Photos, private expert reports and patience: what those affected by other natural disasters learned to deal with insurance and aid

Fátima and her husband contemplate with horror, like so many people, the images of desolation that the DANA has left as it passes through the Valencian Community and areas of Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia and Catalonia. “He watched television and told me that he couldn’t watch them, because he was reliving what happened to us,” she remembers. On Sunday, September 19, 2021, they had to leave their home due to the volcanic eruption in Cumbre Vieja. “We lost everything, but unlike Valencia, lives were not lost,” he consoles himself.

Families who have suffered in their own homes the consequences of a catastrophe like the one that occurred these days cannot help but remember experiences shared by some of those affected by the storm. “I lived the same thing and you never forget that in life,” says Carlos. Just over 150 kilometers from ground zero of the catastrophe, another Dana devastated the Vega Baja del Segura and claimed six lives in 2019. “I was in my room when I saw the water through the window. These are things that you don’t even think could happen,” acknowledges this resident of Orihuela.

After mourning the deceased, 215 according to the last update, and finding the missing, the tens of thousands of families affected by the floods will have to face the arduous task of trying to regain normality. And this involves, in many cases, recovering their homes. “It’s not what people want to hear, but the first piece of advice is to be patient,” says lawyer Dulce García, who was in charge of advising those affected by the La Palma volcano.

The first payment to cover these expenses is usually made by the Insurance Compensation Consortium, the public entity dependent on the Ministry of Economy in charge of dealing with damages caused by natural phenomena for those people who have taken out a policy. According to the latest data released by the department headed by Carlos Body, this Tuesday the Consortium has received more than 70,000 applications, 44,000 of them for automobiles, of which around 40% are already being processed. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that the organization would begin to pay the first compensation to those families who have lost their vehicle this Wednesday and that it would increase the assessment by 20%. “Having a car is essential to recover normality,” he said.

According to the Consortium’s estimate, the cost of compensation will amount to 3.5 billion euros. It is the greatest damage, in economic terms, that Spain has faced as a result of a natural disaster, above the floods in Euskadi, Cantabria and Navarra in August 1983, which amounted to 948 million euros, adjusted for inflation. To give an idea of ​​the magnitude of the problem, until 2022, the floods had cost the Consortium 7,000 million.

“The immediate reaction is to throw everything away, but when you have to file a claim, what did you have in your house?” says Carlos, who is a lawyer and recommends, as far as possible, trying to keep the damaged objects and Take photos and videos of everything to contribute to the file. “We did the best we could, but I know neighbors with houses similar to mine who didn’t even get 10%,” he laments. Both he and García recommend carrying out a private assessment of the damage, a task in which municipalities can help. “In La Palma, the El Paso City Council hired surveyors to carry out the valuations. They are aids that you don’t think about at first, but in the long run they make people’s lives easier,” explains the lawyer.

This same Tuesday, the College of Surveyors of Madrid has requested the General Council of Technical Architecture of Spain (CGATE) to lead and coordinate all the technical help that the different colleges have offered to provide to those affected by the floods.

Aid for DANA

The Government has also announced an additional package of measures for an amount of 10.6 billion euros, with aid of between 20,000 and 60,000 euros for home repairs and a subsidy of up to 10,300 for the recovery of furniture, appliances and other belongings. And for this it is also important to have all the possible information to contribute to the file or your own expert opinion. For the moment, the Consortium has mobilized 495 experts who will assess the damage. These amounts are complementary to those of the Consortium itself and the sum cannot exceed the damage caused. The 60,480 euros will be delivered for the total destruction of the habitual residence; If there is damage that affects the structure, it will be 41,280 euros; and if there are damages that do not affect the structure, the aid will be 20,640 euros.

In the Canary Islands, Fátima received 60,000 euros after having lost her house and another 30,000 from the autonomous community, but the sources consulted agree that the case of Valencia will be different. “It is not the same as lava burying your house to assessing the damage that water can cause,” says García, who remembers that, in any case, no matter how fast it is, the times are always slower than what is expected. those affected would like. “The aid does not arrive the next day, it took months. The first ones from the State arrived on December 31, three months after the eruption, explains the affected person, who points out that some affected people have not yet received them. The Government has announced that it will streamline the procedures of notaries and property registries, to facilitate the procedures.

“In Orihuela there were several rounds of expert reports. Some people had been appraised and paid even before others were appraised. In our case, the DANA was in September and it arrived in February or March of the following year,” explains Carlos. At that time, the Valencian Community also complemented the State aid and the Consortium’s compensation. To facilitate the procedures, the Botànic assumed that if a home had been flooded, its occupants would have lost basic belongings, such as appliances and furniture, and enabled a service in the registry of the municipality’s PROP office to advise residents and process the requests.

Lessons learned from the Lorca earthquake

In the chapter of lessons learned, the residents of Lorca remember how, four years after the two earthquakes that claimed the lives of 9 people and left 325 injured in 2011, a bureaucratic nightmare arrived. “The problem came when the Consortium’s compensation was made compatible with the public aid that was approved by royal decree and by the decrees that the administrations approved for those who did not have insurance or it was insufficient,” explains Gloria Martín, the coordinator of the Platform of Affected by the Lorca Earthquake Aid.

The problem was that these aids were finalists, for very specific repairs reflected in the expert reports. “People used the money as best they could and four years later they had to justify the expenses and present the invoices or return the aid with late payment interest and surcharges, when they no longer had that money, which they had used to fix their houses” explains Martín, who was an IU councilor in the City Council. For this reason, it demands that administrations “simplify the technical language, that the information is correct and that there are help offices with highly trained personnel.”

Finally, thanks to the mobilizations and pressure of those affected, the regional parliament approved a rule that simplified the justification procedure with a technical inspection. “5,300 families were affected by this massive refund procedure. One family can make mistakes, 50 families can make mistakes. 5,300, no,” says Martín.

Lawyer Dulce García gives another series of advice to those affected with a mortgage linked to insurance in which, on many occasions, the bank itself appears as the beneficiary: “It is an abusive clause that cannot be applied. The insured person is the insured person and the beneficiary of the insurance is that person. If the bank wanted insurance to cover itself, it would have taken out credit payment guarantee insurance. In these cases, the recommendation is to present a document to the bank in which you do not authorize the payment in installments or any withholding at the time you activate the insurance.

In addition, it demands that the administrations collaborate to make things easier for the affected citizens. “When there is interest, they can share information and synchronize. It is possible, because it was done in La Palma,” he acknowledges. And he recommends that neighbors who do not have insurance, which is what the Consortium will cover, do so now. These policies do not cover the first seven days, but they do cover the following ones, so they could compensate for hypothetical damage caused by debris removal work or new rains.