Santa Fe family struggles with insurance company after plane destroys home

SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – Just a little more than a year after a plane crashed into her home , a Santa Fe resident is still trying to put pieces of her life back together.

“We literally lost everything,” said Miquella Benavidez, the owner of the destroyed home. “I just don’t know, I feel – I guess, kind of, displaced still. Uncertain of what’s going to happen.”

Following the crash , Benavidez said she tried desperately to get the American International Group (AIG), one of the world’s largest insurers and the plane’s insurer, to cover the damages. However, after months of speaking with them, she said they would not budge.

“I just kept going round and round with the insurance company,” Benavidez explained. “They wanted to give me a small percentage of what I was asking, and it wasn’t enough to make me whole again and to replace everything.”

Benavidez said she’s had to buy new furniture, move into a new place, and replace all of her family’s belongings since the crash, with some items being irreplaceable. Now, she’s going to court to get the insurance company to pay up.

“You have insurance so that people, who are hurt as a result of your negligence, can be made whole, and when the insurance company refuses to do that, it’s exacerbating the hardship that the family is facing,” said Brian Egolf, the attorney representing Benavidez.

Egolf said his firm has tried to work with AIG on finding some form of compromise.

“There was a series of back and forth with AIG, and their response to us was go pound sand,” Egolf added.

Egolf said a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) supports their conclusion, that it was a pilot error that led to the crash. Benavidez said since the crash, she’s still receiving support from those around.

“I wanna build the best life I can for them and get things back to normal for me and my family, so that’s probably the one thing that’s holding me together,” Benavidez said.

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