Surviving a fire just to falter on insurance

We all have imagined what we would do if faced with the unimaginable: losing everything in a house fire. What would we grab? How would we cope? Who would we turn to for support?

For Patrick L. Riley, he lived that reality, having woken up to his entire home engulfed in flame, fleeing without even having shoes on. But that was just the beginning of his hardship. Riley was faced with 'rock and a hard place' kinds of decisions, having lost work during the pandemic and needing to pick which bills got paid and which didn't. His home insurance didn't make the cut, so rebuilding was almost insurmountable.

"Now I'm fully insured. I'm insured on the insurance," he said with laughter, to Living Not So Fabulously hosts, David & John Auten-Schneider. After being able to rely on the built-in insurance of his co-op, he focuses on staying positive; an experience we can all learn from.

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Video Transcript

We definitely wanna shoot for everybody to have anywhere from 3 to 6 months worth of living expenses.

That's the standard recommendation to cover an emergency.

But unfortunately for LGBT Q plus folks, our advice is to maybe lean into having 6 to 12 months as hard as that may be because we face as a community much more adversity, right?

It's easier for to lose a job and we have other headwinds that we're facing, especially right now and having that extra cushion that the general population doesn't necessarily need to have is probably a good thing.

So with that, we're going to return to the second part of Patrick's interview where he advocates for more of us having more in emergency savings.

I think a key takeaway there financially is what your father said that make sure you go line by line and don't just take everything that they give you something I'm not clear on.

So that was the co op insurance.

Um So at least you had some coverage, but were you supposed to have your own homeowners or renters supposed to?

And that is what it lasts inside the pandemic so that I hit a mark having pushed through those savings where some I had to sort of make those decisions.

Do I not pay this this month?

Do I not pay?

So this fire, you know, when you, when you think I'd be, I'm ok not to pay this this month, I'll double it up next month of all that.

That looks like the fire happened as I joke with my pants down literally.

And so that could have been the end of the road for me.

Had I not loving advisors around me to tell me that didn't work.

Then let's go here.

Now, now I'm fully insured, I'm insured on the insurance.

Ok, like it's the whole thing.

Thank you.

Allstate.

I love you.

And was the lapse because of like one missed payment or it was I was, I was on, I was within the two months of lapse.

Whereas I'm like, ok, I'm gonna, I'm gonna catch up figure this out when that next check comes in.

You know, we're working a little not regularly because we're in a pandemic.

All of those things were on the table at the point where this happened.

This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.