While looking into insurance coverage and video logging all our house ....contents, I got to thinking of the importance for peppers to make sure they have enough building and “ contents” coverage.
I first went through the exercise forty years ago when I bought my first home. Looked at standard coverage as a percentage of home value as offered by company and realized that it came nowhere near covering all the additional camping, hunting and related outdoor gear I had. Since then, we have always made sure our contents were all covered.
This not for a SHTF type situation because we all know, your not getting anyone to pay out in a big disaster but more for today... if your house or surrounding outbuildings was destroyed by fire, tornado.. would ALL the valuable preps and related infrastructure costs be covered?
We spend a lot of personal time building stuff and likely lose track of the money we have invested in our kits. Remember, your labour of past ten or so years, may need to be undertaken by others at a cost, so factor the cost of hiring someone to rebuild that shed into the replacement cost. Suggest we all take a good hard look at our coverage. Be a hell of a thing to suffer a loss from a normal event and not be able to rebuild in time for a big event that occurs a year or so after.
And log everything with video or pictures and store offsite. Be a B to lose the evidence of what you had.
Cheers
PS to contents. If you live a distance from the road, you may wish to check the coverage for the hydro poles...
I just received a notice say only the first 100 feet is covered under existing policy. And if over fifteen years, they won’t even touch it!
In a previous post I mention storing records of home contents off site. By this I mean a hard physical backup. Email servers, cloud slrage.. are all prone to being hacked or brought down.
USB sticks in safety deposit box, waterproof case on the property.. are optimal. Also Have one in the car or remote site. One backup is never a good idea.
If you encrypt it, make sure you can remember password five years from now.
At the end of each year or maybe even bi annually, update all the devices with new stuff or buildings you have added. Make it part of any medication ... refresh process you have for BoB”s
Way too funny!
We just published the same idea on the podcast today. Can't agree more that a USB stick is a good way to establish anything from ownership to an insurance claim.
For those concerned about EMP, if the USB stick is not your thing, you can always burn a few DVDs worth of pics and docs. Optical storage is pulse proof.
Check out Canadian Prepper Podcast on iTunes!
One is none, two is one.
Way too funny!
We just published the same idea on the podcast today. Can't agree more that a USB stick is a good way to establish anything from ownership to an insurance claim.
For those concerned about EMP, if the USB stick is not your thing, you can always burn a few DVDs worth of pics and docs. Optical storage is pulse proof.
Thanks for reminder on disks! I get lazy and sometimes forget about other options, redundancy is a nice thing 😀
Can you educate me on this podcast event you do. Thanks
Check us out on Canadian Prepper Podcast.
I am just the minion. The boss is floating around here too.
Check out Canadian Prepper Podcast on iTunes!
One is none, two is one.
I'd like to add that while both mediums are very good, neither are super-long term. CD/DVD's are rated for 5 years, and I've had USB's fail me as well. In the maintenance cycle of refreshing info I'd advise burning fresh discs on quality brands, and replacing the USB's as well.
Also FYI, I have proven that a tub of CD/DVD's will be destroyed by being left in the sun over time - not just the disc on top. I'd guess you should also keep USB's away from magnets?
Might is Right is the wrong thing to say but the right thing to understand.
One of the things that I learnt to do the hard way is, make numerous copies and even more important, is to test your backups. Everything is susceptible to break down and then there are the things we do to accelerate the situation 🙂
I recycle all my annual backups. Other ongoing backups are also done in multiples.
A pain when busy, but when I failed to do it, it cost me more time. Live and learn for me
Another thing to consider, in addition to making sure the dollar value coverage is right - is also to check which perils are covered, and consider what hazards exist in your area. Many policies do not cover flooding, or only cover certain sources (overland vs rain vs sewer backup). Some do not fully cover tornadoes. I added earthquake coverage to mine, but it is a lot more expensive. For me it's worth it, as I live in a lower-level townhouse - my neighbor got flooded out for months due to her upstairs neighbour's water tank failing after the last 5.5 quake - and she was NOT covered 🙁
HopeImReady
"The thing about smart mother f*ckers, is that they sometimes sound like crazy mother f*ckers to dumb mother f*ckers." -Abraham .”
I looked at quake insurance and close to 700!
Jury is still out on that.
Too bad about neighbour and it’s a good example on how one can be dragged into someone else’s world.
Just my opinion...
If a company has a major enough earthquake that they have to pay out for, they’ll likely just go bankrupt and not pay out. Happened during 9/11 and Katrina in many cases. If it’s even a larger event, the last thing you’ll be worried about is insurance coverage. You could use that 700 a year to fund more useful
Preps.
Ergo, I think earthquake insurance is a bit of a phony game.
Check out Canadian Prepper Podcast on iTunes!
One is none, two is one.
Just my opinion...
If a company has a major enough earthquake that they have to pay out for, they’ll likely just go bankrupt and not pay out. Happened during 9/11 and Katrina in many cases. If it’s even a larger event, the last thing you’ll be worried about is insurance coverage. You could use that 700 a year to fund more useful
Preps.Ergo, I think earthquake insurance is a bit of a phony game.
700 is a good chunk of change and I doubt I will go for it. In my case, My concrete foundation with rebar in it, is sitting directly on granit, log home with earthquake bolt system like they use in Japan. It would need to be a biggy to mess me up.
Always a hard decision.