Laboratory offers insurance information for Cerro Grande survivors

Contact: Judy Goldie, goldie@lanl.gov, (505) 665-0297 (00-094)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 7, 2000 -- The Ombuds Program Office of the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory will offer advice on insurance issues to people affected by the fire at a luncheon meeting on Thursday, July 13.

The meeting, the third in an ongoing series, is from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Los Alamos' Physics Building Auditorium. The brown bag lunch sessions are open to the public but are geared to fire survivors. Each meeting has a specific topic and a subject-matter expert to provide information.

Peter Romero, a licensed independent public adjuster, will be the guest speaker for the meeting. The workshop includes discussions on working with the Internal Revenue Service and the federal government to offset most unrecovered insured and uninsured losses with tax deductions, how survivors may spend recovery money without tax consequences and possible recovery from the federal government of unrecovered losses.

Romero also will provide information on how to deal with insurance representatives to improve recovery from insurance policies, including information not shown on individual policies. Examples include costs of architectural and engineering services and how to retroactively reform and remove the fixed limits of coverage that cause individuals to be underinsured.

Other topics include how the local survivor group can share information and promote further recovery and the role of the licensed independent public adjuster.

In the first brown bag session Tom Locke, director of Los Alamos' Employee Assistance Program addressed coming back to work, coping skills, how co-workers can be supportive and how fire victims can let others help.

At the second session, representatives from the Environment, Safety and Health Division talked about Los Alamos' environmental restoration project efforts. The Laboratory's Emergency Rehabilitation Team also provided information about its program to address potential impacts of increased runoff resulting from the fire.

The fourth meeting scheduled for July 17 will focus on the Cerro Grande Assistance bill recently approved by Congress.

For more information, contact the Ombuds Program Office at 665-2837.

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