Here’s your “to do” list:

1. Taking steps to prepare for disaster will help stretch your insurance coverage

Protecting yourself, your family, your home, business, income and property by buying insurance makes economic sense. Use our buying tipsto benefit from lessons learned by disaster victims on where they came up short and what they wish they’d known about insurance before they had a loss.

If you’re going to spend money buying insurance, spend time buying the right coverage from a reputable company, and do what you can to reduce the likelihood of damage. Most insurers will reduce your premium if you make your property more resistant to damage. UP believes insurers should offer bigger discounts so people can afford to make their property more damage resistant. When you’re comparison shopping for insurance, find out which company offers the biggest discounts for “mitigation” and/or “retrofitting”, and;

Clear brush from around your home
Clean out gutters and roof drains regularly
Invest in fire resistant building materials
If you live in earthquake zones, read this Homeowner’s Guide to Earthquake Safety (pdf)
Alarm and sprinkler systems generally get you a premium discount

And, make sure to keep emergency supplies on hand in a location that will be accessible to you in the event of a disaster. Consider buying an kit such as the one sold by EarthShakes: If you buy a kit from EarthShakes, please make sure to let them know you found out about them via United Policyholders.

2. Inventory “your stuff”

If you talk to anyone who’s lost a home or business in a fire or earthquake, they’ll tell you that putting together their insurance claim loss inventory was agonizing, time consuming and emotionally devastating. Every one of them will tell you they wish they’d inventoried their stuff before they had a loss. United Policyholders offers free worksheets that you can use to complete and submit a personal property/contents claim to your insurance company. We offer them in two different formats (Excel and PDF). If you want to prepare your inventory on a computer, use the Excel version, input info and save it on your computer. If you want to prepare it by hand, manually as you remember things - print out the PDF version and use that. These worksheets were donated to United Policyholders by Mike Kirby, a contents claim professional. He uses this list to help his clients get their contents claims processed and paid. We also offer a sample of a personal property inventory that was created by UP volunteer Julie Robinson whose home was destroyed in a 2003 wildfire in San Diego.

Sample Claim and Proof of Loss Forms

Inventory/Personal Property Claim Worksheets (Excel doc) - Complete and save on the computer

Inventory/Personal Property Claim Worksheets (pdf) - Print out and complete by hand

3. Get ready

Here’s a link to the Red Cross’ basic earthquake preparedness information:

http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_583_,00.html

Here are links to other sites that will help you be ready for whatever disaster may come your way,:

www.disasterprepared.net
This is an excellent site. It offers practical and savvy tips on preparing for and recovering from disasters by making the most of your insurance protection.

www.knowyourstuff.org
Free software for inventorying your home prior to a loss. See also UP’s review of this and other tools for inventorying your home: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=7on_your_side&id=3483123

Tips and remodeling techniques for preventing fire damage to your home