Business Of Disaster: Insurance Firms Profited $400 Million After Sandy

This story is Part 1 of a two-part series. See our second piece about local recovery programs that are struggling to help homeowners here.

On a cold rainy day last fall, dozens of people gathered in a plaza across the street from New Jersey's state Capitol. They held press conferences and slept overnight in lawn chairs.

Everyone had come to make the same point: They'd made it through Superstorm Sandy, which hit the shores of New Jersey and New York in October 2012. But three years later, many hadn't made it home.

Doug Quinn, a 51-year-old from Toms River, N.J., had been in the plaza for two days.

"I should be at home in my house and part of my community and instead I'm here doing this," said Quinn. "I thought it'll be all right; my insurance will take care of what needs to be taken care of and I'll be back home in three to four months. It's [been] three years and I'm still not anywhere close. I look back now and think how naive I was."

More