In this episode of Fix It Radio, the hosts tackle a crucial topic: preparedness for disasters like wildfires and the importance of insurance coverage. Learn valuable tips on creating a comprehensive home inventory, ensuring proper policy coverage, and avoiding the pitfalls of underinsurance. From video documentation to the nuances of renter’s insurance, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you protect your assets and stay prepared. Plus, insights on how policy changes may affect you and why a good relationship with an agent is key.
SPEAKER 01 :
Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright?
SPEAKER 03 :
In the floor behind the chair. This is America.
SPEAKER 01 :
Does everybody know what time it is? Fix It Radio.
SPEAKER 10 :
and it is that time fix it radio klz 560 myself larry unger charlie grimes and today is january the 11th so uh happy january 11th one of my son’s birthdays today so happy birthday happy birthday yes appreciate that as well and for those of you listening to us on tuesday on the replay thank you for that as well now i am going to start off and talk about some things related to the fires in california i did some of this ready radio yesterday as well for some of you that listened to that it might be a little bit of a duplicate but I thought you know it’s a big enough topic that given everything that’s happened out there and it’s at the top of people’s minds right now we should probably go ahead and cover a few of those things today Larry when it comes to just insurance and different things along those lines and as I said even yesterday you may not realize it or really care, but what’s happening out there will have a direct effect upon all of us when it’s all said and done.
SPEAKER 09 :
It always does. In the insurance industry, whenever you have a major catastrophe, it’s shared throughout the country.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep. So be prepared as much as possible for these things as you can. We’ll try to get into some cold weather things as well because we’ve had some snow this past week, potentially more snow coming possibly later this afternoon and then more even this week ahead. And for those of you that think winter is over… Not even. It is not. We still have a lot more to go, so we’ll talk about some of that as well. But on the insurance front, and this is something that we’ve talked about a few times in the past, but first things first, and this doesn’t really matter what policy you have, although we’ll get into the policy end of things in a few minutes, but first things first, everybody now has cell phones with video. Yep. Very few don’t. And if you don’t, you probably have a video camera kicking around or something. But whatever you have. Easiest thing to do to inventory what you have and own is just get your camera out and start walking around. So start it however you want to do it, whatever room you want to start with. I would video each individual room. And what I mean by videoing the room, not just standing in the room and panning the camera around, but literally going up to each individual thing that you own, opening cabinets and drawers and things along those lines. The biggest thing is so that if you ever have a total loss… you now have the ability to go back and remember, oh, yeah, these are the things that I had.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it’s also proof to the insurance company of what you do have.
SPEAKER 10 :
That as well. So this goes into the policy, which I’ll get into a little bit later in today’s program. Each insurance company handles that end of things a little differently. My point is, number one, just go around your house. Get your video camera out. You can also take pictures, I guess, however you want to do it. But video is easiest because you can just click the record. Yep. And it’s super simple. And you can talk through it. You can explain things. Yep. You can say, well, you know, these are things that I just purchased or these were purchased. a year ago, or this is an antique, or whatever. This has been handed down for generations, whatever. And this includes anything you would have on the wall, your furniture, again, inside of cabinets, some of you that have maybe fancy stereo AV systems, things along those lines, security systems, your computers, and coin collections, or any… Your closets, coin collections, clothing. Some of you may have family heirlooms that have been passed down. Could be watches, could be coins, could be whatever. You could have a very nice gun collection. Now, one thing I want to say, and I’ll throw this out for Burke Payne at BP Appraisals, if you’ve got any kind of classic car or gun collection, my advice would be get that appraised. Yes. Because once it’s appraised… you really don’t even need all your pictures they’re nice to have and it wouldn’t hurt but having an actual literal here’s what a professional appraiser said and then again we’ll get into this in a few minutes making sure you’re insured for that because sometimes those things are excluded from you know the guns especially might be excluded from a regular policy that’s another conversation we’ll have in a little bit but bottom line for some of you that have some of these collections probably should have an actual appraisal on those items done. Now, also throwing out for Burke Payne at BP, if you have any kind of a accident where there’s some diminished value and things along those lines, you may very well need him to help you along those lines as well so this isn’t just for the estate side this is in a lot of cases even on day-to-day things which i can talk about more and drive radio but burke’s really good about helping you with the official quote-unquote value of things and then you can proceed accordingly well and thinking of that john how often should you do an appraisal Well, I think what Burke would say is probably every five years or so, unless something significant in the market has changed. So, for example, this gun collection. We’ll use that as an example. You’ve got a really decent gun collection. Some of them maybe have been heirlooms handed down and so on. And market changes everywhere. It does with classic cars. It can with certain antiques, guns, and so on. Well, all of a sudden, maybe you’re checking a few of the items that you have, and you notice that, wow, Something in the markets happened because the demand has really gone up for this particular weapon that I own, and it’s now worth double what it once was. Okay, that’s where that would be worth talking to Burke, saying, hey, I’ve been watching this. I know this is in my collection. I know we appraised it two years ago, but it looks to me like it’s really changed in value. All you do is call him and say, hey, here’s my thoughts. What do you think? He’ll tell you what to do. There you go. So to your point, though, Larry, yes, it’s not a one and done. Right. You need to keep up on these things if you want to have them insured and handled correctly. But back to the whole take an inventory of your home. And for a lot of you guys that listen, that even have things out in the shop, tools, things along those lines, really important to get that video camera out and go through your entire house. and literally record everything you own. And then for most of you, those things can be stored in the cloud. As long as you’ve got your phone or computer, you can typically retrieve those. You could download that onto a flash drive and put that in a safe place or another family member’s, whatever you want to do. There’s all sorts of ways to handle that. Anymore you put those videos up into the cloud, typically you’ll be able to retrieve those about any time you want to. And I am guessing that right now today, There’s a lot of folks out in California that probably wish they had done what I just said and hadn’t. And I said this yesterday, when you have a total loss, it’s a game changer. I’ve been through it. So total loss means everything’s gone. And you saw some of the pictures from what happened out in California. I mean, literally, it’s ashes. Maybe you can see a foundation left of the home, and that’s about it. And I had a similar experience to where literally you walk up on the house, Things might still be smoldering, which was the case for me. And you can’t hardly recognize anything because literally everything is gone. Those fires get so hot. I think I’ve told this story before, but I had a couple of snowmobiles parked in my cabin. And it got so hot, Larry, that you couldn’t find any single remain of those snowmobiles. Really? Nothing of the engine. I mean, you would think that you’d even see a crankshaft or something along those lines left when it was all said and done.
SPEAKER 01 :
Nothing.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. It got so hot, it actually scarred and melted the concrete. That’s how hot some of those, in our case, that’s how hot the fire got. And I guarantee you some of what you see in California is the same way. So people that think that, oh, well, you know, I’ll still be able to build on top of the foundation. Maybe not. Maybe not. So, again, make sure you have a really good inventory. of all of the things that you own just walk through your entire house and don’t leave a stone unturned because remember what you’re what you’re i’ll get into the policy into this in a moment but you’re insuring for all of your personal belongings that includes shoes if you have an extra pair of shoelaces If you’ve got, you know, clothing, belts, I mean, your personal items, you name it. I mean, all of those things is what you’re ensuring and you want to be made whole of when it’s all said and done.
SPEAKER 09 :
And some of those things may not be strictly of value, but it’s sentimental value to you. Well, there’s still a replacement cost.
SPEAKER 10 :
Exactly. If you can’t replace them. I’ll be kind of maybe silly here, but some of you may be Costco shoppers and you buy some things in bulk. Okay, maybe you just got done buying a six-pack of shaving cream or something along those lines.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
You want to be made whole on those things because you’ve invested that. It’s now all burned up and gone. And you want to make sure you get your replacement cost back out of that. And you don’t know unless you do what I’m saying. Right. There’s no way to know. And this is the other thing I will say. No matter how well insured you are, you will still not come out a winner. Because of the time factor it takes to even get everything handled, you will not come out a winner.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and how long did it take you to get your settlement done? A year. A year. That’s the point.
SPEAKER 10 :
A year. Yep. So you’re dealing with all of this during that entire time, and I will tell you that in our case, we were fortunate. We had good video, had the ability to piece everything together and so on, and it made things way easier having all of that, and that was a real lesson learned, and make sure all of you that are listening, you do the same thing. So first things first, run through, take inventory of everything, and don’t forget the outside things.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Garden hoses, garden hose fixtures, planters, planter boxes. Sheds. Sheds, patio furniture, on down the line we go. Real barrels, tools. All of that. Some of you have the she shed and things along those lines. Make sure you’re getting all of that stuff captured because all of that hopefully is insured. I’m going to talk about the policy part of this. here in just a moment, but you wanna make sure that all of those things are insured, insured properly, but now you’ve gotta back it up as to what you actually had in your home, as far as your personal belongings go, personal property.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s why, as you say, I had a neighbor whose house got broke into. And when he tried to explain to the insurance company what was stolen because he didn’t have any pictures of anything, he couldn’t prove it. And they were very reluctant.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and a lot of that is because there’s insurance fraud now, as we know.
SPEAKER 09 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 10 :
Where people will claim they own something that they, frankly, didn’t. Right. And… That’s where having a good relationship with hopefully your salesperson, in our case, you know, Paul Lewenberger is a great friend of mine and one of our advertisers. So you have a good relationship with your agent, have the right policy written for you. If you’ve got collections and things like that, having the right writers in your policy to handle those things as well. And every insurance company does those a little bit differently. Some may include a certain amount of those items. We’ll take the gun collection, for example. Some may give you a certain amount of coverage for guns, but anything over that has to have a separate rider. Some may not cover them at all. Some might cover your wife’s jewelry. Others may not. I mean, every one of these is going to be a little different. And that’s where, in the insurance world, it’s not a one-size-fits-all. Just like we talk about the roof thing. With Dave Hart from Roof Savers of Colorado, not every policy is the same when it comes to the roof aspect. And I can just tell you right now, by the way, that’s also going to change. Yes. We talk to him about that constantly, but with what you’re seeing happen in California right now, trust me, it’s going to tighten up in a lot of areas, Colorado included, even when it comes to hail damage and things like that. They will be changing the way they reimburse for all of those things. And what’s happening now in the trend in the insurance world is they’re looking at your house. Let’s say it was built in, I don’t know, we’ll say 2020. So now your house is 25 years old. So if they feel like the roof is 25 years old, guess what? You’re probably not going to get much out of that if there’s a big claim because they know the life expectancy is about the end, is near end anyways. So unless you can get Dave out, do some sort of a roof max treatment where he’s extending the life of that and he’s certifying that, hey, yeah, this roof is good for another 10 years. In other words, it’s only at half life right now, something along those lines. And you’ve got proof of that from somebody like Dave that can show the insurance company this is where things are at. you’re liable to not get any coverage on that. So these are things that as time goes by, and we’ll have more shows along these lines, those are things that, trust me, out of these, between hurricanes and fires and so on that have happened this last year, you’re going to see insurance companies change the way they do some of these things. Point being, you don’t want to be caught empty-handed.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. That’s one of the things Dave can do for you is even if he doesn’t do any preparation on the roof, he can give you an estimate value and condition of that roof structure.
SPEAKER 10 :
Correct. Point being, Larry, just on the roof side, I think what you’re going to find, and we could do a whole show off of this, even on people buying and selling homes and so on, I think gone are the days where the insurance company just comes in, writes a check for a complete roof replacement. You as an owner are going to be on the hook now for a certain percentage of what’s going on there. And frankly, Larry, there’s going to be some people that don’t have the ability to to make that extra step. So say the roof cost is 15 and the insurance company is covering five. They’re not gonna have the 10K to make that happen, meaning I don’t know what happens with the roof at that point. My point is I think you’re gonna see roofs get in worse and worse shape as time goes by and or you’re going to need to use people like Dave that can keep your current roof quote unquote running longer do the maintenance on it, spend a little bit here and there versus one big chunk, much like we talk about on Drive Radio with your cars, keeping that maintenance up on it, which most people don’t know you can do on a roof, but you can, and by doing so, extend the life of. So those are things that Dave at Roof Savers of Colorado can help you all with. But that’s the first side of it with the insurance. I’m going to come back in a moment and just talk about the policy end for a few minutes. But bottom line, take inventory. Make sure you’ve got everything handled as far as that goes. A lot of things, you know, that you might use daily, you just forget about. It could be everything from, I don’t know, Larry, you know, just miscellaneous items that you don’t even think about that you own that all of a sudden it’s gone and you realize, oh, and by the way, here’s the other thing that happens in these things. You realize about a year later that, oh, crap, I had such and such and, yeah, it got burned up.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 10 :
suits, ties. All sorts. You name it. Socks, underwear, on down the line we go. So don’t forget any of those items. Make sure that you catalog all of those. Take a nice video of them. And for some of you that are a little bit more particular, if you want to, start a spreadsheet. Have all those things dialed in as you acquire new things or old things go. Good point. Adjust your spreadsheet accordingly because trust me, if there’s ever a total loss and you’ve got all that already dialed in, it makes things much, much easier. So All right, we’ll come back. I want to talk about the policy end of things in just a moment because you’re going to find that even in California, you’re going to find a lot of those folks out there, unfortunately, are underinsured. Even though a lot of them are very wealthy, you’re going to find a lot of those properties were not insured properly, and we’ll talk about that in a moment as well. So don’t go anywhere. Fix-It Radio, website fixitradio.com, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 10 :
All right, we are back. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560. Okay, let’s talk policies for just a moment. I got a message from Dave Hart just a moment ago from Roof Savers of Colorado where we were talking about things are going to be changing when it comes to insurance and so on. He’s like, John, it’s already… happening it’s here so and it’s gonna do nothing but get worse so so yeah trust me folks Dave is in this stuff knee-deep every single day it’s happening don’t be that person make sure that you know on the front side what your policy is covering again Dave has a way to renew your roof extend the life of I’m living proof of that he’s done it with mine and we’ll monitor and watch it when it’s due again we’ll do it again and my goal is to not have to put a roof on at all if I can I Do my very best not to. I kind of look at that like paint on the car. I don’t want to mess with it if I don’t have to. So if I can keep that up there as long as possible, I will. And the RoofMax product that he puts on and treats and renews the roof, yeah, folks, it does in fact work. If you haven’t had any experience with it, call Dave. Have him give you a little demo on it. He can give you a roof inspection at the same time, which, frankly, you should be doing on an annual basis anyways. I think every roof should be inspected most regularly. are not. So back to the insurance side. And again, all of Dave’s info is on our website, fixitradio.com. Just give Dave a call and he’ll take care of you. All right, the policy. This is where it gets really dicey. So first thing I’ll tell you is don’t buy your policy online. Okay, just find a good agent. We have Paul Lewenberger that we work with here. Great agent. He’s a broker now. He’s got about six or seven different companies he can put things out to to try to figure out what works best for you. And he’s got the ability to know what your needs are and then fulfill those needs. The robot online doesn’t know you. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t know your needs. You might be clicking all the right boxes, but are they the right boxes? Are you getting the right coverage when it’s all said and done? And if you’re just doing it to make sure the mortgage company is satisfied, well, you know, to each his own, I guess, you know, more power to you. But typically, you’re underinsured when you do that. The mortgage company might be happy. Well, sure. And you may get them paid off if there’s a total loss, but then you’re left holding the bag and you have nothing left when it’s all said and done. Don’t be that person, which, by the way, our fires even here in Colorado up in Superior and Louisville, some of those people found themselves in that exact same position. They were so underinsured that when it was all said and done, they had to literally go find a new place to live. They sold off their lots, and they had no ability to rebuild where they had been at one time. Don’t be that person. Give yourself options. And what I’m saying, and I said this yesterday on Ready Radio, is what we want to be able to do with insurance is, number one, be made whole when there’s a total loss like this, which when you’re made whole, you have a lot better decision-making power as to what do you want to do next. You may not want to live in a place that everything’s been burned down. You may want to rebuild the house differently than it was before. You may want to go to another state. I mean, you have all sorts of options when you’ve got a nice fat check from the insurance company because you did all of your diligence on the front side like we’re talking, and you end up being made not only whole, but you’re coming out just great because now you can go out and buy new things for what was old and so on and so forth. So my point is at the end of the day, you might actually – houses are never fun to lose but financially speaking you may come out ahead when it’s all said and done than you were prior if in fact you’re insured properly right most don’t find themselves in that position it’s the opposite they typically come out thinking oh man how in the world are we going to make this thing work because we don’t even have enough insurance to rebuild right and then here’s the other thing that happens people get mad at the outsiders That come in and buy up the lots and build another house, and the developers that come in and buy a lot and build up the house, and everybody gets mad at those people, but yet they’re not the ones that they should be mad at. Who you should be mad at is the person who was underinsured that caused that to happen in the first place. Right. Because the developers come along and just buy up what somebody else can’t afford to rebuild, and it’s not their fault. They’re just taking the opportunity that’s in front of them and running with it, which I’m not blaming them for that. Nope.
SPEAKER 09 :
But that’s where your insurance agent comes in. If you have a decent insurance agent that you have worked with, He’ll make sure that you’re taken care of in those areas so you’re not at a loss.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and I said this before many times. We don’t want to be insurance poor, meaning that we spend so much on insurance we don’t have any other money. On the same token, you want to make sure that you’re properly covered, and that’s we’re having a relationship, to Larry’s point, with an agent like Paul where he knows you, he knows your budget, he knows what we really need to insure for and so on. he can set up a policy that will work for you. I had a good question that came in yesterday on the text line asking, how do you know what replacement costs are? So we were talking earlier about the she shed, or you might have a pole barn. Some of you listening have pole barns and outside buildings and things like that. How do you know what those real values are? Some agents, Paul, for example, can help you with that and tell you what some of those values are. There’s construction per square foot pricing that’s out there that most of them can look at and say, well, based upon your current home, and its current um quality let me say it that way because there’s a big difference between a construction grade house and a custom house right so depending upon where you lie with that might depend on the square foot price but based upon that you can get pretty darn close as to what a replacement cost is based upon a per square foot price now keep in mind if you’ve got a construction grade you know contractor grade home and you insure it, and you go to rebuild it, and you want a custom home, that ain’t gonna work. Not exactly. No, not exactly. That ain’t gonna work. Now, I don’t know what the rules are, nor would I suggest doing this. I would not insure a construction-grade track home for more than its value to replace because if you do that, number one, I’m not sure how that works on the insurance side. Number two, I don’t know that you’d want to put that back in the same neighborhood because now you’re probably overbuilding for the neighborhood, and I don’t think that works out real well either. So you really need to insure like for like. But for some of you that are listening, you live in some custom home areas. You live in areas where your per square foot price is going to be double that of what somebody is in a track home situation. So you really need to watch that. All insurance policies are a little different. They’ll handle some of that differently. This is something you’ve got to be aware of as well. Some policies will allow you to do code upgrades. Some will not. some fall short in that area so those are all things again that you need to look at if you’ve got a home for example that was built in the 70s it is not going to be a code that i can assure you because the code in 70s is way different than the code today in 2025. And so if you go to take that home and rebuild it, your per square foot price just because of the code upgrades is going to be different.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, much different.
SPEAKER 10 :
So those are also things that you’ve got to factor in. And these are things that, again, agents like Paul can help you with and make sure that you’ve got the right replacement value, code upgrades, and so on to handle all of that. Because the majority of homes will need code upgrades unless it was just built. Yep. The code changes annually, electrical, plumbing, and so on. That stuff changes annually, and highly doubtful that any of you living in a home today are up to code, according to the new code. You’re at code of what was built, but it’s not code as of today. For example, we’ve talked about this with some others in the past. Kitchen Islands used to be able to have a plug in the Kitchen Island on the end. Yep. New code is you can’t. Yep. So those are the things I’m talking about. Things change in the code, and right, wrong, or otherwise. It’s just things that change. And if you go to rebuild, things have to be to code or you won’t pass inspection. Because people also forget, Larry, that when you go to rebuild, there’s a whole process of now you have to have engineering plans and all of your construction plans and everything has to be approved by the city and you’ve got to get a building permit and, and, and, and, and. And then you go through the whole process of building, and you have to have your inspections done, and the city inspector has to sign off on things, and, and, and, and, and. Everybody thinks just go pop a new house up. It doesn’t work that way. The other thing that happens, you’ve got to make sure that you’re covered in your insurance policy as well, is how long are you going to be out of the house? So Larry and I just talked a moment ago that when I had my cabin loss up in Granby, it took me a year to get everything settled with the insurance company. So if that had been my primary residence, where am I living for that year? And keep in mind, rebuilding, even once I decided what to do, could have been another year, year and a half after that, meaning you could have been out of the house for two to two and a half years.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, there’s still people out of the house. They can’t rebuild because they’re waiting for…
SPEAKER 10 :
equipment or whatever you look at i drive through that lewisville area quite often and i said back then i wasn’t trying to be you know negative about things but i said back then it’ll be 10 years before this place is back to normal i wasn’t far off because there are still a lot of empty lots and places that have not even been started to rebuild in that area yeah there’s a lot of new construction things going up but keep in mind as well there’s only a certain amount of carpenters running around to get things done
SPEAKER 09 :
And material.
SPEAKER 10 :
Everything else. So the supply chain. So when we, like California right now, it will be, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating, it’ll be 10 years before that’s back to normal. By the time you get everything redone, most of those were custom homes. Get in line, by the way. Yeah. We already know in the trades there’s not enough people to even get all of that stuff done. The cleanup alone will take months, probably a year, just to get everything cleaned up. with people coming in and loaders and tearing out foundations. Because I can tell you right now, those fires were hot enough, they need new foundations in the whole nine yards. So you’ve got to haul all that stuff off. That’s the other thing, too, in your policy. Make sure you have enough cleanup costs in your policy. As I said yesterday, loaders, equipment, dump trucks, none of that runs for free. The landfill, they don’t let you dump for free. a lot of that is environmental hazardous waste now that doesn’t get dumped for free so my point is it can be extremely expensive i think when mike with uh… i could go back to look at my receipts but i believe in my granby house which was not a very big house all just cabin The cleanup costs alone, granted it was in Granby and you had to truck some things off, and this is where they actually had established a site where you could dump for a lot less money to help a lot of the people in the fire area out. But I believe, Larry, my costs, insurance company paid, but I believe my cost just the cleanup alone was $15,000. Didn’t surprise me a bit. So just the cost to have everything scraped and hauled off, not foundation taken out. Just taking everything off the top of it and hauling it off, the debris and so on, not clearing any trees, anything along those lines. Just that bare house, hauling it off, 15 grand. So for a lot of you that are listening, make sure in your policy that you have enough coverage for those things. Because if you don’t, you’re writing the check. You have to be the one to figure that out. And some of you listening say, well, you know, my house is all paid for. I just carry liability. Okay, fine. That’s great. I get that. If you want to self-insure, that’s fine. Can you handle everything I just said? financially speaking, if something were to, you know, because it’s not just the per square foot to rebuild that you look at. It’s all of these other things I just said as well. So my point is with what’s happening in California, it’s a friendly reminder to all of us, especially us in Colorado, because we have fires here as well. We’ve experienced some of the same things California has gone through. Some of you that live in the mountains can experience this more often than others. Although people in Superior and Louisville, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, never thought their house would burn to the ground from a wildfire. Yep. If you would have asked them prior to that, what’s your chances of your house burning to the ground because of a wildfire? They would have laughed at you. Well, that’ll never happen. It’s just field grass. How in the world would that burn my house down?
SPEAKER 09 :
Doesn’t take much once you get the wind kicking up.
SPEAKER 10 :
Once the wind kicks up, and as I said yesterday… Oxygen or fire seeks oxygen. So here’s what happened. And this is a misconception, I think, that’s out there. And again, I only know this from from experience. Fire seeks oxygen. So when this wildfire is going on around the house. Again, that fire is ravenous. it is looking for oxygen it knows it can’t continue to burn without oxygen so the minute a window or a door opens or something along those lines happen window breaks most people think well you know it starts on the roof and then it burns through um sometimes but typically no what you’re typically going to find and if you can look at some of the videos of where the fire is actually you know raging A window breaks, the fire jumps inside, and the house burns from the inside out. It’s typically not the outside in. That big air box called your home is what the fire is seeking. So the minute that that ember, that fire, can jump through something inside the home, it now is like oh holy cow here we go again and then all it does is jump to the next one to the next one to the next one to the next one you saw what happened in california and it literally burned block after block after block and some of those people there probably thought they were far enough away from even some of the The open space area, the brush and so on, that would never have any effect on them. I’ve got a lot of nice green trees. I’ve got green grass. The chances of that happening, when the fire gets that hot, as you can see from some of the pictures now that are out on the Internet, all bets are off.
SPEAKER 09 :
Green foliage doesn’t mean anything.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know, because it turns to tinder in a second. That fire gets that hot, it just devours it, Larry, as you can see from the videos. And so my point is a lot of people think that’s never going to happen to me. And by the way, we hope it doesn’t. Pray that it doesn’t. Although I will tell you, I never thought it would happen to me either. But it did, and it can, and the reality is you need to make sure you’re prepared on the insurance side, make sure you’re made whole when it’s all said and done. And again, I go back to the personal belongings end of it. A lot of policies handle that differently depending upon the policy. What I mean by that is some of them will make you take an inventory. Some of them will make you have receipts for some of the things you have bought of late. Some of them… All sorts of stipulations. And you can check what those requirements are on the front side of the policy before you even agree to go with that particular company. And it’s very valuable to do that. Now, one other thing, too, that most companies will not do. I think the only one that does, and Paul Leuenberger now sells this, is Chubb. No one covers landscaping. Not to my knowledge. So if you’ve got a bunch of old mature trees and they’re all around your property, which by the way, get very, very expensive. Just for example, a very mature spruce tree, Here in Colorado, couldn’t be 20,000 bucks. And I’m not exaggerating. So count, some of you that live in some of the older areas where you’ve got some very mature trees and things that are around you, count some of those up, realizing that if you ever had a fire and a complete loss, you’re putting saplings back in. Because you won’t be able to afford to put back in what you had. And there’s only, I believe, chub that will insure the landscaping, and it’s costly. If you really want to do that, again, you can buy insurance for anything. I said this yesterday. But you have to pay the premium, and there’s a cost to it, and most don’t. So that’s the other misconception. People think, well, I’ve got all these trees and this, that, and the other, and the insurance company owes me. No, they don’t. They might replace your fence and do a few things along those lines, but they are not replacing your shrubs and your trees and your this and your that, and no, that is likely not in your policy. So those are other things that you need to look at that people get real bent out of shape when there’s fires because they’re seeking – you know damages and some of this I know because even you have a tree that blows over for example if it blows over on the house they’ll fix the house you’re not getting a new tree that’s right not happening another to clean up the tree either you you better make sure again every policy is different depending upon the company that’s writing it and it’s going to tighten up trust me with everything that’s just happened in California so point being get with Paul review your policies Make sure that you’re all dialed in, and you should do that on an annual basis anyways. And if those of you that are listening on Tuesday to the replay, please make sure you’re reviewing all of these things. The last thing I would ever want to see happen is, number one, somebody having a total loss, but number two, having a total loss and then not being made complete afterwards.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Because that’s now on you, not the insurance company.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and that’s one of the things that Paul is very good at. He will annually, when your policy is renewed, will go through your policy with you and make sure that you’re properly insured.
SPEAKER 10 :
Correct. And again, as I said earlier, most are underinsured. You’re going to find that even out in California. Joe, what’s going on?
SPEAKER 08 :
John, going back to trying to buy homeowners insurance online. Just don’t. No, no. And here’s one of the ways you’ll get burned very badly. When you talk to your insurance agent, one of the questions they’ll ask you is, how big of a deductible do you want?
SPEAKER 1 :
500, 1,500, 2,500?
SPEAKER 08 :
When you apply online, there’s no question about your deductible. What they do is they’ll put in a provision. They’ll never ask you, but they’ll simply default it to something like 3% of the structure value. So if you have a $600,000 home, 3% of 600,000 is 18 grand. So if you lose a roof, you’re going to pay for 90% of the replacement cost of that roof because you didn’t realize that you signed up for a 3% deductible.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that’s just one of, I mean, there’s a bunch of other things about… And really quick, Joe, along those lines, I told people this on Ready Radio, and I want to add this today while I’m at it. A lot of you are thinking, man, John, everything you’re talking about is going to raise my rates. No, because here’s the other thing you can do. Get the highest deductibles possible in a lot of the areas where you know you can self-insure, so at least, Joe, if there’s a total loss, you’re made whole. I can handle the little things. It’s the total loss. I don’t want to be out.
SPEAKER 08 :
True, but how many people are prepared to pay $18,000 of a $22,000 roof replacement?
SPEAKER 10 :
Most are not, but if you were smart, you’d tuck a little money away each month into a little fund, and you’d have the highest deductible possible so that when those times come, Joe, you’re not spending too much on insurance, but you have the money yet to do that. You’ve got to be disciplined.
SPEAKER 08 :
And if you’ve got the financial – discipline and surplus income to do that, but of course… Most don’t. Most don’t. And by the way, I just got a credit card notice from a department store. You know what the… It was a notice of the increase in the… You know what the annual credit card rate on… And this is for big name department. You know what the new APR is?
SPEAKER 10 :
28 to 32?
SPEAKER 1 :
34%.
SPEAKER 10 :
34. Okay. So I was off a little.
SPEAKER 08 :
So my point is, if you’re putting money away… you know, for like a big deductible, but you’re carrying a credit card balance, you’re not doing yourself any favor. No.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know, if you had… No, pay those off first.
SPEAKER 08 :
Pay those off first. So, I mean, so if you’re in a situation where it’s, you got all your, you’re not carrying any credit card debt month to month, and you’ve got excess money, put, you know, go ahead, you know, put it in a CD or something.
SPEAKER 10 :
well and i said this yesterday to joe the other way you can save money on insurance but again you’ve got to be disciplined have a little money set aside to handle it but those of you that are car insurance everyone’s class replacement because you get that pit you want a new windshield those are getting very expensive now it’s not uncommon to have a you know two to three thousand dollar windshield replaced joe but one of the easiest ways cheapest ways or easiest way, I should say, to save money and have a cheaper policy is waive the glass policy on your auto policy. You’ll save a boatload of money, but put some money away for a windshield and or fix them as they come along.
SPEAKER 08 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 10 :
And Joe, these are things that the Internet, going back to your initial comment about buying online insurance, they will not teach you any of the things you and I are talking about.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and again, they’ve just taken the whole question of, How big of a deductible would you like? They don’t even ask anymore. They just tell you this policy has a 3% structure value deductible.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
And most people don’t even read the fine print. I mean, it’s buried in there, John. There’s probably 2,000 words in the policy, and somewhere in there, if you get to the paragraph about deductible, it’ll tell you 3% of the structure value. Mm-hmm. And you don’t even know that you just signed up.
SPEAKER 10 :
Joe, I would venture to guess, and I guess I’ll ask you this, how many people actually read their policy, not even the fine print, but even the larger things about here’s the structure, here’s the personal belongings, here’s this, here’s that. How many people do you think even read that?
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m going to say 10%. And it’s called the declarations page, John. And I’m going to say 10% maybe. But what’s your guess?
SPEAKER 10 :
You’re probably not far off. 90% don’t. Yep. Yeah, I would agree with you. They have no idea. All they know is they’re covered. The mortgage company is now happy. They’re going to go ahead and make their monthly payment. Escrow is paying that, and that’s all they care about.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. And things that aren’t covered, we’ve talked before. If you have a gun collection, your gun collection is not covered. furs aren’t covered, jewelry’s not covered. Yep.
SPEAKER 10 :
So heirlooms, things like that, you know, those are typically going to require additional riders. And again, I have to be careful when I say that some policies, depending upon the policy, Chubb, for example, Joe, I guarantee you that Paul can put a Chubb policy together that could probably cover the majority of what you and I just talked about all under one policy, but that’s Chubb. Chubb meaning not cheap. Right?
SPEAKER 08 :
Right, not cheap.
SPEAKER 10 :
And by the way, for all of you listening, Chubb is a great insurance company. They are very well known for covering things most anybody else won’t, but you’re going to pay for it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes. And, John, I know we talked about this before, but I heard you talk about earlier about, you know, documenting what you have. And, again, taking a video, because, number one, I guarantee you, if I had to list, everything in my house, you know, personal property, I would be lucky to come up with 70% of it. And then second, in terms of proving to the insurance company that I had $3,000 worth of tools, you know, the first thing they’re going to say is prove it. So when I take my homeowner’s video, I do floor by floor. I also annotate it. Like I’ll say, okay, this is a 65 inch Sony TV purchased, you know, July of 2020. So it’s not just enough to take the video. They’re going to say, well, you know,
SPEAKER 10 :
If you’re really smart, and I know this is tedious and most won’t do this, but if you’re really smart, you just keep a running tab spreadsheet on these things, Joe. At least the large items.
SPEAKER 08 :
At least the large items. But even then, if I say, well, I’ve got 12 dress shirts, and dress shirts these days are, what, $30, $35 a piece? They’re going to say, prove it. I’ve got 10 pairs of slacks. Prove it. Well, I’ve got a picture of my closet I haven’t worn. I’ve got sports coats, dress shirts. And it may not seem like a lot, but you start talking about $1,000 worth of clothing. My wife’s closet, by the way, I bet you if she had to replace everything in her closet, we’re probably talking five grand easy to replace her clothes. But could I document what those $5,000 worth of clothes were? You know, without some sort of… Yeah, right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 08 :
Couldn’t possibly do the same thing with shoes and boots. And, you know, what are shoes and boots these days? $50, $100 a pair?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, well, depends on what you’re buying, as you know.
SPEAKER 08 :
Depends on what you’re buying.
SPEAKER 10 :
I mean, Joe, there’s women’s shoes out there that are $1,000 plus. So what are you buying?
SPEAKER 08 :
And that’s where the video comes in handy. And I think I’ve told you the story. My parents lost the house, vacation home, 30 years ago. And for years after the fire…
SPEAKER 10 :
be sitting around and she’d go and she’d go oh crap that’s another thing we forgot to put on the claim they were remembering stuff oh joe i’m still doing that with my cab and it just is what it is you know and i did pretty well at having video and all of that on it and i thought i did a pretty good job of the inventory side but there’s just a little piddly thing and not not huge value but it’s just like oh crap yeah i forgot that was there i forgot to put that on the claim yeah so Yep.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, John.
SPEAKER 10 :
Joe, as always, I appreciate you, man. Have a great rest of your day and weekend. And, yeah, folks, again, I cannot stress enough. And I’ve said this before, but I want to close with this before we move on to our last little segment when we come back. Having something like this happen is very emotionally stressful as is. I mean, I sympathize with the folks in California because I’ve been there and it wasn’t even my primary home. And it’s still very emotional when you lose that much, when you have a total loss like that. Doesn’t matter if it’s total on a car or your house burns to the ground. It’s very emotional already. Your mind is whirling. There’s a thousand things going through it. How are we going to do this? How are we going to do that? How’s this going to work? How’s that going to work? Where are my kids going to go to school? On and on and on. The last thing you need is to be worrying about, was I insured for enough? Yep. So my point is, when you have all that done, and you know you’ve got the right insurance, yeah, you may have to fight with them, get a public adjuster, whatever, to make sure that you’re made whole. But as long as you know your policy is good, solid, intact, it takes a huge burden off of a lot of the other things that are going on in your world emotionally. Because at least you know that piece is handled and I’ll handle the rest. One last thing I want to add, and this is something that you need to check with your policy on as well, is, and I think I mentioned a moment ago, but I want to make sure I reiterate it. How long are they going to support you as you’re out of that house? So you’ve got to go now rent a house. How’s that gonna work? What’s that work moving to, from, all the different things that are involved in that logistically, how’s that going to be handled? And do you have insurance to cover all of that? And if so, for how long? Double-check all of that stuff. Again, Paul Leuenberger, he is the guy to call. Really quick, before I forget, let me just give you his number, because this is a great segue where you can just call him on his own and ask him these questions. Paul’s number, by the way, 303-662-0789. That’s Paul Leuenberger. He is my agent. Give him a call. He’d love to help you out. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560. We’ll be right back.
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SPEAKER 10 :
All right, we are back. Fix-It Radio, KLZ 560. Charlie asked a great question during the break, which I can finish off with, and I’ll talk some cold weather stuff next week. Some of you that maybe have more limited resources with your electronic recording devices. So let’s say you’ve got a cell phone, but it doesn’t have a lot of storage capacity. And that’s true. Some may have it filled up with all sorts of other things, and now all of a sudden you’re going to walk through your house and have an hour-long video that could take up to a gigabyte, potentially, of storage. How are you going to handle that? Because you don’t want to necessarily leave that on your phone and limit what else you can do with your phone. Some of you have more than enough room not talking to you. I’m talking to some of you that would have a little bit more of a challenge here. Here’s how I would do this. Go ahead and take your video. Make sure you’ve got enough storage capacity to do that, but take your video. And you don’t have to go buy anything to do this because most of the time you’ll have enough to at least get temporarily this much space on your phone done. So take the video. Once the video is done, though, you can go to the computer. Sometimes you can buy a device on your phone where you can download directly to a USB drive. But just buy a USB drive. And by the way, they’re so inexpensive now. They’re giveaways for a lot of companies at trade shows and so on. They’ve become so inexpensive now. So if you don’t have one kicking around the house, go buy one. They’re really, really inexpensive now. You don’t need a huge one for what we’re talking about. You don’t need a terabyte jump drive. Go buy the smallest one you could find. But do this. Buy about three of them, maybe even four, but at least three. And here’s why. One, you’re just going to keep it home. So find a safe sock drawer or whatever and keep that. Download this video to that drive. Copy one you’re going to keep in your home. Or some of you have briefcases and things like that. Throw it in your briefcase. Typically that’s always with you. In my case, if anything ever burned to the ground, my briefcase won’t because it’s always with me. Pretty much any time I leave the house, that thing’s with me. So if I had a copy there, I’d be good to go. Second one, though, as Larry said earlier, you could have a safety deposit box. You might have an office at work. You might have some kids floating around. Whatever the case, go put that second copy someplace else. Yep. Okay? Now, there’s also cloud storage options. Dropbox, by the way, will give you several gigabytes of storage for free. Google, with a Google account, they will give you a certain amount of storage for free, well more than the one gigabyte that this video might actually take. That’s another option. I would actually do that on top of the jump drive as well, you know, the flash drive. But if you really want to have something stored solid, you know where it’s at at all times, put it on a flash drive, keep a copy for yourself. If you have a safety deposit box, go stick it in that. If you’ve got a fireproof gun safe, stick it in that. Give one to one of your kids, wherever. And if you want to make four copies and go put another copy someplace else, fine. Point being, now you’ve got them. The only downside to that that there is is as you add things to it, which Charlie and Larry were talking about during the break, you want to make sure you’ve got those things added in. But you could keep those even kind of on a separate basis. Charlie had a great idea on the electronic side for a lot of you listening. So you go out and buy a new big screen TV for the Super Bowl. Don’t take a picture of that thing once it’s up on the wall. Take a picture of the UPC, the code, the box, all of that. while it’s in the garage before you ever put it up on the wall, there’s your proof you bought it. You’ve got everything you need at that point, not even on the wall. There it is, it’s in your garage, there’s pictures, insurance company can see, yep, it’s in the garage, I can see he’s unboxing it, blah, blah, blah. Now it’s easy to prove, I bought that TV even without having a receipt. which you probably would have anyways, but you’ve got all that at that point and could show them that particular copy. But back to the, this video will take up some space. How do you get it off of your phone and then store it? I gave you a couple of different ideas. Some of you are more technical and can figure out even other ways to do it. But you can do the cloud, several services for free, Dropbox, Google for one. or two of those I should say, put it on a jump drive, store that with different things. You may even have kids that are out of state. Fine, mail it to them. You know it will be safe at that point. So mail it to them if you ever needed it back. You’ve got the ability to get it right back. I would not give it to a neighbor because if you have what happened in California, that’s not doing you any good. So you want to get it out of your particular area for obvious reasons. I mean, I suppose if you were really careful and knew how this could potentially work, you could take a small container of sorts and take these particular items and go to the backyard and put them in a mason jar and bury them and then retrieve them. But let me tell you what, when a fire comes through like that, finding that spot once again when there’s no landmarks around, might be really difficult, so I probably would do the other route instead and just find people you can hand this off to and have them store it for you. Point being… We wanna make sure we have, like Joe said, good catalog of all the things that we own. We can document all of those things. To Charlie’s point, when you buy some new high-end items, some of you buying new furniture, big screen TVs, things like that, record those items as well. Even a snapshot picture of those would work. Store those someplace, again, where you can have easy access to them in case there’s a complete loss. And then last but not least, renter’s insurance. Some of you listening, you may not own, but you still need insurance. And we have resources on that end of things that if you send me a message, I can let you know because they’re not a sponsor here, but they are of some of my other shows. I can get you into touch with somebody that specializes in renter’s insurance, and I can help you with that end of things very well because even if you’re a renter, you should make sure you’ve got proper insurance because even then, a total loss could set you back, and you want to make sure you’re covered. And renter’s insurance, by the way, is pretty cheap.
SPEAKER 09 :
I know Paul can do that for you also.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, so there you go. We can get you all handled on that end of things. Guys, that’s it today for Fix It Radio. I know we spent a lot on the fires and different things. We want you all to be prepared and be safe. And most of all, just make sure you have yourself ready no matter what would happen. All right, next program is up. Don’t go anywhere. This has been Fix It Radio, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 05 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
