BRICK – Sen. Robert Menendez had a message Monday for an audience of Sandy survivors skeptical about reopening their flood insurance claims: the process is designed to be both efficient and fair.

“I believe this is an opportunity to get it right this time, and to put money in people’s pockets who deserve it,” said Menendez, D-N.J. He was speaking at a forum sponsored by Legal Services of New Jersey and Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, two groups that offer free legal help to storm victims who are considering whether to participate in the flood insurance review process.

“You deserve an insurance system that works for you. You deserve better,” Menendez told an audience of Sandy survivors and nonprofit employees.

In March, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that 142,000 Sandy victims would get a second chance at making a flood insurance claim if they felt they had been cheated by their flood insurance provider. About 73,000 of those victims live in New Jersey.

The review was ordered by FEMA after evidence emerged of a potentially widespread scheme to fundamentally change the engineering reports that insurance companies rely on to determine if a structural damage claim is paid out.

Reports that blamed the post-Sandy damage on earth movement or house settling were often used to deny coverage.

Possible fraud aside, homeowners on the Shore and elsewhere have complained that they were lowballed by their insurers.

Advocates for property owners caution that chance to get more federal money could have strings attached

TOMS RIVER – Should you hire a lawyer to assist you with a review of your flood-insurance claim?

Three New Jersey groups that are offering free legal counseling for storm victims suggest you speak to them first.

“They don’t need to pay an attorney to do this,” Alayna Berg, a forensic social worker with Legal Services of New Jersey, told Ocean County disaster advocates on June 4. “This is not something that is so scary. There are three organizations that are willing to give information for free. Please try that first.”

Legal Services of NJ will join with the Community Health Law Project and Volunteer Lawyers for Justice to offer a free forum on the National Flood Insurance Program and the review process for flood insurance claims from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 13 at the Toms River Municipal Building, 33 Washington St.

But after more than 2 1/2 years of fighting for more flood insurance money, some Sandy victims don’t believe they’ll get a fair review from FEMA without the help of a lawyer.

Don’t go it alone

George Kasimos, founder of the Sandy watchdog group Stop FEMA Now, believes that Sandy victims are better off hiring a lawyer to represent them.

“I am of the firm belief that you should not go this alone,” Kasimos said. “People who just pick up the phone and do this themselves, I don’t think they will get the maximum they are entitled to.”

In March, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that 142,000 Sandy victims would get a second chance at making a flood insurance claim if they felt they had been cheated by their flood insurance provider. About 73,000 of those victims live in New Jersey.

TRENTON – Superstorm Sandy victims who need temporary housing while their homes are being repaired or elevated will now be able to get up to $1,300 a month for rental assistance.

That’s $475 more than the original monthly limit in the Rental Assistance Program, which was launched in March by the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA). Eligible homeowners can now get up to nine months of rental assistance. There was initially a six-month limit.

Lisa Ryan, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Community Affairs, said HMFA has found that program applicants are facing higher rental costs than originally projected, and that some will be out of their homes for longer periods of time. As a result, the agency decided to raise the amount homeowners can seek each month, and also give three additional months’ help.

“As a result, the Agency decided to make more assistance available for a longer period of time in order to better address the situation” families are actually experiencing, she said.

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 The program has $9.5 million in federal funds to spend. There is no deadline for applications, which will be accepted until all funding is exhausted, Ryan said. All of the money must be spent by Sept. 30, 2015, although the state has a request pending with the federal Office of Management and Budget to extend that deadline.

Additional information, including a program overview, frequently asked questions, and the program application form is available online. Applicants who do not have access to a computer can contact 1-800-NJHOUSE for assistance.

When the program was announced in February, it was welcomed by Sandy recovery advocates.

The majority of requests received by Ocean County’s Long-Term Recovery Group are from homeowners seeking assistance with rental payments while they repair their homes. It’s now more than 30 months after Sandy struck, and many homeowners no longer have the financial resources to pay for a rental while still making mortgage payments on their damaged homes.

Critics call for wide-ranging, structural reforms to ensure problems encountered after Sandy don’t happen again

While that figure represents a marked uptick in progress since the end of last year, when just 330 had completed reconstruction, it amounts to just a fraction of the approximately 8,300 homeowners enrolled in the state’s Rehabilitation, Reconstruction, Elevation and Mitigation Program, or RREM.

“It is welcomed that the number has gone up so much in the first quarter of the year,” said Susan Marticek, executive director of the Ocean County Long-Term Recovery Group, one of several such groups formed after Sandy to help storm victims. “But the reality is, we’re coming up on two years of the program and we still have a long way to go.”

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says he wants to fix what went wrong with the process of paying flood insurance claims following Superstorm Sandy.

Craig Fugate told the first meeting of a congressional task force in Washington on April 28 that the flood program has to be revamped so equal importance is given to paying the full amount of legitimate claims.

“We want to fix this,” Fugate said. “If we owe money, we pay. Too often in government we are focused on not making an overpayment, putting more emphasis on not overpaying a claim. I gotta get it right. How do we get to something that’s more successful and works better the first time?”

New Jersey’s U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat, said the task force will focus on FEMA’s agreement to reopen all underpaid flood insurance claims for Superstorm Sandy victims. He said some of the underpayments were caused by “lowballing and manipulation of engineering and adjustment reports.”

“Getting it right means no overpayments, but it also means no underpayments,” Menendez said. “We have to get it right.”

The task force consists of the four senators from New Jersey and New York, Fugate, Sandy victims and their advocates in both states. It will recommend ways to improve the performance of the flood insurance program.

One of the members is George Kasimos, of Toms River, New Jersey, who formed the grass roots group Stop FEMA Now when FEMA announced that flood insurance rates would soar based on new flood maps it issued two months after the October 2012 storm.