Lincoln Businesses Still Waiting On Insurance Payments After Rail Fire

LINCOLN (CBS13) -- A propane fire that rocked the city of Lincoln months ago continues to cause economic pain for business owners there.

Now they're threatening to file a class-action lawsuit against Northern Energy Propane.

Northern Energy's rail car fire sparked more than a nearly three-day inferno. It's now created a three-month battle for business owners to fight for what they say the propane company promised them

The owner of Kim's Country Kitchen, just one of 5,000 businesses and people forced to evacuate, says she lost roughly $10,000 because of the shutdown.

Her call to evacuate came doing a lunch rush.

"We had a lot of stuff on the stove," Kim Strong told CBS13's Maria Medina. "Every table had food on it."

But as soon as the evacuation was lifted Northern Energy gave them a hotline to call to send in claims, report the profit lost and then wait for the insurance company -- Koning and Associates -- to call back.

It seemed pretty easy.

And then you didn't hear from them and you didn't hear from them and then weeks go by," Kim said.

CBS13 did not get a call from Koning and Associates but we did get a call from the spokesperson of Northern Energy. While she wouldn't release the number of claims that have been filed, she said two-thirds of them have been paid. We asked them for a specific business that's gotten a check, but she said she needed more time to come up with that information.

Tom Jones calculated a loss of $1,000. He says he's sent three emails and made to calls to his adjuster.

"We haven't heard anything," Jones said.

Tom was able to simply open up his picture frame business after the fire. Kim spent a fourth day closed for business...throwing out bad food and waiting for deliveries. Now she wants Northern Energy to deliver on its promise.

"And these people are just hardworking people and it's not fair," she said of affected businesses.

Kim says Koning and Associates only agreed to pay for less than half of what she claims and when she and her husband threatened to file a class-action lawsuit the insurance adjuster replied: "Do what you gotta do."

The Northern Energy spokesperson says she plans to contact Koning and Associates after CBS13 told her the insurance company wasn't getting back to business owners.

The cause of the rail car fire remains under investigation.