Personal resilience begins at home when planning for recovery
Each year, our nation’s communities experience a wide range of natural and man-made disasters that cause scores of individuals and families to lose their homes and personal property. Whether it’s a larger disaster like a tornado, wildfire, or hurricane, or a smaller, everyday event like a house fire or burst pipeline, disasters happen often, and when they do, you’ll need to be able to respond to them. the most common answers. 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 homes or been displaced, this can be the beginning of a nightmare, especially if they have not prepared or planned ahead for recovery. 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 happens to all my stuff?
An element of the recovery process that is rarely talked about, but 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 a tornado has hit her house, and when she steps out of the storm cellar, all she sees is a bare concrete slab with a toilet in the middle. Her yard is littered with debris from her neighbors down the street and she has no idea where her 20+ years of accumulation went, except for the pair of underwear hanging on the tree across the street. . You will call your insurance company and a couple of days later your adjuster will show up and tell 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. She is then handed a stack of blank inventory sheets and a pen and told that she only has a limited time to turn it in. So what are you doing now?
Great ideas to create your personal inventory!
Imagine trying to remember everything you had in your house when you don’t have photos, receipts, or memorabilia. For one, you don’t want to commit insurance fraud by claiming items in your inventory that you’re not sure you have, and for another, you have a hefty amount of replacement coverage on the policy you purchased to cover anything that was lost.
This is where the challenge begins. To get started with this venture, you’ll need to have a clear mindset, plenty of time, and plenty 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 friends or family members if they have photos that may have been taken at your home during a Christmas gathering, party, or family gathering. Often photos like these can reveal furniture, decor, or other items in the background that will help jog your memory.
Look at store catalogs or online stores for another resource for help. Please note that this process can be time consuming to obtain the level of detail you will need to obtain the full benefits of your insurance. Consider the process for completing an inventory of the contents in your kitchen. If you’re like most, you may write down the obvious items like appliances, silverware, utensils, cookware, and cutlery only to realize that the smaller items aren’t worth the time and 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, etc. The stuff in the junk drawer, the CDs, the phone chargers, the batteries, the 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’ll 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 to remember everything you had and add details for all the smaller items when you have so many other pressing matters 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 recover your maximum insurance benefits and speed up the recovery process so you can rebuild your life, then you must take the time to write down the details on paper and use the tools available to help you achieve this. this task.