised to learn that contracting is different. Coast and its subcontractors will move staff from one project to another within a scheduled window. They will not normally work 9–5 at every job every day.
That means it is impossible to work on one building start-to-finish — crews are moved around as building materials delivery and calendar allow. Subcontractors may leave a job site for days or weeks at a time. The bigger picture for Coast is whether they are on time for the overall project timeline.
Example: How Drywall Actually Works
Drywall installation happens in two stages: install and screw it to the framing, then stop and wait for inspection. Only then can the mud that covers the screws be applied. The mud must dry before it can be sanded smooth, which triggers another inspection. The drywall crew will therefore come and work on the house in chunks while rotating to other buildings — creating the impression that "nobody's at the house today" over and over. But there is a reason for these gaps, and they are part of the normal project sequence.
The same applies to wiring and plumbing — each trade must have its work inspected in stages. It would be nice if the county building department moved with the urgency of a fast-food counter, but they don't. Therefore, your project calendar has a block of, say, 8 weeks to do work that might actually take 4 weeks of active on-site time. Some things are just beyond your general contractor's control, and we know to account for that upfront.
Payment Timing
Keep in mind that Coast can't collect payment until each stage that triggers a payment is completed. Then we wait weeks or more for the insurer and/or mortgage company to release funds to the building owner, who must let payments clear their bank before they can pay us. Coast is obligated to fund the entire project upfront in this system — this is why you will find us focused on moving funds through the insurer and mortgage company. It takes a lot more time than most people imagine is reasonable, but reality requires that projects work this way.
Project Completion
Coast can't complete the project until our customer is satisfied that the project is done. Expect us to consult you to produce a final punch list of remaining tasks. You can help us by being organized and aware as we go into the final stretch — we want that list completed just as much as you do.
Let's build it back the right way — together. Questions at any point in the process are welcome and expected. An informed customer is a better partner in getting the project done correctly.
Independent Policyholder Resource
United Policyholders is a nonprofit that advocates for insurance policyholders and provides free educational resources for people navigating property claims. We recommend their materials as an independent resource with no affiliation to our company.
United Policyholders — uphelp.org →