Marshall Yard:

October is fire safety month, with several different trade shows that are held through-out the year with the latest in fire security, fire rescue and life safety.  Fire Rescue & Conference Expo will be taking place November 7-10th, 2007 in Las Vegas, with sessions covering Fire Simulators, Forcible Entry and Rescue Tech Tips to name just a few. 

Firehouse World Expo - San Diego February 3-7th, 2008

Firehouse Expo - July 22nd-27th, 2008 in Baltiore Maryland has over 450 exhibitors and is attended by more than 16,000 industry professionals.

AFSE -  Fire & Security Expo - July 29 - 31st, 2008 - Miami Beach Convention Center

I would like to move on to some Fire Safety Information provided by one of our employee’s at Catalyst Exhibits, having first hand experience with the loss of her home due to a fire. Imagine coming around the corner from dropping off your child from school and seeing your home up in flames.  There are no words she can use without the sickening feeling coming back, so she shares with you her tips to help prevent and help put the pieces back together if this devastion ever enters your life.

FIRE – Before / During / After

Accidents Happen - While fires are accidents (unless your cousin is Vinny) you actually CAN prepare for this type of accident.A house fire can be devastating, and  one of the most emotional, exhaustive & draining experiences one will ever have. The aftermath can consume all of  your time for months, you can end up on a sort of autopilot.  The funniest thing I remember, while I was watching the firemen put out the flames of my house, my insurance company actually called about changing car insurance policies.  I had to tell her, “sorry, I really can’t talk about that right now, my house is on fire… by the way, could you pull up that policy for me?” 

BEFORE A FIRE / FLOOD – or anything else you can imagine….Insurance Insurance Insurance Insurance is not limited to homeowners.  You can obtain renters insurance as well for your stuff!·       Take an inventory of all your personal property.·       Take pictures, videos, keep lists etc…. ·       Make sure you are not UNDER INSURED for your content or building/structure.    

DURING A FIRE - BEWARE  #1 rule -  Sign Nothing, Sign Nothing, and SIGN NOTHING !  While you are standing there in disbelief, waiting for the fire departments to put out the flames, you will be bombarded with ambulance chasers rushing to you and handing you their business cards because they want to “Help you” rebuild or “get the most out of your insurance company for your personal belongings”.  This is completely unwanted; however you may want to hang on to some of those cards.  Most of them are EXTREMELY SLEEZY OPPORTUNISTS sitting listening to scanners waiting to pounce, banking on the fact you are too shocked and devastated and will be thankful they are offering to “help”. They won’t all look like a Surprano wanna be, with gold bling & a Cadillac (and some DO);  Some may truly be worthy & just happened to drive by.     

 SIGN NOTHING ·       GET YOUR HOUSE BORDED UP immediately. Make it secure. Your stuff is still in there. (The company that boards your house up for you does not have to be the company that rebuilds for you.)·       LET NO ONE TAKE ANYTHING OUT OF YOUR HOUSE (until you catalog everything & get what you want out.).AGAIN – SIGN NOTHING. Even if the insurance company asks you to.  You are devastated and not thinking clearly at this point, and I saw nothing in any contract that states you can get out of it because you under incredible distress.  Just don’t sign it.  You will have time to think about it later! 

THE DAYS AFTER - SAVE AS MUCH MONEY AS YOU CAN !!  ·       DO IT YOURSELF (You’ve been paying towards this and  IT IS YOUR MONEY AFTER ALL!)·       Ask for & CALL REFERENCES of the Contractor·       GO SEE A HOUSE THEY ARE WORKING ON OR ARE COMPLETEING.  (I didn’t trust references alone.  Glad I went and saw for myself! Some work was very poor. I chose the one that was rebuilding a two million dollar home with incredible detailed work.  Over kill? No. I knew they would do a better job then Vinney with all his gold rings and old Cadilac)      

TAX DEDUCTIONS ON TAX RETURN·       SAVE ON PROPERTY TAX - PROPERTY VALUE DOES CHANGE 

RECORD & RESEARCH - DO IT YOURSELF If you let a company catalog everything for you, you are not guaranteed they will get it all, AND they get a healthy percentage of your insurance payment!  While a lot of work, doing it myself, saved us $90,000.00 on a 900 sq. ft. house!  Imagine what you could save on a bigger house with more stuff.

YOU WILL NEED:     Cruddy Shoes & Clothes·       Tape recorder·       Filtered Respirator (The smoke smell will be horrible & imbedded in everything.  Mold may begin from the water that put out your fire.  (certain molds are very dangerous to your health)  Menards has them. Go through the house & RECORD EVERYTING you can that was even only semi destroyed, or slightly damaged.  Smoke damage and possible water damage from the fire department.  Make that list complete.  Down to the last pencil & paper clip.   

RESEARCH the cost of replacement for EVERYTHING.  The fastest way is on line stores – including Ebay for the hard to find items. While you can’t claim Sentimental Value, NOT EVERYTHING IS WORTH THE SAME AMOUNT:  I had 200+ CD’s on my list, however some were special order imports, I looked them up on line and one was $175 to replace!.  That CD is WORTH $175 !  Not the Standard $9.99. You should record it that way! 

How it broke down:Content was insured for - $90,000.00 Depreciation averaged 50% (it can range from 10%-90%)Going well over and beyond our limit, gave us our MAX benefit without having to report every item we bought  to get that other 50% depreciation back.

Our Max benefit for content was $90,000.00  - We claimed $192,000.00

50% of $192,000  = $96,000 (over max – received full claim)          

 -  90,000     

Unpaid loss $102,000 = Claimed on that year’s TAX RETURN 

CALL CONTRACTOR’s REFERENCES  most important, GO SEE THE CONTRACTORS WORK they have already done, or are working on!  This will give you a great idea of the kind of work they will do for you. You can be your own contractor.  Or ask your contractor to hire people you trust to do certain work, such as electrical, plumbing, finishing… we found our contractor via a family insurance acquaintance that used to be an adjustor. He had a list of contractors he felt were on the up & up.  Your adjustor may or may not be able to give you this information. 

PROPERTY VALUE & TAX·       Call your Assessor’s Office. Tell them you had a fire & your property value then goes down until you can move back into your home.  You Pay Less Property Tax during that time!·       Don’t forget to claim the loss on your tax return that was unpaid by insurance. 

THIS IS HOW  YOU CAN LOSE YOUR MONEY – again BEWAREInsurance sent a check for $9,000. (prior to my lists) which was an absolute insult.What some of these ambulance chasers would have done was taken the $9,000 and the $35,000, for the house, taken their 20%  and performed sloppy/shotty work fixing the house, because there would have only been $35,200 left to rebuild, leaving us with NO money for replacing items.  A good contractor will fight for as much as they can get.  In our case, they were awarded $78,000.  Which enabled us to knock down, rebuild, and keep the max content for ourselves.