Speaker 1: And Hi, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast. Yes,
it is Thursday, the twenty seventh day of November, Year
of our Ward, twenty twenty five. It is Thanksgiving Day.
Thank you for stopping by. We are going to are
we are going to scoot today. So we're going to
do a best of This goes back to January eighth
of this year, talking about a show where we talked
about the fires in Los Angeles they had happened just
two days before and the reaction and some of the
ideas and tips and things like that about natural disasters.
It starts with a breaking news Jimmy Carter had recently
passed away. His body was laying in state in the
US Capital, and somebody showed up at the Capital security
gates with a bag full of knives and machetes, and
so that started off the program. But basically it's about
the LA fires and some of the tips that people
that have lived through natural disasters have for all of us.
So again, thank you for coming by. Happy Thanksgiving to you.
Let's go back to January eighth, and so they got
a lot of people there and they're in line and
they're doing all this stuff. They're going to do and
a man carrying a machete and several knives. He had
a bag he carried through the security checkpoint at the
Capital Visitors Center before you get into the Parol building itself,
and inside the bag were three knives and a machete,
and uh he was. He was charged with several counts
of carrying a dangerous weapon and taking into custody. So
I don't know what he was going to do. But
there's a there's a nut burder on every other corner
out there, folks.
Speaker 2: There just is.
Speaker 1: We were talking to Laurie talking about the fact that
she was involved in the the the inspection was it
of the rebuild in Santa Rosa, California, which was a
similar fire. It was in the actual urban part of
the city, which I was. I was mystified at the time.
So what so as has it been rebuilt and if so,
what did the people have to go through?
Speaker 3: Parts of it have been rebuilt. There are still a
few vacant flauts in in the more suburban area, I
mean the more middle class area, the upper class area,
very wealthy expensive homes is maybe forty has been rebuilt,
maybe how long?
Speaker 1: That was two thousand and seventeen, so there's seven seven
seven seven eight years ago.
Speaker 4: I uh won't be either.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: And I look at the scars of natural disasters. I've
always had a theory that it takes about five years
before everything's back to normal.
Speaker 2: You're telling me, though, it's not. People haven't rebuilt.
Speaker 4: Oh not even close, not even close.
Speaker 3: No, No, there was a lot the majority of my
inspections were done in those middle class, upper middle class areas,
and the emotional part was the same. And these people
are about to run into a collision between laws, rules
and regulations and their emotions and there's nothing they can
do about it because there's certain things they are going
to have to go through. Now. FEMA is going to
get involved, oh boy, And there's a lot of environmental
things that have to happen. And I watched this first
time with my brother because his house burned down. So
I saw all the preliminary stuff. They're going to bring
the bulldozers in, and I talked to the female people.
They're going to bring the bulldozers in and they're going
to start scraping soil because they've got to do soil sampling,
which either the home owner is going to pay.
Speaker 1: For or the Oh wait wait, why why why do
you need a soil sample your house burned.
Speaker 3: The homes are filled with copper and all kinds of
junk that they In fact, my brother's neighbor's wife had
a big, huge copper bowl as a decor, and they
sample right right where it was, right where it was,
and they had to scrape.
Speaker 1: Again, so they failed the test. Oh my gosh, so
I get one part. I get one part of this.
I don't like it, but I understand. So I built
my house. The house that I bought was built in
nineteen fifty, let's say, and the building codes in nineteen
fifty were a lot different than in twenty twenty five.
So I can see where they go to rebuild their
house and they say, I want to build a house
like I had, Well, you can't do that because the
code has changed. So I can see that coming at them.
Speaker 3: Man, And that costs money because now if you have
the plans that were recorded with the county, you can
go get the plans to your house. But those plans
are old, so now they've got to be upgraded. So
now they've got to go to an architect. So you
have to pay for that at But my brother's case,
they never recorded the plans, so he had to find
something that was going to be equivalent to the square
footage that the insurance company in the bank would accept,
and he never did rebuild, ended up buying last year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they went around for years trying to fine persic.
Speaker 3: So anyway you're gonna they're gonna end up with the
FEMA thing. They're going to have to record it with
the insurance company. The insurance company's going to give them
an initial payout answer some money and there, and usually
people use their contents money, but that's a lump sum.
And that was another problem, which I think they've corrected,
is that my brother spent hours trying to remember what
was in that house.
Speaker 2: Well that's what, that's what.
Speaker 1: That's why I thought the guy who was his house,
I mean, the fires all around his house and he's
there with his iPhone taking videos, and I thought, oh,
please run for your life. But then if they know,
because could you remember everything in your house?
Speaker 5: No, no, no, my house didn't burn.
Speaker 3: But I think she may have changed that. I'm not
sure they The insurance commissioner, I think stepped in and
stopped that because all of a sudden he stopped having
to do all of this nitpicky, what the heck did
we have? And then we're going back to old photos.
Speaker 4: Yea, yeah, you know it was.
Speaker 3: It was a nightmare.
Speaker 5: So then after you get your you're.
Speaker 3: Getting started money as I called it to them, because
I would try to explain this process to people because
their emotions are just like, I mean, build a house,
lose a spouse. Okay, it literally was that. And and
once you get all the environmental stuff done, you get
your architect upgrades done, you get all the all the processing,
you know, the everything you need, all the ducks in
a row, you got to get the power dropped, and
you get scrape things all done. Then you put the
foundation in, and then you get the foundation and then
just step by step by step.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you what I would do as I well,
let me ask you if we're talking about major wildfires
that you experienced and they're experiencing today in Los Angeles,
But what of my if it wasn't a major wildfire,
my house burned down, just me, me, myself and I
I left something on the kitchen and the house burned down.
Speaker 2: Do I have to go all through that too, same thing.
Speaker 3: Same process, same thing. It's all the same. It doesn't matter,
it doesn't matter if you have a leak in your house,
doesn't matter. It's the same process, exactly the same process.
So what the insurance company does is they give you
the money, the entire money that you received, so rebuild
your house based upon your contract. And that is chea.
This is where the problem comes into. This is where
the class comes in, because everybody who signs a contract
with your insurance company has You don't see it, but
there's a payout for everything concrete.
Speaker 2: Tile work, sure, heat block, sure.
Speaker 3: Running the interior, the ductor. And what happens is with inflation,
those prices go up. I mean I was seeing people
rebuilding their homes. Their foundation cops went up forty dollars
from what day.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, yes, it's on their contract.
Speaker 3: Now you can negotiate that, but it's it varies from
insurance company.
Speaker 2: To well, well it goes back on you when you buy.
Speaker 1: When you buy home insurance, they can sell you a
cash value policy, which says that they'll take a look
at your sofa and they'll say, well, you bought that
sofa six years ago. Now it's worth much less, so
we'll give you the much less price, or you can
buy a more expense policy that says replacement value. And
that's where you say, I had a sofa and then.
Speaker 2: I want to replace that.
Speaker 3: Well, but that doesn't even matter.
Speaker 2: It should the lawyers will make them happens.
Speaker 6: No, it does, it doesn't.
Speaker 3: It's supply and demand. It's like, yeah, you can give
replacement value. I currently have two times over my replacement value.
But I did that two years ago and I need
to look at it. People had replacement value. But the
problem was when you have a big fire like that,
there's no supplies.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, all of a sudden,
all the furniture stores are out of furniture.
Speaker 2: Yeah they're all they're something everything they got.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, So all of a sudden, a ten dollars
back of concrete is not going for twenty five It's
not just anybody's lounging anybody. It's just simply what happens.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, it go through this process of rebuilding and it's
going to be two years. I mean there was a
house that burned a couple of blocks from two, three
or four blocks to them two years. It didn't even totally.
I mean it didn't even just get in the house.
Speaker 2: It was over to the garage.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these so these people whose house is burned down,
spent their first night at some place else last night,
hotel or friend or some other place, and they're going
to they're basically not going to be back in a.
Speaker 2: Home for a couple of years, is what you're saying.
Speaker 4: Yike, a couple of years.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, these are really wealthy people. They may have different resources,
but this is what I saw with the middle the
middle class, upper middle class homes. But they're not going
to get around these environmental things.
Speaker 1: They're No, no, they won't. But it doesn't it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter how wealthy you are, your your wedding album,
photo of the kids when they were little, right, all
of that. It's it pings your heart no matter how
much money you have.
Speaker 2: It's it's sables.
Speaker 3: It's absolutely horrible. It's it's a and for on the
other side of it, that didn't when you when you're
first there, it first hits you that you got to evacuate.
You don't want to take you really truly.
Speaker 4: Don't, you know?
Speaker 1: And I mean, like I said, This fire started yesterday
at ten thirty in the morning, and people were kind
of going, I don't know what do we do? Even
if somebody was Johnny on the Spot and said, let's
let's go.
Speaker 2: What do you take? What do you grab? Where's your
go bag?
Speaker 4: Exactly?
Speaker 2: What's in it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I you know, most everybody.
Speaker 3: Puts things online now, which is what we're doing now,
is we're putting it on clouds and smart.
Speaker 1: I grab my you know what that's that's so smart
as yes, put him in the cloud, take photos, take videos,
and have it someplace so that if your house burns
down tonight, you got it all.
Speaker 2: You've got it documented. Yeah, that's good advice. All right, Gloria,
I got It's going to be a while for them.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I feel terrible for them. Got to run, Laurie.
Thank you for the information. I do appreciate your call. Yeah,
I say your prayers for them. It's all you can do.
Phone numbers here is eight five, five, two, nine, five
sixty six hundred. Will be right back.
Speaker 4: Tom. If you're a straight up guy, I love the show.
Speaker 6: He's the smartest guy in the room.
Speaker 2: Well. President Biden was in Los Angeles. I was in
California to.
Speaker 1: Declare some land off limits of the National Landmarks or
whatever they were, and so he's done that and he's
now winging it back to Washington, d C. He's got
to get back for Jimmy Carter's funeral service tomorrow.
Speaker 2: That's what's going on with him.
Speaker 1: Dave's Waterfall is a guy who lived in Pacific Palisades
and this is his description cut six about what happened
when he was told to evacuate.
Speaker 7: We've had the misfortune of having the fire come to
our neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: So we were.
Speaker 7: Forced to evacuate around nine pm last night, and so
my family and I we evacuated to our dealership here
in Santa Monica. So we took a bunch of video
just so we could share and document it as well.
Speaker 2: But my wife favorite go bag, and she over the
close break. She actually filed everything. So we have all of.
Speaker 7: Our important docum, his papers, a couple of hard drives,
our pets, our kids, and our kids packed a backpack
of essentially anything I did.
Speaker 4: Sneak out of.
Speaker 7: Here on a motorcycle this morning and go see my
neighborhood and it is blocked by the police. There's a
lot of wind damage. I saw my house. We lost
our gate and our fence. There's trees down that have
crushed cars and on top of houses. And the fire
is the fire lines eight blocks from our home.
Speaker 1: No, see what he did. He took photos and video
and he took his heart. He took a couple of
hard drives, portable hard drives, I imagine. But put stuff
in the clouds. Take photos and videos of your possessions,
because you will never remember everything that you have. The
insurance dude's going to be saying, all right, what did
you have in the family room? Well, we have so
and we had a couple of lamps, and try and
remember all that stuff. What did you have? Any artwork?
Any any vases? And hard to remember, very hard to remember.
Eight nine five sixty six hundred, Danielle, I understand you
work in insurance.
Speaker 2: Is that right, Danielle?
Speaker 5: That is correct? Tom yay, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: The showf you bet what's your what's your Reactually?
Speaker 5: I was calling in regards to Laurie what she said.
I actually was a claim's adjuster that worked the napp
of fires and the evacuation center for a large insurance
company for many years and during that time, and even
now California does not have something in place where they're
going to pay seventy five percent of all the content.
Let's say, of the limits that you have in a
large lost fire especial play a wildfire. Some insurance companies
do the particular one I work for to this day.
Even if you do not have a catastrophic wildfire, you
are responsible for listing everything you have in your home.
I would always tell people traveling across the country. I've
done hurricanes, fires, I'd say, anything you do, put it
in a safe deposit box at the bank. Okay, don't
put it in It's not going to do any good
if you have it at your you know.
Speaker 2: Well what do you hold?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, but what do you think about the idea?
Just take photos and videos and store it in the cloud.
Speaker 2: That way.
Speaker 1: Well, when I come into your office and you say
what do you got, I'll say here, here it is.
Speaker 4: Assuming.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I'm a little old school Tom, I kind
of like I would do both just because just to
cover myself, just because you know, there is a claim.
I would say this if I had a wood clogs
that nobody knew nobody had anything though, photos, no, nothing.
The only way we were able to pay it was
based on sign affidavits and the gentlemen that I finally
figured out it was from the you know, he was
from the historic examp. I mean, the guy was just
so that was pretty easy, but it's it's difficult. I
would tell people, when you are going through this catastrophic situation,
keep a notebook by your bed. You're going to wake
up in the middle of the night and say, oh
my god, I forgot about my great grandmother's hairloom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is. It's those are those are the things.
Speaker 1: They're priceless to you, but to the insurance company, they're
just an item.
Speaker 4: It's just property.
Speaker 5: So I mean I always tell people, please look at
your limits because people don't change the limits and you
can go years and years and years. Yeah, just in
just in, just in property damage, because as you know,
when you have a catastrophic loss, you have you know,
supplying demand, so you can only imagine what's going to
happen with dry wall, roofings and all those type.
Speaker 2: Of especially Yeah, in a situation like this, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 5: Well, this is have all the ambulans, tasers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, and and the the contractors that are not
really contractors, scam artists and stuff like that. I got
to hit or break, But that's good advice. Daniel Primetime
all the time with Tom Sullivan Primetime. It is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The whole insurance business is another story. And I think
I first saw the insurance company starting to cancel people.
First stories I saw of that time flies. But I
want to say three or four years ago in Florida,
there was a series of hurricanes that had gone through
that area and they just started canceling people. And there's
people that are crying the blues in Florida trying to
get home insurance. Well, California is kind of on the
same path. In April of last year, so eight months ago,
nine months ago, State Farm, one of the biggest private
insurance companies in the state of California, announced that it
had canceled seventy two thousand policies, thirty thousand of which
were homes, and many of them were in high risk
areas and upscale neighborhoods in Los Angeles now being affected
by these fires. So that they I mean, State Farm
paid out a bunch In twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen from wildfires,
and they said, we're going to reduce our exposure. So
it's state law does not require you to have fire insurance.
But your mortgage lender, if you have a mortgage on
your house, they're going to want you to have.
Speaker 2: Insurance.
Speaker 1: And they have a program if you can't get insurance,
a state program, but it doesn't pay ditaly. Those programs
are terrible, better than nothing, but it's not a lot
sixty six hundred.
Speaker 2: How you doing Q?
Speaker 4: Good afternoon, mister Sullivan, How good afternoon.
Speaker 2: I'm great going on.
Speaker 4: That's good. Yeah, So you might have to check your
portfolio now and say, hmmm, with these fires that's going
on right now, I think I'm gonna get some more
not exposure, but maybe I might start building building up
with the building materials company, all right. And the reason
why I say.
Speaker 1: That is, hold, go ahead, hold hold the horses.
Speaker 2: Are you trying to make money off of this tragedy too?
Of course yes, with.
Speaker 4: Any of course, any business executive is gonna say, wow,
hey man, even though we're gonna lose multi millions of
dollars doing with these claims, at least we can get
dealing with the building products and try to recove my money.
Yeah all right, yeah, But honestly, but think about this.
What do you think your insurance executives are thinking right now?
Speaker 2: Well, there they are.
Speaker 1: This is going to be uh because prices in Los
Angeles of of your average ordinary home are outrageously high.
So this is probably gonna this is probably going to
be the biggest insurance loss in decades.
Speaker 4: Ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ever, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Because if you look at the map, if you look
at the map of the fires that they got right now,
even though the wind is going from the mountains or
the hills to the ocean, right all it needs is
a simple wind change and go to north Santa Monica
be in thread.
Speaker 1: Well this is that these are the Santa Anna's and
they always blow out of the east towards the west,
and and so that I don't think it's going to
change dramatically. But their way. The problem is is that
the winds are still going to stay high for at
least another day. So they've still got they've still got
the flames spreading.
Speaker 2: But they're good. But that's what happened.
Speaker 1: They came, they came in over the hills and then
down to the down to the ocean. And they just
pushed the flames as a m Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: So it's it's a bad situation. Uh my bed is
is going to be trillions of dollars that's going to
be I have to be uh implemented to rebuild. And
like your previous caller, she said about what sixty seven
years before they even got their house rebuilt. Yeah, that's
gonna be. That's gonna be a mess. Man.
Speaker 1: You know, well, I look, I'm looking at this. I'm
looking at this, and I'm thinking it's just going to
be a scarred piece of earth for a few for
at least a few years, maybe more. And I don't
have the latest update on Lahina, but I mean there
the last one I saw was three or four months ago.
And it's all they've done is scraped the earth. It's
just empty lots. It's all dirt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all dirt. So also think about this, tom
because of the economic, social, and you know, psychological thing
that's going to go down, some of these people might
not ever go back to their houses. All right. If
the insurance company give them a payout of X amount,
let's just say, five hundred thousand dollars to the house
it's going to cost them seven hundred and fifty or
maybe eight hundred thousand dollars to get it rebuilt.
Speaker 1: Well, like like Laurie was telling us her that her brother,
I think what she was talking about. It never rebuilt,
just went and bought something else, just started someplace else, Yeah,
somewhere else. Yeah, I mean, you got to get You
don't want to fight, and the insurance companies know that,
they know that they'll they can wear you down, and
so you do. You're throwing the towel, say give me
my check. I'm gone, I'm out. I'm going somewhere else.
Speaker 4: I'm out. I'm audios. And just think about this. This
weather event is supposed to happen later in the summertime.
Why is it happening when it's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, usually it's the fall.
Speaker 1: Usually it's the fall, October, October, November is just like
the hurricane season. It's in summer and early fall, and
then then you don't get hurricanes anymore. And it's the
same with I'm surprised that Santa Anna's where this is
January and we got a Santa Anna storm.
Speaker 2: So I'm surprised as well.
Speaker 4: So I don't know, I wow, it's crazy, man, It's
just a bad sitish. And then they jumped from two
fires this morning to the store. Yeah, and I was like, wow,
put in two additional ones. Where are they at?
Speaker 2: And I'm at the mass.
Speaker 1: I feel like, oh boy, I know, and I you know,
I'll wait to see what the causes were. Uh, but
I I you know, the pyrotechic pirate, the pyros are
are licking their chops. Yeah, because the winds are still
blowing and and the vegetation is dry.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing about this.
Speaker 1: You can rebuild homes, but you can't put back the
years and years of the beautiful plants and trees and
all the colorful flowers that they have in Pacific Palisades.
It's a gorgeous piece of earth. But it took them
along to build that. It's gonna it's never gonna look
like that in probably ten years. And I'm afraid you know,
the you know the car on those I'm talking about,
they there. It doesn't matter what city you live in.
They're they're being built everywhere. They're the ugliest things I've
ever seen, and it's like they're all the same. I mean,
kind of looks like the Russian housing for the people.
You know, they build all those things and they have
thinks there's your apartment for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They're ugly, and that's what I'm afraid they're going to
do is some developers going to go in there and say,
I'm going to make you an offer for your property here,
and I'm going to buy your property and then I'm
going to build a big, old, ugly condo project.
Speaker 2: Have you've seen those things to They all look the same.
Speaker 4: Same, same design. Yes, where there might be a few
intricate details that might they might put in, but overall, yeah,
the same thing.
Speaker 1: Well they used to They used to do condos that
were unique, can have their own architecture, and they were nice.
But now I'm going is there anybody at city hall
that has that says, no, we don't approve your plans
because you're making our city look ugly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, hey, the city is thinking about we need money.
Speaker 2: Solly want right pay your building fee and get out
of here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, get out of here. We'll pull your plan and
we out of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, Well, listen, build building. Building products are
like everything else. Inflation sent them to the moon and
they've come back down again, but there's still more than
they were before the pandemic.
Speaker 3: You could care less about anything, Tom, What are you
doing there? Tom Sullivan?
Speaker 2: So just watching on a lot of our monitors.
Speaker 1: They're interviewing the lady who is the head of FEMA,
and she looks very concerned.
Speaker 2: And she's sitting there in a FEMA office in Washington.
Speaker 1: D C. And they've got rows and rows in rows
and rows of computers and desks behind her.
Speaker 2: There isn't a soul to be seen. Nobody's there.
Speaker 1: Where are the people that are supposed to be working
at four forty nine pm in Washington, D C. It's
not five o'clock yet, folks, they're gone. She's the only
one nobody at the FEMA office. Every single desk is empty,
and even if they normally get off at five. Hello,
you got you got a natural disaster going on in
the second biggest city in the country.
Speaker 2: You think we can get a few people to do
some work here.
Speaker 1: Phone numbers eight, five, five, two, nine, five sixty six hundred, Sandy,
Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Hi, Sandy, Good afternoon.
Speaker 6: Tom. Want to make a comment to kind of help
your virs if they didn't know what it to go bag.
If where I live we have had fires and you
have your to go bag with extra changes of clothes,
your important papers, things that you need for your fur babies,
and you put them in a closet, hopefully by the door.
All you have to do is grab put it in
your vehicle and go. But you need to put your
to go bags together now if you are not facing
a desunket, if you were in the fire zone, you
would not want to do it now because you'll get
in a panic. I face that once with a fire
coming close. Threw my stuff together when it was all
over and was thankfully we did not get touched by
the fire. I looked at what I grabbed and it.
Speaker 4: Was absolutely.
Speaker 5: You're a lauron.
Speaker 6: I learned this value blesson. So when you go bag,
which I should understand why there's anybody anywhere that wouldn't
because if you don't have fire, you have hurricanes, you
have you have mud slides, you name it. So you
need to put it together before you need it and
so that when it happens, just have the list on
the refrigerator, your to go bags in the closet, wherever,
or if you've got into a couple of closets, list it,
take that list, get that stuff, throw in your vehicle
and go and then that way you're not I don't
know what you're taken because you won't.
Speaker 1: You know, we we don't our thought processes shambles. If
you're in if you're panicking, we don't well, we don't
do well. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about
the change of clothes, tating.
Speaker 6: It just makes sure.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because you could No, I go down to
you go down to down to the J. C. Penny
and buy yourself some underwear or whatever you need. Either know,
you can buy that.
Speaker 6: So you got your credit card or your your checkbook
with you?
Speaker 2: What's a checkbook?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Really old school, I know. But you know what's
funny is when we had a fire, all the powers
were turned off and a lot of people went to
go fill their cars up with gas so they could
get out of here. Guess what wasn't working? Yeah, the
pumps at the gas station.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I also went to ATMs and guess what wasn't working?
Speaker 1: See, I tell you, well, you you bring up the
question of go bags to me. You put in the
go bag because all that stuff. You can take photos
of your insurance policies and uh, photos of.
Speaker 2: Your home and so you remember what you got.
Speaker 1: To me, it's it's replacing my grandmother's wedding ring. It's
it's the it's the moment. The family mementos that you
cannot buy, but they mean the world to you.
Speaker 2: That's sort of saying, have them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if you have them on displaying the house, or
you know they're in a special drawer, you better make
that list on where to grab them so that you
remember them and you can grab them and go because
I'll tell you when it it and your mind just panics,
you won't remember everything.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just don't.
Speaker 2: It's worthy.
Speaker 1: It's worthy to sit down with the family and say,
so what should we put in our go bag? And
you can't do too much and it can't be too heavy,
So yeah, what do you take?
Speaker 2: What do you leave?
Speaker 1: But with today's technology, I don't think there's I think
it's made it made it much easier. But again I
go back to family jewelry and things like that that
meant something. It was your mother's or your grandmother's or
something your father gave you. You know, those sorts of
things that are irreplaceable.
Speaker 6: Sure, whatever is irreplaceable, whatever is important to you that
you wish you would take.
Speaker 5: You need to make.
Speaker 6: Sure that you know where to grab them, you know,
to remember them even if you haven't looked at them
for a while.
Speaker 2: But you, yeah, things quickly.
Speaker 1: And the problem, the problem you can go problem with
insurance is one of the callers said, you know you
need to update it.
Speaker 2: None of us. I don't. I'm guilty.
Speaker 1: I don't want to update my insurance policy because I
know if I call them and say, hey, I want
to go over this with you, they'll say, oh, yeah,
well we need to update that. That'll be an extra
you know, they want more money for whatever it is.
Speaker 6: But I mean, so all you have available to you
is a states program.
Speaker 1: Those people, yeah, no, that's yeah. But they also aren't
they're worthless. I mean they're they're pretty much worthless. They
don't pay very much and so I mean, so it's
better than a poke in the eye, but that's about
a little just tony bit better.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but that's the problem.
Speaker 1: The insurance companies are canceling people not because of who
you are, you're a bad person, or your credit is bad. No,
it's because of where you live, your zip code.
Speaker 6: Uh huh, that's exactly correct.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we got a look, I saw something. I
got an article run here somewhere that has about the
zip codes and Pacific Palisies and they have Yeah, they're
cutting people off, there's no question about it.
Speaker 2: We're on our own.
Speaker 4: But no.
Speaker 1: But but most people cannot self ensure. Wealthy wealthy, wealthy
people do.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And like you said, if you have a mortgage
or alone against your house, you have to have that,
even if you you know, let's put up a bond
or something.
Speaker 1: Well, that goes back to wealthy people. And I have
some I have some wealthy friends and they they self
insure and they don't have a mortgage, and so they
put so much of their money away into some insurance
investment account that they have and that's if something happens,
the money is sitting.
Speaker 2: There, they're fine.
Speaker 1: Most people don't have that. Yeah, all right, Sandy, thanks, thanks, good,
good advice.
Speaker 2: I appreciate, appreciate the call. Where did I put that?
Speaker 1: James Wood, the actor, he lives apparently in Pacific Palisades somewhere,
and he's very much of an online guy. And he's
talking about a lot of his neighbors are elderly retired
people and could not get out, and he doesn't know
what's happened to them. I'm looking for the insurance here
because they are they go by zip code. I know
in California, April of twenty twenty four, less than a
year ago, Saint Farm canceled seventy two thousand policies because
they've been burned by the literally burned by the wildfires
that they've had in that state over the last dozen years.
Speaker 2: Or so, and they're losing money. Well, we'll figure out
Speaker 1: The specific Palisades amount, but we've got a few other
things to cover as well.