Okay. Just last night, we finished cataloging the personal items lost in the fire. When an 800+ square foot building is primarily used for storage, it's AMAZING how much stuff is in there. We talked to the insurance guy about just a flat amount of money for rebuilding and replacing. We really didn't want to go into the personal items too much because it would take forever. We would have to sort through piles of rubble that had been pushed out of the Rec Room down the hill by the firefighters. We would have to photograph everything, showing the level of damage. We would have to look up many many things. The insurance guy said ITEMIZE! Okay. So we did it.
For the last 6 weeks (with one break for going to Allgood, and it was SO WELL WORTH IT! More on that later), Organic Guy (with the help of Organic Kid, 'til she went to visit her dad for the summer) dug through piles. Had clipboards and many notebooks. Wrote down many many things. Tried to find serial numbers. Looked for model information. Washed things that would just be thrown away, trying to determine what it was. For the past week, I've looked things up as Organic Guy read them off. Looked up replacement cost. Looked up auction prices for things that can't be replaced. Contacted an antique dealer we know and sent before-and-after pictures. Learned more about reloading equipment than I ever thought I'd need to know. Learned more about Organic Guy's mom's life before retirement, and decided I wanted to spend hours talking to her about her life (that woman is AMAZING!!), and getting it all written down, because she's been such an adventurous spirit her whole life. And then, I've been creating a huge spreadsheet.
Last night, at about midnight, while watching South Park re-runs (I LOVE South Park!!), we finished the list. And totaled it. And gasped. Every dollar figure can be backed up, we can look it up somehow (and I am SO GLAD I have family that works at Cabela's, because I thought of them while looking up stuff, so that became the source of dollar figures for all camping, hunting, reloading, fishing, pet gear, which comprises about a third to a half of the whole list). And we found out something important.
Insurance agents are fools. The agent that told us to itemize...yeah, okay, we did. And now that flat figure we suggested...umm...it's doubled. That's right. We WAAAYYYY underestimated the value of the stuff that was in the Rec Room. We underestimated HUGELY. They've already determined the construction cost. So this huge spreadsheet that we're sending today, it's all above and beyond that. Actually, the total of items exceeds the construction cost. We're anticipating getting challenged on some items. We now have BINDERS of information for any dollar figure found on the web. We have a Cabela's catalog to hand them. We will walk through Lowes and Home Depot with them. Like I said, every single number has something backing it. I think they're going to be very, very, very sorry they told a stubborn, detail-oriented, person who likes knowing ALL the rules because it's easier to figure out how to get around them to itemize.
