Life After The Fire Continues

It has now been just about three months since the fire happened.  Life is nowhere near normal, and dealing with adjusters, cleaning crews, and builders is enough to drive anyone insane.  Having a house fire gives whole new meaning to being organized.  The best advice I can give anyone, is to purchase a 12 pocket folder, which you can purchase for as little as $5.82.  You need to make sure you have documentation of everything! 

Now when the fire occurred, my family was devastated.  We all realize that the fire could have been much worse than it was, however, any house fire is devastating.  The adjusters that come out to your house will promise you everything, they will make it sound as if everything will be fine, and not to worry about a thing.  Do Not Listen To This!  There are many things that they don't tell you, or simply just neglect to tell you. 

They will tell you to rent an apartment or house, to rent furniture etc.  Now right off the bat you will most likely need to find a hotel first, at least for the first week or two.  You will be in no shape to make big decisions.  You must let it all sink in, and really hit you.  For me the reality of it all didn't hit me until 2 days later when I woke in a cold sweat at 3am in the hotel.  I am currently in the process of making a detailed house fire checklist and will be posting it for everyone's use.  If I can help just one person it will all be worth it for me.  I am hoping to get my detailed list up in the next couple of days, and will be going more into this in hopes that it may help someone else. 

First and foremost, my wish for everyone reading this post, is to go grab your home owners insurance policy and read the top page.  The top page has all the information that you need to know right now.  It contains vital information on the dollar amounts that you are insured for.  There are 3 sections that you need to know.  You need to know what the amount is for your structure.  For example, if you had a house fire, and your house literally burns to the ground, do you have enough insurance money to have your house rebuilt from the ground up?  Here's a little hint, if you bought your house for 150,000.00 you will need almost double that in insurance for the structure.  Why?  I will simply say, building codes change.  We only had regular fire alarms in the house, and now that those areas need to be rebuilt, fire alarms now must be hard wired into the house.  If you make any upgrades in your house, SAVE your receipts.  Upgrades to your house means that if you have a fire, you may not get reimbursed for those upgrades unless you have enough structure insurance. 

The second area on your policy you need to look at is what are your personal contents insured for?  This is everything you own from clothing to toys to furniture to dishes to food, right down to your stock pile!   If you have antiques of any value in your house, you need to make sure that you have a special rider on your policy to make sure you will be properly reimbursed for those, esp if you have anything that may not be replaceable! 

The third area on that first page is Loss Of  Use Coverage.  This is what you will be reimbursed for lodging meals, pet boarding fees, gas mileage, etc.  How do you know how much you will need?  Do some math.  Plan to board your animals, not that you will have to, but as a just in case scenario.  Call a local boarder, and ask them what their rates are.  Call an extended stay hotel, and find out what their rates are, figure on an extra 50.00 per week in gas for your vehicles.  Figure on family size and how much meals would be, three meals a day.  now multiply that number by at least 6 months.  This is how much Loss Of Use Coverage you will need. 

 If you have pets, I cannot stress enough to make sure you know before hand what local hotels are pet friendly.  Call around if you have some time and plan ahead as a just in case.  Make sure you know what a hotels "Pet Friendly" policy really means.  They vary greatly.  Some hotels will only allow you one pet per room, while others are only cat friendly or only dog friendly.  And still others have a 40 lb dog limit.  Now anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis knows, my dogs are each WELL over 40 lbs.  My lab weighs in at 100 lbs, and my English Mastiff was weighing in at 204 lbs.  My pets were in the fire, so they were extremely distraught, and when you litterally pull them out of the house and toss them into a car so they will be safe while firefighters are trying to put out the fire, you forget to realize the trauma that they go through.  My Mastiff, Boon, lost almost 50 lbs in a weeks time after the fire.