Repairs at the school pool are done save a last hot tub fix, but insurance has been balking at covering the full cost of the damages. “They keep saying, ‘it’s waterproof,’” district …
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Repairs at the school pool are done save a last hot tub fix, but insurance has been balking at covering the full cost of the damages.
“They keep saying, ‘it’s waterproof,’” district superintendent Jeff Koenig shared at the most recent school board meeting of the battle the district is having with pool insurance. So far, the insurance company has paid $85,000 in repair costs, far below the $186,440.80 pool loss the district has suffered to date.
“At this point it doesn’t look like they’re going to pay for much more,” Koenig said of the insurance company, as he said district legal counsel agreed that the district had a case. Included in the pool repairs were several upgrades or replacements of equipment past its service life for the pool built at the turn of the century. Koenig asked the board members if they wanted to pursue legal action.
“My question to you is how far do you want me to pursue this?” he asked, saying that the district wouldn’t actually enter into the legal process without board discussion. Among the points at issue are plastic doors with a cardboard center, waterproof in the best of times, but not when submerged in harsh chemicals.
“You touch it and they just crumble,” Koenig said of former basement doors the district keeps on hand as partial evidence of the damages. There was a catch to choosing the legal route though.
“It might be very costly for us and we might not win,” he told the school board. “Both the legal counsels we use are very, very good. The insurance company’s legal counsel is very, very good.” Board member Lance Carlson asked for a cost estimate for legal services, and Koenig said they were paid by the hour. “No estimate,” he said. Carlson then raised the prospect that if the school board sued and lost it would be out even more money than at present. Jeff Boie had his own input to offer on pool insurance.
“We pay them a lot of money, and how much have we used it in my lifetime?” he asked. “I mean, really?” At present the district’s legal team was said to be drawing up papers on the matter.
