The following is from our friend, Elizabeth Hammond Lehman,
a Santa Rosa fire survivor.

My heart is breaking for all of you going through the fires in Southern California. I put this list together after losing our home in 2017 and I hope a few of you find it helpful. Be safe.

Short Term If you own your home, download an updated estimated value from realtor.com or other real estate site. Do this quickly.

Ask your cell phone carrier if they will give you an unlimited data, voice and message plan at a discount.

Be VERY careful about signing up for assistance. We were scammed two days after the fire by a fake FEMA website. The scammers put in a claim for $20k against our property address.

Following on the above, watch for disaster centers where you will be able to meet directly with assistance representatives. In my town, the local newspaper dedicated an entire floor to allow residents to register with DMV, IRS (to get previous years returns), FEMA, insurance companies, etc. all in one place. FEMA will assign you a number. Write that down somewhere safe.

Register with the Red Cross.

Open a dedicated checking account just for fire expenses and payments from insurance or relief foundations. Our credit union did this at no charge and gave us a debit card for that account.

If you have a mortgage, request a waiver of payments and interest charges for at least three months.

Get a PO Box or trusted friend who will receive your mail. United Policyholders (https://www.uphelp.org) is an excellent resource. Use them as much as you can or need.

Lastly, and most importantly, take your time with all long-term decisions. Don’t be pushed by insurance or any one else to finalize anything. You won’t be in your right mind for a while, maybe a long while. Go easy on yourself. I made a three-task rule each day, and if only one of those tasks was completed, that was ok. You are going to spend hours on the phone, you often won’t get the answers you need on the first, second, third call. Take a break. Do anything you can to take care of yourself.

Middle Term:
It may feel urgent, but the decision to rebuild or not is way down the line and you need a LOT of information before you get there.

Longer term rental search—include insurance on it so they pay directly for rental. Find a nice place that you like, don’t settle. You should be able to get a “Like Property” so insurance should cover a nice place for you to live while you work through all this. You might be living here for 2 years, so choose wisely.

When you get back to your property, have some sturdy boots, gloves, and shovels.

Save receipts. Having that dedicated checking account and debit card will help a lot. Loss of use insurance will cover incidentals too—hairbrush, phone chargers, etc.

Start working on the personal property list (this is not fun at all, be prepared to cry we sure did). Write down the moment you remember…keep lists on phone or pad of paper with you at all times. Take this in mentally and emotionally manageable chunks. You have time.

As you buy things, tell the store owner your situation. Many stores will give you some level of discount as their way of helping you.

Let people do things for you. Do you have a friend that you can send to the store to buy you some basic clothes or comfort foods? Let them do it – they want to help and you don’t need to spend time doing these errands. (The “fun” of shopping is gone…it quickly becomes a chore because you don’t want a new shirt, you want the one that you always liked to wear but now it’s gone and you are sad/mad.)

Longer Term:
Call Homeowners/Rental insurance to trigger “Loss of Use”. This typically will allow you to be in a “Like” property for x number of years and sometimes has a dollar limit attached and sometimes not, this is dependent on your policy. This coverage should also give you some immediate access to funds for essentials, clothes, toothbrushes, food, etc.

This will also get the ball rolling for the insurance claim on your home and rebuilding/personal property dollars.

Get a PO Box and forward all mail to the Box. Use this PO Box as the mailing address on all forms you begin to fill out.

Start searching for a long term rental. Everyone will be grabbing whatever they can.

Coordinate with your insurance company so that payments can be made directly from them using your “Loss of Use” money.

Plan on renting 1-2 years, but do not necessarily sign a lease for a full two years as circumstances can change.

Keep going on your itemized list of belongings – (This is very hard but very necessary for your claim). Try to organize by room and list everything that was there with a replacement cost. Be specific with brand names. If you had a top-of-the-line Rowenta, state that. Otherwise you will get $5 dollars for a crappy generic item. Replacement cost should be what it would cost to replace—not the sale price at Walmart.

Make sure you list everything, even if it is above and beyond your policy limit. This is very important because everything above and beyond the policy limit is considered a loss and can be claimed as such on your taxes.

Call all of your utilities and either freeze or cancel service.

Stop payments to your homeowners association.

Cancel or update magazines and newspapers to online.

If you lost a car, don’t forget to cancel your car insurance.

Did you have any specialty insurance or warranties for unique items?

Debris removal permit—as things wind down it will be necessary to have a permit for removing debris (This should be covered by your insurance, we had to force the issue but ask repeatedly.)

Erosion Control —If you are on any kind of hill or have sloped property you will need to put some sort of erosion control measures in place, again this will need some sort of permit.

Temporary power pole/trailer on site permit—Getting this early on can prove helpful in the rebuilding process.

Taxes—You will be able to claim the monetary loss of the value of all your items minus what you receive from your insurance company. I’m unfamiliar with the exact laws, but I believe that we were able to carry our losses back 2-5 years. Everything helps.

MOST IMPORTANT:
Network. You will learn so much from other people as you go through the rebuilding process. We formed an email list with everyone who had the same insurer. It was invaluable. We all have our strengths so share yours and use others.

The amount of time that you will spend on the rebuild, insurance, recovery process is staggering so you need to use all your resources.

Please feel free to share if this is helpful. My heart is breaking for all of you going through the fires in Southern California.