MONCTON – A Moncton man is urging skiers to be cautious where they store their skiing equipment, following Poley Mountain’s fire last week.
Chris Leger says he lost thousands of dollars worth of his family’s equipment in the blaze, including a full set of skis, bindings, poles, boots and helmet, as well as a snowboard.
“It’s just not something you’re going to anticipate is going to happen,” he said.
But he says getting help to cover the loss has been an uphill battle.
Leger says he called his home insurance broker for help but his answer wasn’t encouraging.
“He indicated that there would be a large deductible if we went through our home insurance of $1000. Plus, our rates would go up. So, he suggested we contact Poley Mountain to see what they could do,” he said, noting he called Poley Mountain for help but staff couldn’t do anything for them.
“By not reaching out to those customers I think they’re missing an opportunity to really engage with their customers and work out some sort of compromise or solution where everybody wins,” he said.
Jamie Hare speaks for the ski hill and says there were at least 130 storage lockers on site.
But Hare says people should have been aware of the risks of storing equipment on-site long term.
“We have signage that when you place equipment in your lockers, it’s at your own risk,” he said.
He says staff are aware of several people who have said they lost equipment in the fire for now, management is focusing on reopening the hill and getting people back to work before the new year.
“We’re advising people to contact their own homeowners’ insurance as our insurance company has advised us that we could not insure something that was not ours,” he said.
Meanwhile, Leger says his family will continue to ski at Poley Mountain, but will start bringing their equipment home again.
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