Windstorm association reverses course on Harvey claim

Bait shop owner’s policy application had wrong address.

On Thursday, Mary Ann Heiman was at the site of her Port Aransas bait shop, which nine months ago had been flattened when Hurricane Harvey roared across the causeway. Nothing had remained after the Category 4 winds passed.

But Thursday was a good day. “Right now, they’re pouring my foundation,” she said. “I’ve waited a long time to see this.”

Until recently, it seemed as though this day might not come at all. Heiman’s application for a loan from the federal Small Business Administration had gotten hung up in endless tangles of red tape. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association had denied her claim, even though she had purchased a policy covering $60,000 worth of coolers and other equipment needed to sell the shrimp, mullet and other bait that anglers deploy in their pursuit of the Texas coast’s rich lode of redfish, trout and drum.

The loan finally arrived, though. Two days after the American-Statesman profiled Heiman’s battle with the windstorm association, she said, an administrator called her to apologize. She received what she described as “a fair and equitable” check last week.

There was no argument that Heiman had purchased a policy for her Offshore Adventures business. She had paid $679 to the windstorm association — known as TWIA — for coverage a month before Harvey hit. An adjuster

AMANDA VOISARD / AMERICAN-STATESMAN Hurricane Harvey destroyed Mary Ann Heiman’s Port Aransas bait shop last year. Her claim was denied because her insurance agent had mistakenly transposed two numbers of the property address on her policy application.