Personal resilience begins at home when planning for recovery.
Every year, our nation’s communities experience a wide range of natural and man-made disasters that cause multitudes of individuals and families to lose their homes and personal property. Whether it’s a major disaster like a tornado, wildfire, or hurricane, or a smaller, everyday event like a house fire or a pipe burst, disasters happen often and when you do. , you should be able to answer the most common questions. disaster question – “What do I do now?”
When first responders leave the scene of a disaster, survivors are often left alone to face the daunting task of navigating through the recovery process. For those who have lost their home or who have been displaced, this can be the beginning of a nightmare, especially if they have not prepared or planned for recovery in advance. The days, weeks, and months that follow a disaster require planning, perseverance, and a lot of patience. Otherwise, the state of chaos created by a disaster, coupled with a lack of knowledge about what to do next, can easily transform a disaster survivor into a disaster victim.
What about all my stuff?
An element of the recovery process that is rarely discussed, but which tends to be one of the most difficult tasks a disaster survivor will face, is creating an inventory of all personal belongings that have been damaged or destroyed. Let’s say your house was hit by a tornado and when you come out of the storm cellar all you see is a bare concrete slab with a toilet in the middle. His yard is littered with debris from his neighbors down the street and he has no idea where his 20-plus years of accumulation went, except for the pair of underwear hanging in the tree across the street. You will call your insurance company and a couple of days later your adjuster will appear and inform you that in order for you to receive the full benefits of your insurance coverage, you will need to provide a detailed inventory of everything you owned, including a description of each item, its age, replacement cost, and any supporting documentation you may have in the form of photos or receipts. You are then given a stack of blank inventory sheets and a pen and told that you only have a limited amount of time to turn it in. So what do you do now?
Great ideas for creating your personal inventory!
Imagine trying to remember everything you had at home when you don’t have photos, receipts, or mementos. On the one hand, you don’t want to commit insurance fraud by claiming items in your inventory that you’re not sure you have, and on the other, you have a considerable amount of replacement coverage on the policy you bought to cover everything that was lost.
This is where the challenge begins. To embark on this endeavor, you will need to have a clear mindset, a lot of time, and a lot of support (most of which may be in short supply).
One way to accomplish this task is to try to visualize what you had room by room and ask your friends or family if they have photos that may have been taken at your home during a gathering, party, or family gathering during the holidays. Often times, photos like these can reveal furniture, decor, or other items in the background that will help jog your memory.
Consult store catalogs or online stores for another helpful resource. Keep in mind that this process can take a long time to get to the level of detail you will need to get the full benefits of your insurance. Consider the process for completing an inventory of the contents of your kitchen. If you’re like most, you can write down the obvious items like appliances, silverware, utensils, cookware, and silverware and think that the smaller items just aren’t worth the time or energy to deal with. But what about the food that was in the fridge, freezer and pantry, wine, vitamins, supplements, spices, cookbooks, cleaning supplies under the sink, hand utensils, things in the garbage can, CDs, phone chargers, batteries, gifts? cards, paper products, pet supplies, tools, etc. You paid a lot of hard earned money for these items and these little things add up quickly. Try to include everything in your inventory.
Try a Google search for “personal property inventory.” You will find many forms, tips, and resources online that have been designed specifically for your home inventory. Also look for “recovery stories” from disaster survivors. You can’t pay for the kind of advice and examples that come from those who have already walked the path you are on. However, keep in mind that everyone will have a unique experience and just because a story was a nightmare doesn’t mean it will happen to you. The more you know, the better you can control how your story will unfold.
The challenge here is how long it takes to try and remember everything you had and add details for all the smaller items when you have so many other pressing matters that are consuming your time. But look at it this way, if you were walking down the street and you saw a bunch of $ 5, $ 10, and $ 20 bills lying around, wouldn’t you take the time to pick them up? Of course you would.
The conclusion is the following; If you want to fully recoup your maximum insurance benefits and speed up the recovery process so that you can rebuild your life, then you should take the time to write down the details on paper and use the tools available to you to help you accomplish this task.