Hurricane Victims Settle Up : Insurance: Many homeowners are finding out that they aren’t covered as much as they had thought.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. —  The waters have subsided. Now comes the day of reckoning.

Two weeks after Hurricane Andrew plowed through south Florida, many stricken homeowners are finding out this weekend how much their insurance companies are willing to pay on claims for their damaged homes.

Homeowners have both yearned for the moment and dreaded it. For some, it has chilled relationships that were bearhug-friendly only a few days ago, when the insurers were doling out as much as $3,000 a family for temporary expenses.

“Everybody was happy and grateful for that first contact with the company,” said Jack Cook, a 32-year-old Homestead homeowner. “Now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty.”

The event was heralded with appropriate flourish early Saturday, when a motorcade of 550 State Farm insurance vehicles, escorted by 20 police officers, roared down the Florida Turnpike on a weekend “blitz” to settle as many claims as possible. South Dade County already has witnessed the motorcades of politicians and publicity-seekers from President Bush on down, but this was by the far the biggest--and to many, the most important.

Thousands of homeowners have been virtual prisoners in their unlit, drafty, mildewing homes waiting for insurance agents to give them cash and clearance to hire contractors.

This is also a moment of high drama for the insurance companies and their armies of adjusters who are risking heat stroke and blisters pounding the area’s debris-strewn pavements.

The industry’s payout--estimated at $7.3 billion and probably increasing--will be the biggest ever. And if all does not go smoothly, some companies may receive a scalding of bad publicity that is long remembered.

Now, for the first time, homeowners are finding out what was in the small type of their policies. Some are not pleased.

Roger Gilley, a Homestead veterinarian, was confident when the storm hit that he had over-insured his house. But this weekend, his adjuster told him that he probably would receive about $50,000 for a property he believes he could have sold before the storm for $75,000.

While about one-third of the roof was blown off his three-bedroom, two-bath home, its foundation was intact, the insurance man said. As a result, Gilley will not be paid up to his coverage limit, and he must rebuild, although the $50,000 is not likely to cover the cost, he said.

For others, the greatest source of grief was discovering that their policies do not cover the loss of trees and shrubs. Insurers take the view that in hurricane-prone Florida, outdoor plant life is not a bet but a sure loss. So they will not cover it.

This was harsh news to Ruth and Jack Stepp, who lived in Illinois until they retired. They had perhaps $20,000 invested in a half acre of gardens planted next to their house. The trees--both ordinary and exotic--were as high as 25 feet fall.

The couple had sold fruit and striplings from the trees to raise money for a 30-person church, Victory Christian Center, which they had helped start in a storefront.

“He looked on those trees just like people,” Ruth Stepp said of her husband, as he labored behind her to clear broken limbs. “He gets the blues. He looks out the window and says: ‘What’s the use of trying to have anything nice?’ ”

Even if they had money, it would be expensive to replace the garden. The wholesale destruction of plant life has driven the price of young coconut palms from about $20 to about $200.

Some of the angriest residents are those who have not been contacted at all.

Standing on their roofs, hammers and tar paper in hand, Jose DeAlmagro and his wife, warily watched a stranger cross the lawn toward them.

“Are you the man from State Farm?” he asked. When the answer was negative, his wife shot back: “Then we don’t want to talk to you.”

DeAlmagro recounted his many unavailing efforts to get someone to visit his house or to talk to him in detail over the phone. “As soon as this is over, we’re going to change companies, believe me,” he said.

But many others have pronounced themselves satisfied with their settlements.

“They’ve treated me real nice,” said Juan Flores, of Homestead, a State Farm policyholder. “They told me to get an estimate and they said that if it was higher than their estimate, I could come back to them.”

Some said their insurers have waived the usual requirement that they provide documentation of their destroyed personal property and its cost.

Most complaints have concerned the difficulty of getting through to agents and of getting agents to homeowners’ properties, said Tom Gallagher, the Florida insurance commissioner.

“Inevitably, you’re going to have people who don’t feel they’re getting all that they deserve,” he said.