A very tough lesson learned...a must read

I came across this thread called "Household insurance - large scale claims." over at DWC. It goes through one of its members (Rick - aka "meta4ick") experiences through an insurance claim on the total loss of his house and contents. It was well thought out and VERY informational.

If you read one more post today...make it this one!!!!

http://www.thedivewatchconnection.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2011

Thanks for the link, Mark. Really important information.

Man that sux...

...insurance is a necessary EVIL!

WoW...thanks for the heads up Mark...I am going to forward this to my wife....Taking pics of the whole entire house is a great idea and I will be doing that asap.

andrema wrote:

If you read one more post today...make it this one!!!!

. . . that is the truth!!! Thanx Mark . . .

Anomaly wrote:

Man that sux...

...insurance is a necessary EVIL!

One of those things that you want the best of but NEVER want to have to actually use!!

cski wrote:

Anomaly wrote:

Man that sux...

...insurance is a necessary EVIL!

One of those things that you want the best of but NEVER want to have to actually use!!

Just like getting an umbrella policy if you have teenagers...you don't want them to get in trouble where personal liability is involved, you could lose your house! If you can afford it, get it!!!!

This guy knows what he is talking about. We had a devastating fire in 1998.
We lost everything we owned. Thank God my children were NOT home when it started.
Everyone was safe except for our ten year old siamese and my son's boa.
We had no clothes except those on our backs.....my wife ran out of the house without shoes.
Our neighbor gave Tammy an old pair of shoes to wear. I can't explain the feeling of standing
outside in the cold watching your house burn to the ground.
For the next week and 1/2, my wife and I had to list everything that we owned that was in the house...
t-shirts, underwear, socks, aspirin, soap, cd's,records,dvd's EVERYTHING and then try to put some value on these items. It's was horrendous.
So, please take this guys advice and take pictures or movies of everything and put it in a safe deposit
box or someplace safe.

Great great advice. We have most of our stuff photographed and the memory card at a safety deposit box at the bank and a back up of the info online stored on one of my hosting accounts (never know when a storage card will fail, lol)

The ONLY reason we already have these pictures done is that a good friend of ours had their house burn down and they got F-ed in the insurance process. Sure they got a lot of money and rebuilt, but the incredible stress of fighting with THEIR insurance company almost broke up their relationship/family. Let me state that again so you read it - no one was hurt in the fire and they were fine after it, BUT THE MONTHS AND MONTHS OF STRESS directly associated with dealing with the insurance companies literally almost broke them up permanently. I remember it well. Their advice then was similar to the article posted - have back up records or pictures of everything - because remember - for most of us all of the receipts, tax returns, credit card statements, etc etc etc - WILL HAVE BURNED.

Great post.

THANKS for posting this! There's some really good info in that. There are things that I wouldn't have thought of!

What a terrible story and stories everyone !
However, alot of good insight here ! Thanks !

Rick's post was invaluable to many of us I'm sure. It certainly made me think about what I need to get in order!