When my friend's house caught fire the Red Cross was very helpful in navigating the various agencies involved and providing some emergency clothes etc.
I am sorry. Do you know how badly the house is damaged? If anything I think gift cards are the easiest to use. Her insurance carrier may be able to deposit immediate funds into her checking or savings account to help with temporary living and immediate needs, I know USAA does this.
Those of you who have been through something like this--any idea if the homeowners insurance will pick up the vet bills? Otherwise I want to call and take care of them, but not if it's going to mess up reimbursement.
I am sorry. Do you know how badly the house is damaged? If anything I think gift cards are the easiest to use. Her insurance carrier may be able to deposit immediate funds into her checking or savings account to help with temporary living and immediate needs, I know USAA does this.
It sounds like the main living area is just gutted. There's one room (my sister's office) that seems to have survived. Also the garage, which was an addition.
Those of you who have been through something like this--any idea if the homeowners insurance will pick up the vet bills? Otherwise I want to call and take care of them, but not if it's going to mess up reimbursement.
I don't think my insurance covered the vet. Paying the the bills did not screw up the reimbursements. I just kept my receipts.
So sorry about the pets. I remember being so relieved when I found Joe Bunny after I came back and saw my house. I saw the house, and ran screaming his name until finally I found him, like a deranged lunatic. I can only imagine how your sister feels.
The local paper also has the fire as their headline, with pictures of both the cat and the dog outside and burned. I am doing everything in my power to get them taken down before my sister sees them like that.
My family lost everything in a house fire when I was young. My mom has said on numerous occasions that what helped/what she appreciated the most was the offers to watch my brothers and I while here and my dad dealt with insurance/replaced our belongings.
The local paper also has the fire as their headline, with pictures of both the cat and the dog outside and burned. I am doing everything in my power to get them taken down before my sister sees them like that.
I would be on the phone and calling the press office about it. That is absolutely awful!
I am sorry. Do you know how badly the house is damaged? If anything I think gift cards are the easiest to use. Her insurance carrier may be able to deposit immediate funds into her checking or savings account to help with temporary living and immediate needs, I know USAA does this.
It sounds like the main living area is just gutted. There's one room (my sister's office) that seems to have survived. Also the garage, which was an addition.
At least this is promising. At lot of important papers and such might still be intact?
I lost my house last summer. If you have any questions at all about the process, please feel free to PM me.
Beyond the grief your sister will feel about losing her pets and her things, she will spend literally hundreds of hours dealing with the insurance company. I would strongly advise her to hire an independent content consulting company. We paid $6500 for ours, and they literally spent an entire week sorting through, categorizing, and placing a value on all of our belongings. I'm talking a list of every single book we owned, all of our clothing, every plate in the kitchen, etc. Our insurance company originally only offered us about 60 percent of our policy limit for contents, which wouldn't have come close to replacing all of our things. By hiring the consultants, we received our policy limit for our contents -- best $6500 I have ever spent.
Their insurance company will probably also want to hire a content restoration company. This is a company that will come in and retrieve items from the home that they believe they can clean and restore to their original condition. Your sister SHOULD NOT let them take things without looking at them first. This is a big mistake I made. I gave them some guidelines about what I'd want them to look for and take, but I didn't look at the items before I took them. We ended up with a bill for $10,000 for cleaning/restoring items that would probably have cost less than $1,000 to replace. For example, they went through my recycling bin in my garage and pulled out magazines (THAT WERE GOING TO BE THROWN AWAY) and cleaned those. And then charged me for it.
I would think that her insurance company would take care of the vet bills, but it would probably be something where she'd have to pay for them and then they'd reimburse her. I think it would be very kind of you to take care of them for her -- just save the receipt so she can turn it into the insurance company.
Things you can do to help: Does your nephew have a special lovie/blanket? If you know what it looks like, have one overnighted to them. Do you know what sizes your sister wears? Send her some clothes. It seems like it would be fun to shop for a whole new wardrobe, but it is incredibly overwhelming. Makeup, too -- there's so much to do/buy at the beginning that things like makeup get pushed to the side, but it makes you feel so much better to have something normal like that. The insurance company will pay for them to stay at a hotel, but probably won't pay for food, so restaurant gift cards would be very helpful. Get her a massage gift certificate! I had a 90 minute massage the week after my fire, and it was like heaven. I was so, so stressed, and not having to think about things for just a little while would so nice.
I'll post here or PM you if I think of anything else, and PLEASE let me know if I can offer you any advice.
Post by theintended on Sept 18, 2013 19:37:29 GMT -5
I'm sorry. How terrible. : (
I know people are often divided about stuff like this, but what about setting up a crowd-sourced fundraising page for them? A friend of a friend lost her house last year, and I was happy to make an anonymous donation in a situation where I might not have otherwise helped out.
Thank you so much skib. I already ordered a replacement lovey from eBay (and emailed the person hoping to overnight it). This is very helpful advice and I really appreciate it.
I am so sorry to hear about the fire and the loss of kitty and dog! We had a fire in my family home and luckily no one was hurt but it is very hard. Perhaps after everything settles down a little bit you could also do some sort of memorial stone or other tribute to the pets.
The local paper also has the fire as their headline, with pictures of both the cat and the dog outside and burned. I am doing everything in my power to get them taken down before my sister sees them like that.
I'm so sorry. Glad your sister has a support system. Any luck in getting them to remove the photos?
I lost my house last summer. If you have any questions at all about the process, please feel free to PM me.
Beyond the grief your sister will feel about losing her pets and her things, she will spend literally hundreds of hours dealing with the insurance company. I would strongly advise her to hire an independent content consulting company. We paid $6500 for ours, and they literally spent an entire week sorting through, categorizing, and placing a value on all of our belongings. I'm talking a list of every single book we owned, all of our clothing, every plate in the kitchen, etc. Our insurance company originally only offered us about 60 percent of our policy limit for contents, which wouldn't have come close to replacing all of our things. By hiring the consultants, we received our policy limit for our contents -- best $6500 I have ever spent.
Their insurance company will probably also want to hire a content restoration company. This is a company that will come in and retrieve items from the home that they believe they can clean and restore to their original condition. Your sister SHOULD NOT let them take things without looking at them first. This is a big mistake I made. I gave them some guidelines about what I'd want them to look for and take, but I didn't look at the items before I took them. We ended up with a bill for $10,000 for cleaning/restoring items that would probably have cost less than $1,000 to replace. For example, they went through my recycling bin in my garage and pulled out magazines (THAT WERE GOING TO BE THROWN AWAY) and cleaned those. And then charged me for it.
I would think that her insurance company would take care of the vet bills, but it would probably be something where she'd have to pay for them and then they'd reimburse her. I think it would be very kind of you to take care of them for her -- just save the receipt so she can turn it into the insurance company.
Things you can do to help: Does your nephew have a special lovie/blanket? If you know what it looks like, have one overnighted to them. Do you know what sizes your sister wears? Send her some clothes. It seems like it would be fun to shop for a whole new wardrobe, but it is incredibly overwhelming. Makeup, too -- there's so much to do/buy at the beginning that things like makeup get pushed to the side, but it makes you feel so much better to have something normal like that. The insurance company will pay for them to stay at a hotel, but probably won't pay for food, so restaurant gift cards would be very helpful. Get her a massage gift certificate! I had a 90 minute massage the week after my fire, and it was like heaven. I was so, so stressed, and not having to think about things for just a little while would so nice.
I'll post here or PM you if I think of anything else, and PLEASE let me know if I can offer you any advice.
Do you have any idea ...how do I phrase this...say insurance would have given you x...and with the independent consult company you got y. IS the difference between x and y Greater than 6500?
Sorry, jennistarr1, I'm on my iPad and can't quote for some reason. The difference between what the insurance company would have paid originally and what they paid us based on what the content consultants' inventory showed was about $55,000. So in our case it was well worth it. It wouldn't be in every situation, but its something I'd strongly advise at least looking into.
The local paper also has the fire as their headline, with pictures of both the cat and the dog outside and burned. I am doing everything in my power to get them taken down before my sister sees them like that.
I'm so sorry. Glad your sister has a support system. Any luck in getting them to remove the photos?
No luck unfortunately. Despite some great help from some MMers bringing the shame, as well as locals. The editor finally did write my husband a very dick email back.
I'm moving on. The only thing worse than the pictures existing is me elevating them to a shitstorm. But seriously I'm seething. It's disgusting.
I'm so sorry. Glad your sister has a support system. Any luck in getting them to remove the photos?
No luck unfortunately. Despite some great help from some MMers bringing the shame, as well as locals. The editor finally did write my husband a very dick email back.
I'm moving on. The only thing worse than the pictures existing is me elevating them to a shitstorm. But seriously I'm seething. It's disgusting.
I'm sorry.
I hope he never has any pets. the animals and your sister deserve better.