Holding Court is a series by retired Rye City Court Judge Joe Latwin. Latwin retired from the court in December 2022 after thirteen years of service to the City.
What topics do you want addressed by Judge Latwin? Tell us.
By Joe Latwin
Hopefully, you will not suffer a fire, flood, or other catastrophe. A little pre-planning can mitigate your ultimate losses and significantly make your post event life significantly easier.
Let’s start with the basics. You should have adequate insurance to cover losses caused by a disaster event. At a minimum you should have fire insurance for your home. You might want to have flood insurance, especially if, as many properties in Rye, you are in or near a flood zone. On the other hand, most Rye property owners, like the Family Guy, will not need volcano insurance. I think the nearest volcano to Rye may be in Yellowstone in Wyoming. Having insurance is essential, but not enough.
If you have a loss, you will have to prove what you lost and how much it is worth. War story: I represented a family that stored their belongings during a move from Manhattan to rural Connecticut. The belongings consisted of artwork and museum quality furniture. During the storage, their belongings disappeared. We had to sue the storage company and show its insurer what was lost and establish its value.
While most furniture has little value, their lost items were unique and irreplaceable. To establish what was lost, my clients were able to produce the detailed receipts of their noted interior designer who had obtained the lost furniture many years before showing the description of the items and their values. They were also able to produce the decorators to testify as to the nature of the furniture and its values. This allowed for the storage company to justify to its insurer the nature and value of the loss and my clients were paid a good sum, but it could never be enough to replace their unique belongings. My guess is most folks don’t have the receipts for all their furniture or someone who could testify as to its then and current values so getting anything, let alone the real value of the loss could be difficult, if not impossible. If you don’t have that gold standard proof, what can you do?
My suggestion: make a record of what you have. I would start by making a video recording of each room in your house, showing in detail everything you have. I would also call out, the model and serial number of all electronic devices (home theater, stereo, tv) and other identifiable items. Make sure to open the closets (hopefully they are neat and clean) showing all the shoes and clothing and other things you store in them. Once you make this video recording, make a few copies. Keep a copy in a safe place off site, like with a friend or relative in another city. If your house is destroyed by a meteor and the copy is in it, it won’t help you. Some suggest storing it in the cloud, but I prefer hard copies. Nothing says you can’t have both.
One other thing most overlook is documents and contacts. If you go to call your insurance company, you’ll need the policy number and the contact information to make a claim. Make a copy of all your insurance policies. You should also make a copy of your phone/address book. If you need a place to live, you will appreciate having your rich uncle’s phone number. The last thing you want to do is to try to remember who you need to call and where you can reach them. You’ll need to tell Aunt Sally you won’t be hosting Christmas dinner and to tell your credit card issuer where to send the monthly bills. Again, store this off-site.
Hopefully, a little pre-planning can help you get your life back on track and allow you to reduce your losses from a disaster.
