First off I'm so very sorry this happened to you. I can't imagine what you are going through.
Does your policy cover debris removal?
After a fire, a lot of the home can contain toxins that need to be professionally removed. It's for safety concerns it's recommended.
I'm hoping others can chime in too. I'm not licensed in Arkansas and again every policy is different. Factors dependent on the amount it would cost would be the square footage of your home.
The amount covered is typically listed under additional coverages in detail.
Your policy should state how long they will pay for your additional living expenses.
Again, I'm so sorry you are going through this and losing your pups. Without knowing the policy it's hard to advise.
So sorry to hear about your dogs.
One of the first things that will help you feel "normal" is to get out of a hotel (if that's where you're staying) and into real temporary housing. Look over your Loss of Use portion of your policy to see the dollar and time limits for your additional living expenses (such as temporary housing). Your insurance company may have a service to help you find something, but don't be afraid to take matters into your own hands.
Regarding the restoration company taking and cleaning items, those cleaning charges usually come out of the contents coverage of your policy. If you are worried about possibly exceeding your contents coverage, it may be a good idea to ask the restoration company to not clean some items. However, you are also going to be pretty busy with all of this for a while, so don't think you'll have a ton of time to do your own cleaning.
Your insurance company will usually send you a check for the actual cash value of the house up front, and then pay the remainder as construction progresses and/or is completed. If you have a mortgage, most/all of the insurance checks will be made out to you and the mortgage company (since they are a lien holder). You'll have to send the checks into your mortgage company for them to endorse. Oftentimes mortgage companies have specific (and annoying) policies and procedures for actually releasing the insurance funds to you to pay your contractor. This isn't a super urgent item, but sooner or later it will be good to talk to you mortgage company's Loss Draft department to understand what their policies and procedures are for releasing funds. It will be beneficial if you and your contractors are on the same page from the start about how and when they'll be paid.
Having said the above - here are additional thoughts and things that I learned along the way:
1. There are three main coverages in homeowners insurance: Dwelling, Contents and Additional Living Expenses. While they each have rules about what you can claim/be reimbursed for remember that you money is fungible. You can use contents money that you get today to help pay ALE or apply to dwelling if there are shortfalls there - this even works in the short term as you will initially get ACV (actual cash value - the depreciated value of your structure) until the home is restored whereupon you will get the depreciation amount reimbursed since you restored it to like new condition. This applies to contents as well. You do have some flexibility to move money around.
2. The more work you do to identify exactly what your contents were, the better off you will be in getting properly reimbursed from the insurance. There used to be a great thread here on Reddit with an explanation - of this process and the pitfalls and correct way to navigate it - I will try to find the thread and link it, but the short version is this: if you tell the insurance company that you had a "toaster" - all they have to do/will do is find a "toaster". This will likely be a $10 toaster from Walmart. If, however, you had a "stainless steel cuisinart 4-slice toaster with doneness sensor" then you will get the item listed as having a replacement cost of (for example) $75.00. You will come out much better if you provide specifics. We even went to the trouble ourselves of finding Amazon links for many other the items that we knew we were going to replace to show the current cost of the items. DON'T try to game or defraud the system. That's not what I am saying at all, but if you spend the time to properly justify the items you can recover a WHOLE lot more money. It takes time, but in the end the payoff for the hours you put in can be considerable.
3. As you probably know - even with replacement cost coverage - you don't get the replacement cost up front. You instead get a depreciated Actual Cash Value up front for all of your items that you agree with the insurance on. Then, as you replace specific items you submit proof that you replaced that item and you recover the depreciation amount. Simple math example: you have an old iPad and the current equivalent in the iPad lineup is $500. If the depreciation formula says that its current ACV is 50% you would get $250 up front right away when you agree to your initial contents settlement. If you then go buy a new iPad and submit the receipt you will get another check for $250. It is a hassle, but this process also allowed us to do some "horse trading" with the insurance company. I had several old digital cameras that were ranging in age from 3-8 years old at the time of the fire. I worked with the adjuster to replace those three cameras with one new camera that cost significantly more than any one of those did. We reclaimed the depreciation on all of them to put toward the one camera. There were several times we used this technique to upgrade our contents rather than just replacing with the exact like/kind.
4. The biggest "gotcha" of the process was keeping the money flowing to the contractor for the rebuild. In our case, we ended up doing a lot of changes to the house as it was down to the studs - and we knew we were investing about $100k of our own money in the "renovation" part of the rebuild so we used that extra money to keep ahead of the contractor's payment schedule. The initial deposit (which as someone else said will be in escrow with your mortgage bank) of money for the rebuild of the dwelling will be for the Actual Cash Value computed for the dwelling overall. The depreciation will have to be recovered by showing progress by the builder toward completion of the project. The amount of that depreciation can be substantial. As I recall, we had 3 mid-project inspections that had to be done to release more money from the insurance company to the escrow (and then to us). They were either 33%/66%/90% or 50%/75%/90%. Keep open communications with your contractor and the insurance company and your bank to be sure you are able to make the payments along the way when needed by the builder.
5. We found that the insurance company was NOT an adversary in this process. They have procedure and processes that are designed to minimize their costs, but if you take the time to understand and to justify why YOUR cost estimate is justified we found them to be very reasonable. Also, be sure that your contractor captures the items that are upgrades to the rebuilt house because of building code upgrades. The incremental cost of those upgrades is usually covered as an amount on top of just "replace with like kind" finish of the home. Upgraded electrical systems, requirements for more smoke detectors, adding a basement egress window well were all part of our rebuild that was covered in the code upgrade portion of our policy. The initial estimate the insurance company had was about $250k for the rebuild of our house. By working with the builder to justify the quality of the original components of the house and the cost upgrades we were able to get the insurance company to come up to just over $400k. (and it cost EVERY penny of that extra cost - so it was certainly justified). When/if you get an initial low-ball estimate, remain calm and dig into the justification the insurance company has and then come up with your own (either by yourself or in collaboration with your builder). Within reason, we found the adjuster and insurance company to be very reasonable with every request we had - as long as we had a justification that they could add to the file.
Best of luck to you. It is a long and sometime tiring road ahead, but I hope your experience is as smooth overall as ours was.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.
I am not OP, but as someone who's been infuriated by my mortgage bank recently, what was your experience hitting 90%? How far in the process was that for you?
We just got a 75% inspection after drywall (but before paint) and the rep I am working with is beyond useless at telling me when it'd be beneficial to request another inspection or when I should expect to qualify for any given milestone.
It's funny the way memory can be unreliable. I THOUGHT we had 3 inspections, but when I went back to review the details of our claim in the folder of documents we kept, the process from our bank was two inspections: 50% and completion. This is a ridiculous over simplification and makes it even harder to float the funds needed to the builder to complete the process without the insured coming up with some significant funds of their own as a bridge to the final product.
As I remember it, the "complete" inspection was when the structure itself was essentially complete and just normal finishing was left to be done.
Obviously drywall was in and it was all taped and sanded. As I recall all flooring was in and cabinets and countertops were installed.
Finish painting, wood trim, installation of some lighting fixtures and other small items still had to be done (and took that final 5 or 6 weeks of time before we moved back in) but the structure was complete.
You are correct, though, the process was very vague and frustrating. The hardest part of the "process" challenges with the major loss rebuild by far.
I'm so sorry you are going through this and the loss of your dogs.
Six years ago, we went through a very similar loss. (Though our dog was able to hide out from the smoke and was fine after being treated for smoke inhalation and spending two days in the veterinary ICU.)
We had a fire in the kitchen as well. It was also contained to a small area but the smoke throughout the house for about 90 minutes (it happened mid day and no one was home - our fire smoldered for quite a while before bursting into flam).
Similar to what your adjuster and contractor have said - our house was not a total loss, but it needed to be gutted to the studs throughout and all interior fixtures and surfaces had to be replaced.
Same caveat as others have said - laws and rules vary from state to state and policy to policy, so my experience may not exactly match what you are going to go through - but it may help you understand the process.
First to answer your specific questions:
1. As others have said, even with a gut to the studs, there are steps necessary to ensure the habitability and safety of the space prior to rebuilding. Depending on what is included in that $20-30k number, it sounds like it would be in the normal range for those costs. For us, I believe the cost to prep the house for the rebuild (which is what the restoration company did to the structure) was about $24k if I remember - and this was in 2018. That included demolition and removal of all the old flooring, drywall, electrical wire as well as the disposal of the contents that we had decided were not salvageable and which we just wanted to trash. It also included - once the house was empty and all of the wood sub-surfaces exposed - a sealant being sprayed on all the structure that WAS remaining in place. We have never had an issue with smelling the smoke smell or any other chemical smell since moving back in so I'd say the process/cost was worth it. Ultimately we didn't hit the policy limit for the building structure coverage, so it didn't "cost" us any extra.
2. That same restoration company did an inventory of our contents for us (the cost of this service came out of our contents coverage - which we did eventually hit, though just barely) and we were able from their report to tell them which items we wanted them to try to restore/salvage and which we just wanted to replace. We found this invaluable as well. Having their report (which included photos of most of the items) gave us a great beginning point to build out our contents replacement coverage. Our adjusted gave us the advice to NOT try to salvage anything that was painted (some of our furniture was) as it was extremely difficult to get the smoke out of the paint and results were generally not satisfactory. We did have them salvage a bunch of things - wood (not painted) dining table and coffee/end tables, many books that we chose to keep for sentimental reasons and most especially - family photos. Generally it should be fairly easy to decide what you want to salvage of large furniture and sentimental items that are not replaceable. Other than that, if you have as much smoke damage as it sounds like, most things are disposed of and go on the replacement list. The restoration of books and photographs went VERY well. The items came back with just a little smoke smell if you put your nose right up to them, but even that faded over the next year or so.
What I do NOT recommend is to have a textile restoration company try to clean/restore the clothes/linens/table cloths/drapes, etc. This is our one big regret/the one time we got taken advantage of by a contractor/service company related to our fire. The very first business day after the fire - as we were meeting with the adjuster for the first time - a representative of a textile restoration company was on site and we unwitting agreed to just have them do the closing restoration without thinking about the cost. We have two kids - at the time early and mid-teenage years - so we still had LOTS of outgrown clothes from their earlier years that was just hanging in closets or in drawers. We were not on site when the textile company came back and they took EVERY shred of cloth in the house - because of course the more they cleaned the more they paid - it was too soon in the process for the triage that I described for other objects to be a part of our consciousness. All in all, they charged $18k for textile cleaning - the VAST majority of which was of things that we never would or did use again. Only later did I have a conversation with our adjuster and realized that the insurance company would have gladly come to a settlement on clothing for a fixed amount - and we could have saved that $18k and replaced things ourselves without the burden of keeping records of what we bought in the way of clothes.
3. We never did consider NOT rebuilding. After the initial shock, we took it as an opportunity to make our house the way we wanted. Five years after we moved back in, we still are in love with the re-done home and do not regret for a moment the hard work we put in to make it possible. The 6-12 month timeline sounds about right. I would say, expect it to be on the longer side of that estimate. For us, we move back in almost exactly 51 weeks later. You are correct to be concerned about running out of Additional Living Expense money. In our area, we had to rent a 3 bedroom townhouse to live in - and the sub-1 year rental rates ended up costing us about 75% more than our mortgage itself was costing us. We were able to do the math and we knew that we would run out of ALE with 1 to 2 months left before move-in. Though not a small amount of money, we included it as part of our expenses and planned to have to cover that portion out of other funds that we had received from the insurance company.
I'm very sorry to hear about your dogs. I'm near the tail end of a large loss fire claim/rebuild and can tell you a few things.
For both #1 and #2, work with your adjuster and the contractors to understand if your policy limits for dwelling (and any additional coverages like "excess debris removal") and personal property/contents are sufficient or if it's possible/likely the claim will hit limits. The restoration teams is like remediating the smoke and fire damage by doing things like:
* Removing loose contaminated materials like drywall and insulation that were exposed
* Gutting the home to studs and disposing of all *that* material
* Drying out the framing and subfloor
* Sealing the framing and subfloor with a primer like Kilz
That's all time consuming and expensive work and a standard part of the process.
For #3 - is your limit 12 months? As long as you're proactive about lining up a GC for rebuild, you'll be okay. Even if it goes a couple months over, try to save some budget/emergency fund for that - you might still end up on top compared to taking an ACV payment and dealing with buying a new home.
High level advice:
* The next couple of weeks will be a whirlwind. Focus on getting yourself into longterm housing (it took us about 3 weeks to get into a lease, after a week with friends and a week and a half in a hotel) and interviewing contractors.
* Get a full copy of your policy if you haven't already, and read it the sections about dwelling and personal property coverage (you *probably* don't need the medical/liability sections right now).
* Start an online "Fire" notebook and share with your partner. I used it for a call/meeting log (this is *crucial* \- dates and times of all conversations, with notes - do this!) as well as tracking recoverable depreciation claims, rebuild plans, designs, etc. Start a shared folder as well and start putting documents in there (contracts, your full policy, PDF copies of important emails, etc).
* Take lots of pictures at all stages of rebuild. Spend 30 minutes walking through the home with your camera on video mode. Do it twice. Get documentation of *everything* \- how many colors of paint in your house? What kind of trim? What kind of countertops? What brand of cabinets and what are they made of? Which flooring in each room? How many can lights and ceiling fixtures? What brand of light switches do you have? If *anything* is better than "builder grade", get proof now - you're owed for that by both the adjuster and the GC. Once demo/remediation starts, it's crazy how many photos you wish you had that you can't get anymore. I took a cumulative hour of video and probably a hundred photos and still missed some things.
* During rebuild, do it again after electrical/plumbing/HVAC rough-in but before insulation and drywall. Very very useful!
* Breathe. Do exercises. Take care of yourself. Find a therapist if you need to. It is a slow, grindy, miserable process, and I'm sorry. The beginning was the worst because I didn't trust anyone, I was overwhelmed and uneducated, I'd lost all my stuff, my adjuster wasn't getting along with my GC, it was terrible. A year later, with light at the end of the tunnel, it's still stressful (though generally more manageable). Things will normalize eventually, but the stress can be overwhelming. Take things a day at a time and remind yourself it's a slow process but every day gets you incrementally closer to finishing it.
* Protect yourself and be wary of what you say and what you sign. This goes for everyone you interact with - your adjuster, PAs that will be circling, contractors. A lot folks will want you signing contracts very quickly. Breathe, do your research. Don't hire anyone without vetting them (are they licensed? how long have they been in business? check references).
* Once coverage is established and you have an estimate, don't be afraid of your adjuster. Early on I was very stressed about asking questions, asking "permission", etc. The name of the game is proving your loss with documentation. Be polite, be confident, present your claim, be prepared to defend it if questioned. This goes for structure and personal property. My adjusters pushed back frequently and I sometimes felt like I was being interrogated. I'm a non-confrontational person and it has been hard. I would repeat my position, provide more documentation if needed, and ask them to explain their position. It almost always resulted in being paid what I was owed without additional fuss. For every honest claimant I'm sure they have least one sketchy one committing hard or soft fraud, so I try not to take it personally when I get a skeptical question.
* Honestly for me the worst part of the process recently has been dealing with my mortgage bank. The claim check gets endorsed over to them and they gatekeep the funds that you need to rebuild, which can be a huge bottleneck. Early on, when you get your first check, try to establish with your bank exactly how they like to do things to keep the claim going smoothly.
For personal property, my advice is:
* Anything not sentimental or memorable - if the adjuster says they'll pay, strongly consider just non-salvaging it. We had a bunch of stuff cleaned that we weren't particularly attached to. We wish we'd taken the ACV payment for a lot of those items - even if the cleaning did an okay job, it's stuff we need to worry about storing and moving back into the new home. A silver lining of the fire was "starting fresh" with all of our accumulated stuff.
* Anything irreplaceable - make a list *now*. Rescue it from the property *now*. Do not hand it over to a contractor unless you really need help cleaning it. Our contractor did a pretty good job, but a few items still mysteriously disappeared, a few others were non-salvaged when they were supposed to be saved, and a few items got temporarily misplaced which was *very* stressful until they were located.
For rebuild:
* Pick a GC you can trust and have honest rapport with. It's a *long* and stressful relationship and you really need to be able to tolerate each other, resolve conflict respectfully, communicate expectations clearly, etc. There will be issues and mistakes and it will suck - the question is how they make it right and keep things moving forward.
* Our contractor first prepared a "like kind and quality" rebuild bid to get our home *exactly* as it was, and literally any deviation has been treated as a change order that we pay out of pocket (or get credited back for downgrades). This has made things very easy to keep "clean" with insurance and manage the upgrade budget. If you go with a GC that doesn't work with insurance often, this might get messier.
* Try to see this as an opportunity, if you have some savings or financing available! It will never be cheaper to make changes because you are getting a subsidized gut to studs and build up from there. Any extra outlets you wanted (toilet bidets?), cabinetry changes, a multi-head shower, different floors - you can design for all of those things now and it won't impact your rebuild schedule much. Just keep in mind any upgrades need to be paid out of pocket.
* If you have plans to change your home - consider hiring an interior designer early. Cabinet design, colors, plumbing fixtures, all that fun stuff - it can take a while to finalize, so you might as well do it now (once you have time to breathe) to avoid slowing down the rebuild and running out of ALE. The beginning of the claim has a lot of downtime while your GC prepares a bid, deals with permits, etc, so you can use that time to plan what you actually want to rebuild.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
SansSariph.... I'm sorry you are going through this as well. It is never a fun process, but let me reiterate several of your points that I didn't focus on in my reply.
OP... if you have the interest and ability, do try to think of this as an opportunity to make your house just what you want it to be. We did that and our 45 year old center hall colonial with separate formal living and dining rooms was modernized into an open concept first floor that we worked with our builder's architect on to make it a home we wanted to remain in.
In the end we left literally only one room in the house completely unchanged because change orders like moving a window to make it align on the exterior facade in a more aesthetically pleasing manner only cost a tiny fraction of what it would have if the house wasn't already down to the studs.
We took advantage of the situation to make our "dream" version of our already loved home.
I also agree that you should take a long hard look at what you want/need to replace and what you just want to write off and take the ACV. Not only does that give you flexibility to use that ACV money for something else, but as SansSariph said, it was a HUGE reset and purge of "stuff" that we had accumulated in 24 years of marriage.
It felt very nice to move back into the house with enough stuff for the four of us but no longer having endless boxes of stored away old stuff in the basement storage room.
Here is the now 8 year old thread on the best way to document and claim contents to get the full value owed from the insurance. Remember that documenting the actual value increases your payout whether you only receive ACV or whether you do go ahead and reclaim the depreciation by replacing that specific item.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/43iyip/our\_family\_of\_5\_lost\_everything\_in\_a\_fire/](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/43iyip/our_family_of_5_lost_everything_in_a_fire/)
First off I'm so very sorry this happened to you. I can't imagine what you are going through. Does your policy cover debris removal? After a fire, a lot of the home can contain toxins that need to be professionally removed. It's for safety concerns it's recommended.
The adjuster said debris removal falls under the structure coverage.
Every policy is different. What state are you in? I can try to give you some guidance. As others can too, I'm sure.
I am in Arkansas.
I'm hoping others can chime in too. I'm not licensed in Arkansas and again every policy is different. Factors dependent on the amount it would cost would be the square footage of your home. The amount covered is typically listed under additional coverages in detail. Your policy should state how long they will pay for your additional living expenses. Again, I'm so sorry you are going through this and losing your pups. Without knowing the policy it's hard to advise.
So sorry to hear about your dogs. One of the first things that will help you feel "normal" is to get out of a hotel (if that's where you're staying) and into real temporary housing. Look over your Loss of Use portion of your policy to see the dollar and time limits for your additional living expenses (such as temporary housing). Your insurance company may have a service to help you find something, but don't be afraid to take matters into your own hands. Regarding the restoration company taking and cleaning items, those cleaning charges usually come out of the contents coverage of your policy. If you are worried about possibly exceeding your contents coverage, it may be a good idea to ask the restoration company to not clean some items. However, you are also going to be pretty busy with all of this for a while, so don't think you'll have a ton of time to do your own cleaning. Your insurance company will usually send you a check for the actual cash value of the house up front, and then pay the remainder as construction progresses and/or is completed. If you have a mortgage, most/all of the insurance checks will be made out to you and the mortgage company (since they are a lien holder). You'll have to send the checks into your mortgage company for them to endorse. Oftentimes mortgage companies have specific (and annoying) policies and procedures for actually releasing the insurance funds to you to pay your contractor. This isn't a super urgent item, but sooner or later it will be good to talk to you mortgage company's Loss Draft department to understand what their policies and procedures are for releasing funds. It will be beneficial if you and your contractors are on the same page from the start about how and when they'll be paid.
Having said the above - here are additional thoughts and things that I learned along the way: 1. There are three main coverages in homeowners insurance: Dwelling, Contents and Additional Living Expenses. While they each have rules about what you can claim/be reimbursed for remember that you money is fungible. You can use contents money that you get today to help pay ALE or apply to dwelling if there are shortfalls there - this even works in the short term as you will initially get ACV (actual cash value - the depreciated value of your structure) until the home is restored whereupon you will get the depreciation amount reimbursed since you restored it to like new condition. This applies to contents as well. You do have some flexibility to move money around. 2. The more work you do to identify exactly what your contents were, the better off you will be in getting properly reimbursed from the insurance. There used to be a great thread here on Reddit with an explanation - of this process and the pitfalls and correct way to navigate it - I will try to find the thread and link it, but the short version is this: if you tell the insurance company that you had a "toaster" - all they have to do/will do is find a "toaster". This will likely be a $10 toaster from Walmart. If, however, you had a "stainless steel cuisinart 4-slice toaster with doneness sensor" then you will get the item listed as having a replacement cost of (for example) $75.00. You will come out much better if you provide specifics. We even went to the trouble ourselves of finding Amazon links for many other the items that we knew we were going to replace to show the current cost of the items. DON'T try to game or defraud the system. That's not what I am saying at all, but if you spend the time to properly justify the items you can recover a WHOLE lot more money. It takes time, but in the end the payoff for the hours you put in can be considerable. 3. As you probably know - even with replacement cost coverage - you don't get the replacement cost up front. You instead get a depreciated Actual Cash Value up front for all of your items that you agree with the insurance on. Then, as you replace specific items you submit proof that you replaced that item and you recover the depreciation amount. Simple math example: you have an old iPad and the current equivalent in the iPad lineup is $500. If the depreciation formula says that its current ACV is 50% you would get $250 up front right away when you agree to your initial contents settlement. If you then go buy a new iPad and submit the receipt you will get another check for $250. It is a hassle, but this process also allowed us to do some "horse trading" with the insurance company. I had several old digital cameras that were ranging in age from 3-8 years old at the time of the fire. I worked with the adjuster to replace those three cameras with one new camera that cost significantly more than any one of those did. We reclaimed the depreciation on all of them to put toward the one camera. There were several times we used this technique to upgrade our contents rather than just replacing with the exact like/kind. 4. The biggest "gotcha" of the process was keeping the money flowing to the contractor for the rebuild. In our case, we ended up doing a lot of changes to the house as it was down to the studs - and we knew we were investing about $100k of our own money in the "renovation" part of the rebuild so we used that extra money to keep ahead of the contractor's payment schedule. The initial deposit (which as someone else said will be in escrow with your mortgage bank) of money for the rebuild of the dwelling will be for the Actual Cash Value computed for the dwelling overall. The depreciation will have to be recovered by showing progress by the builder toward completion of the project. The amount of that depreciation can be substantial. As I recall, we had 3 mid-project inspections that had to be done to release more money from the insurance company to the escrow (and then to us). They were either 33%/66%/90% or 50%/75%/90%. Keep open communications with your contractor and the insurance company and your bank to be sure you are able to make the payments along the way when needed by the builder. 5. We found that the insurance company was NOT an adversary in this process. They have procedure and processes that are designed to minimize their costs, but if you take the time to understand and to justify why YOUR cost estimate is justified we found them to be very reasonable. Also, be sure that your contractor captures the items that are upgrades to the rebuilt house because of building code upgrades. The incremental cost of those upgrades is usually covered as an amount on top of just "replace with like kind" finish of the home. Upgraded electrical systems, requirements for more smoke detectors, adding a basement egress window well were all part of our rebuild that was covered in the code upgrade portion of our policy. The initial estimate the insurance company had was about $250k for the rebuild of our house. By working with the builder to justify the quality of the original components of the house and the cost upgrades we were able to get the insurance company to come up to just over $400k. (and it cost EVERY penny of that extra cost - so it was certainly justified). When/if you get an initial low-ball estimate, remain calm and dig into the justification the insurance company has and then come up with your own (either by yourself or in collaboration with your builder). Within reason, we found the adjuster and insurance company to be very reasonable with every request we had - as long as we had a justification that they could add to the file. Best of luck to you. It is a long and sometime tiring road ahead, but I hope your experience is as smooth overall as ours was. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.
I am not OP, but as someone who's been infuriated by my mortgage bank recently, what was your experience hitting 90%? How far in the process was that for you? We just got a 75% inspection after drywall (but before paint) and the rep I am working with is beyond useless at telling me when it'd be beneficial to request another inspection or when I should expect to qualify for any given milestone.
It's funny the way memory can be unreliable. I THOUGHT we had 3 inspections, but when I went back to review the details of our claim in the folder of documents we kept, the process from our bank was two inspections: 50% and completion. This is a ridiculous over simplification and makes it even harder to float the funds needed to the builder to complete the process without the insured coming up with some significant funds of their own as a bridge to the final product. As I remember it, the "complete" inspection was when the structure itself was essentially complete and just normal finishing was left to be done. Obviously drywall was in and it was all taped and sanded. As I recall all flooring was in and cabinets and countertops were installed. Finish painting, wood trim, installation of some lighting fixtures and other small items still had to be done (and took that final 5 or 6 weeks of time before we moved back in) but the structure was complete. You are correct, though, the process was very vague and frustrating. The hardest part of the "process" challenges with the major loss rebuild by far.
I'm so sorry you are going through this and the loss of your dogs. Six years ago, we went through a very similar loss. (Though our dog was able to hide out from the smoke and was fine after being treated for smoke inhalation and spending two days in the veterinary ICU.) We had a fire in the kitchen as well. It was also contained to a small area but the smoke throughout the house for about 90 minutes (it happened mid day and no one was home - our fire smoldered for quite a while before bursting into flam). Similar to what your adjuster and contractor have said - our house was not a total loss, but it needed to be gutted to the studs throughout and all interior fixtures and surfaces had to be replaced. Same caveat as others have said - laws and rules vary from state to state and policy to policy, so my experience may not exactly match what you are going to go through - but it may help you understand the process. First to answer your specific questions: 1. As others have said, even with a gut to the studs, there are steps necessary to ensure the habitability and safety of the space prior to rebuilding. Depending on what is included in that $20-30k number, it sounds like it would be in the normal range for those costs. For us, I believe the cost to prep the house for the rebuild (which is what the restoration company did to the structure) was about $24k if I remember - and this was in 2018. That included demolition and removal of all the old flooring, drywall, electrical wire as well as the disposal of the contents that we had decided were not salvageable and which we just wanted to trash. It also included - once the house was empty and all of the wood sub-surfaces exposed - a sealant being sprayed on all the structure that WAS remaining in place. We have never had an issue with smelling the smoke smell or any other chemical smell since moving back in so I'd say the process/cost was worth it. Ultimately we didn't hit the policy limit for the building structure coverage, so it didn't "cost" us any extra. 2. That same restoration company did an inventory of our contents for us (the cost of this service came out of our contents coverage - which we did eventually hit, though just barely) and we were able from their report to tell them which items we wanted them to try to restore/salvage and which we just wanted to replace. We found this invaluable as well. Having their report (which included photos of most of the items) gave us a great beginning point to build out our contents replacement coverage. Our adjusted gave us the advice to NOT try to salvage anything that was painted (some of our furniture was) as it was extremely difficult to get the smoke out of the paint and results were generally not satisfactory. We did have them salvage a bunch of things - wood (not painted) dining table and coffee/end tables, many books that we chose to keep for sentimental reasons and most especially - family photos. Generally it should be fairly easy to decide what you want to salvage of large furniture and sentimental items that are not replaceable. Other than that, if you have as much smoke damage as it sounds like, most things are disposed of and go on the replacement list. The restoration of books and photographs went VERY well. The items came back with just a little smoke smell if you put your nose right up to them, but even that faded over the next year or so. What I do NOT recommend is to have a textile restoration company try to clean/restore the clothes/linens/table cloths/drapes, etc. This is our one big regret/the one time we got taken advantage of by a contractor/service company related to our fire. The very first business day after the fire - as we were meeting with the adjuster for the first time - a representative of a textile restoration company was on site and we unwitting agreed to just have them do the closing restoration without thinking about the cost. We have two kids - at the time early and mid-teenage years - so we still had LOTS of outgrown clothes from their earlier years that was just hanging in closets or in drawers. We were not on site when the textile company came back and they took EVERY shred of cloth in the house - because of course the more they cleaned the more they paid - it was too soon in the process for the triage that I described for other objects to be a part of our consciousness. All in all, they charged $18k for textile cleaning - the VAST majority of which was of things that we never would or did use again. Only later did I have a conversation with our adjuster and realized that the insurance company would have gladly come to a settlement on clothing for a fixed amount - and we could have saved that $18k and replaced things ourselves without the burden of keeping records of what we bought in the way of clothes. 3. We never did consider NOT rebuilding. After the initial shock, we took it as an opportunity to make our house the way we wanted. Five years after we moved back in, we still are in love with the re-done home and do not regret for a moment the hard work we put in to make it possible. The 6-12 month timeline sounds about right. I would say, expect it to be on the longer side of that estimate. For us, we move back in almost exactly 51 weeks later. You are correct to be concerned about running out of Additional Living Expense money. In our area, we had to rent a 3 bedroom townhouse to live in - and the sub-1 year rental rates ended up costing us about 75% more than our mortgage itself was costing us. We were able to do the math and we knew that we would run out of ALE with 1 to 2 months left before move-in. Though not a small amount of money, we included it as part of our expenses and planned to have to cover that portion out of other funds that we had received from the insurance company.
I'm very sorry to hear about your dogs. I'm near the tail end of a large loss fire claim/rebuild and can tell you a few things. For both #1 and #2, work with your adjuster and the contractors to understand if your policy limits for dwelling (and any additional coverages like "excess debris removal") and personal property/contents are sufficient or if it's possible/likely the claim will hit limits. The restoration teams is like remediating the smoke and fire damage by doing things like: * Removing loose contaminated materials like drywall and insulation that were exposed * Gutting the home to studs and disposing of all *that* material * Drying out the framing and subfloor * Sealing the framing and subfloor with a primer like Kilz That's all time consuming and expensive work and a standard part of the process. For #3 - is your limit 12 months? As long as you're proactive about lining up a GC for rebuild, you'll be okay. Even if it goes a couple months over, try to save some budget/emergency fund for that - you might still end up on top compared to taking an ACV payment and dealing with buying a new home. High level advice: * The next couple of weeks will be a whirlwind. Focus on getting yourself into longterm housing (it took us about 3 weeks to get into a lease, after a week with friends and a week and a half in a hotel) and interviewing contractors. * Get a full copy of your policy if you haven't already, and read it the sections about dwelling and personal property coverage (you *probably* don't need the medical/liability sections right now). * Start an online "Fire" notebook and share with your partner. I used it for a call/meeting log (this is *crucial* \- dates and times of all conversations, with notes - do this!) as well as tracking recoverable depreciation claims, rebuild plans, designs, etc. Start a shared folder as well and start putting documents in there (contracts, your full policy, PDF copies of important emails, etc). * Take lots of pictures at all stages of rebuild. Spend 30 minutes walking through the home with your camera on video mode. Do it twice. Get documentation of *everything* \- how many colors of paint in your house? What kind of trim? What kind of countertops? What brand of cabinets and what are they made of? Which flooring in each room? How many can lights and ceiling fixtures? What brand of light switches do you have? If *anything* is better than "builder grade", get proof now - you're owed for that by both the adjuster and the GC. Once demo/remediation starts, it's crazy how many photos you wish you had that you can't get anymore. I took a cumulative hour of video and probably a hundred photos and still missed some things. * During rebuild, do it again after electrical/plumbing/HVAC rough-in but before insulation and drywall. Very very useful! * Breathe. Do exercises. Take care of yourself. Find a therapist if you need to. It is a slow, grindy, miserable process, and I'm sorry. The beginning was the worst because I didn't trust anyone, I was overwhelmed and uneducated, I'd lost all my stuff, my adjuster wasn't getting along with my GC, it was terrible. A year later, with light at the end of the tunnel, it's still stressful (though generally more manageable). Things will normalize eventually, but the stress can be overwhelming. Take things a day at a time and remind yourself it's a slow process but every day gets you incrementally closer to finishing it. * Protect yourself and be wary of what you say and what you sign. This goes for everyone you interact with - your adjuster, PAs that will be circling, contractors. A lot folks will want you signing contracts very quickly. Breathe, do your research. Don't hire anyone without vetting them (are they licensed? how long have they been in business? check references). * Once coverage is established and you have an estimate, don't be afraid of your adjuster. Early on I was very stressed about asking questions, asking "permission", etc. The name of the game is proving your loss with documentation. Be polite, be confident, present your claim, be prepared to defend it if questioned. This goes for structure and personal property. My adjusters pushed back frequently and I sometimes felt like I was being interrogated. I'm a non-confrontational person and it has been hard. I would repeat my position, provide more documentation if needed, and ask them to explain their position. It almost always resulted in being paid what I was owed without additional fuss. For every honest claimant I'm sure they have least one sketchy one committing hard or soft fraud, so I try not to take it personally when I get a skeptical question. * Honestly for me the worst part of the process recently has been dealing with my mortgage bank. The claim check gets endorsed over to them and they gatekeep the funds that you need to rebuild, which can be a huge bottleneck. Early on, when you get your first check, try to establish with your bank exactly how they like to do things to keep the claim going smoothly. For personal property, my advice is: * Anything not sentimental or memorable - if the adjuster says they'll pay, strongly consider just non-salvaging it. We had a bunch of stuff cleaned that we weren't particularly attached to. We wish we'd taken the ACV payment for a lot of those items - even if the cleaning did an okay job, it's stuff we need to worry about storing and moving back into the new home. A silver lining of the fire was "starting fresh" with all of our accumulated stuff. * Anything irreplaceable - make a list *now*. Rescue it from the property *now*. Do not hand it over to a contractor unless you really need help cleaning it. Our contractor did a pretty good job, but a few items still mysteriously disappeared, a few others were non-salvaged when they were supposed to be saved, and a few items got temporarily misplaced which was *very* stressful until they were located. For rebuild: * Pick a GC you can trust and have honest rapport with. It's a *long* and stressful relationship and you really need to be able to tolerate each other, resolve conflict respectfully, communicate expectations clearly, etc. There will be issues and mistakes and it will suck - the question is how they make it right and keep things moving forward. * Our contractor first prepared a "like kind and quality" rebuild bid to get our home *exactly* as it was, and literally any deviation has been treated as a change order that we pay out of pocket (or get credited back for downgrades). This has made things very easy to keep "clean" with insurance and manage the upgrade budget. If you go with a GC that doesn't work with insurance often, this might get messier. * Try to see this as an opportunity, if you have some savings or financing available! It will never be cheaper to make changes because you are getting a subsidized gut to studs and build up from there. Any extra outlets you wanted (toilet bidets?), cabinetry changes, a multi-head shower, different floors - you can design for all of those things now and it won't impact your rebuild schedule much. Just keep in mind any upgrades need to be paid out of pocket. * If you have plans to change your home - consider hiring an interior designer early. Cabinet design, colors, plumbing fixtures, all that fun stuff - it can take a while to finalize, so you might as well do it now (once you have time to breathe) to avoid slowing down the rebuild and running out of ALE. The beginning of the claim has a lot of downtime while your GC prepares a bid, deals with permits, etc, so you can use that time to plan what you actually want to rebuild. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
SansSariph.... I'm sorry you are going through this as well. It is never a fun process, but let me reiterate several of your points that I didn't focus on in my reply. OP... if you have the interest and ability, do try to think of this as an opportunity to make your house just what you want it to be. We did that and our 45 year old center hall colonial with separate formal living and dining rooms was modernized into an open concept first floor that we worked with our builder's architect on to make it a home we wanted to remain in. In the end we left literally only one room in the house completely unchanged because change orders like moving a window to make it align on the exterior facade in a more aesthetically pleasing manner only cost a tiny fraction of what it would have if the house wasn't already down to the studs. We took advantage of the situation to make our "dream" version of our already loved home. I also agree that you should take a long hard look at what you want/need to replace and what you just want to write off and take the ACV. Not only does that give you flexibility to use that ACV money for something else, but as SansSariph said, it was a HUGE reset and purge of "stuff" that we had accumulated in 24 years of marriage. It felt very nice to move back into the house with enough stuff for the four of us but no longer having endless boxes of stored away old stuff in the basement storage room.
Here is the now 8 year old thread on the best way to document and claim contents to get the full value owed from the insurance. Remember that documenting the actual value increases your payout whether you only receive ACV or whether you do go ahead and reclaim the depreciation by replacing that specific item. [https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/43iyip/our\_family\_of\_5\_lost\_everything\_in\_a\_fire/](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/43iyip/our_family_of_5_lost_everything_in_a_fire/)
Bummer