re: House burned to the ground; insurance Q

Insurance companies seldom (if ever) pay the full insured amount without an attorney representing the insured. They save billions by short-changing unrepresented customers.

And, no, I am not a lawyer.

if you can’t prove it now, how are you going to prove it in a lawsuit?

I think this is BS. If you have been paying insurance for $160,000 worth of contents and the house burns to the ground than you should receive $160,000.

The insurance was happy to take all of the premiums for years at that value without proof. If insurance works like this there should be some verification on the insurance company’s part when you select the coverage that you are not over insuring the contents.

The Saturday night before I evacuated for Katrina, I took pictures of everything in my house. Every room and inside of every closet and cabinet.

The result was I got a very good contents settlement. Had I not taken pictures I might have been screwed. That’s documentation.

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ACV v. RCV

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This. Contents coverage can be very tricky, assuming you’re in Louisiana.

Until she proves what the items were worth she’s only getting ACV regardless of whether or not a lawyer is involved. If she can prove it, she’ll get more (the amount of depreciation they took off the value of the items), but only up to the maximum of $160k.

Now, if the contents coverage on the policy is listed as $160k ACV not Replacement Cost, then she’s up shite creek without a paddle.

If some of the items were expensive, it may be possible to call the stores where they came from and they may atill have records of the purchases. Might think about that.

Otherwise, take what they already offered and call it a day. Sometimes it’s not worth fighting.

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The daughter wrote her list of contents (came out to $210,000 for everything),

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How big of a house was this? $210,000 for an elderly person? Yeah I’m calling Bs too unless she was wealthy and this was a bigger house. Outside of my grandfather’s guns which are in a high end safe, most of my grandparents shite is old as hell and not worth much at all. I’ve never decorated an entire house, but $100,000 would go a hell of a long way to buy new furniture and clothes.

I’m trying to figure out how someone gets to $210,000 without pictures and some sort of evidence? That’s damn good memory of someone else’s house.

My clients house burned down just over two years ago, he is still buying things and submitting receipts to make insurance claims. It’s an exhausting process where everything you buy is earmarked and can be claimed against the insurance companies list for that items value. Luckily my clients were self employed and worked from home so they kept meticulous records since they wrote off as much as they could. The fire was an improper fireplace install by the builder, but the house was just out of legal recourse period for the insurance company to sue builder so they ate loss, he was rebuilt in under a year.

If you have records, pictures, anything to show value I would take this to an attorney and consider lawsuit against Ins company. By simple notification of a potential lawsuit the company will in many cases be more flexible. Call a local news outlet and tell them the story of her deceased grandmothers home burning to the ground and insurance company hard balling her. The more aggressive the better your outcome

A reasonable & prudent person should regularly document what is being covered by their own contents insurance. Once granny died, some survivor (the executor/executrix perhaps?) should have done this with the residence & it’s contents.

It’s what reasonable & prudent folks do."

The OP is asking for help and not a lecture. He is dealing with the situation as it is not as he wishes it was. That's all that can be done at this point.

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they will let you pay for the things I listed. They will actually take the money.

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I know, I didn’t refute that. What I called you out on was your implication that an insurance company will knowingly let you do that, though, which they won’t because of the lack of insurable interest.

I burned down my house in Venetian Isles in New Orleans. To the ground.

I maxed my insurance on everything.
I was told to threaten insurance co with threat of independent adjuster and attorneys. They literally sent me a check within the week.