A week out from the fire, the day was about as normal as we can expect. Nick took the kids to school, Kate had therapy, we went out to lunch, and then Kate went to run errands and pick up the kids.
Accepting assistance – One of the stranger feeling things we’re doing right now is accepting some generous donations. On the morning of the fires, I was at my computer making year-end charitable donations to a few nonprofits. Hours later, we owned nothing but a plot of land with ash and an insurance policy. 😬We know our insurance coverage is enough for us to get back on our feet, and we have savings and income to make sure we’re covered going forward.
So when amazing and giving people in our community want to help, we try to refuse so that the help can go to families who are underinsured, unemployed, etc. But, the amount of help and assistance is really astounding. And everyone insists we take them up on at least part of their offers.
Today, I went to Neptune in Boulder to pick up a few items they put aside for us. They’ve had trucks full of gear donated by their suppliers, and are organizing a huge event for anyone impacted by the fires.
Erin (who chatted with me on Facebook once she knew we lost our house) put together BOXES and BOXES of stuff for us. It was way too much. She showed me everything, and I hesitated with most of it. But she insisted on some things, and threw it in a box for us. I didn’t really keep track until we got home, but I got 2 nice jackets, a pair of pants, and two shirts, and she gave me like 5 jackets for Nick and 2 things for each of the kids. We’re planning to take a few of the men’s jackets back for another family or will pass them along to a neighbor.
Neighbors – Speaking of neighbors, I stopped by the house and our neighbors across the street were there. Their oldest daughter, Mia, babysits for the kids and we hadn’t seen her yet. We hugged, chatted, and made some plans to get together with our corner of the neighborhood soon. One of the saddest parts of all this is that we won’t live near all our amazing neighbors (at least for the foreseeable future) — but it’s a silver lining that now we’re all connected by this event in a way basically no one else can understand. They understand all the heavy feelings and weird sensations, and we have just an amazing group of people to survive this with.
Insurance – We’ve finalized the claim for the car (just need to mail the title to get the check), and we heard today about the insurance claim for the house and our belongings. We are going to max out the policy for the rebuild cost, and that check will be sent to us and then put in escrow since we have a mortgage on the property. We’ll access those funds when we either pay off the mortgage, or when we begin to rebuild the house.
We also are getting a check for 75% of the policy cap for our belongings. This means that if we’re comfortable with that amount (and we are) then we DON’T have to keep every receipt, prove every purchase, etc. This was such a daunting task on our plates, and we are thrilled to be able to not do that. If we wanted to push for 100% of the amount, we’d have to save receipts and prove that we spent it on similar stuff to what we had before (e.g. we couldn’t count the cost of a Restoration Hardware bed unless we could prove we previously owned one). Our policy was good, and we feel confident that the 75% amount will cover everything we need to buy to get totally setup again. And if we eventually spend more, fine, we’ll pay for that. It will be worth it to eliminate the work. Obviously this is what insurance companies count on when writing these policies, but we’re happy about it, so….DONE.
We’ll still need to work with insurance on two things:
- Any rebuild costs over the 100% insured amount. We had a rider on our policy for an extra 25% if it costs that (and if we do rebuild, it probably will). We’ll have to provide all the receipts to get access to those funds. But collecting receipts for rebuilding a house seems way more manageable than saving every receipt when you go to Walgreens to buy dental floss.
- Our additional living expenses while we’re in temporary housing. Our rent for the next 7+ months is being paid directly by the insurance company, but any other expenses we incur related to being displaced will have to be submitted to them for reimbursement — up to a total amount.
Food Delivery – Our incredible friends Eric and Amy set up a meal train for us, and we are swimming in leftovers already. We ended the night with amazing homemade lasagna, salad, and fresh-baked bread from our incredible friend and house helper Claire. She’s helped us so much, and has refused any payment from us. Starting in a week or so, we’re excited to get her back on the normal schedule to help us out around the house.
Thank you so much to everyone for your love, support, and help. Hearing from you all is so healing.
And, to finish it off. Look at this little dude! He’s really excited about standing up and flopping down right now. We’re in trouble once he starts to really put one foot in front of the other:
kleinschmidtcolorado.com 
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