The head of an insurance company charged with paying back Connecticut homeowners with crumbling foundations says state funds are short – by a wide margin.
Michael Maglaras heads a company set up by state lawmakers to help people whose homes were built with faulty concrete containing the mineral pyrrhotite. There’s about $133 million in their fund, mostly from state bonds. Maglaras says that’ll cover the repairs for 600 or 700 homes.
“There’s fairly good evidence that we have between 5,000 and 9,000 homes that are, if you will, infected by the pyrrhotite that are in the aggregate mix of this concrete that was put into these foundations...With the funding that we have, and that we know we have committed to us contractually, by any estimate we simply don’t have enough.””
Some estimates put the number of homes affected as high as 35,000. That could put the total cost in the billions.
The company is expected to start cutting checks by December 1. Maglaras says he hopes in the future to get funding from federal agencies like HUD and FEMA.
