Damage may be 'pretty minimal'
By Chris Walsh, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published January 8, 2009 at 10:27 a.m.
Updated January 9, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.
Photo by Silvia Razgova / Special To The Rocky
A winter wildfire burns Wednesday night near Boulder. Firefighters prevented the flames from reaching dense residential and business areas.
The freak winter fire near Boulder this week certainly looked ominous. But luckily, the images were much worse than the actual damage.
Although the blaze destroyed two homes, firefighters prevented the flames from reaching dense residential and business areas.
"It looks like this might be pretty minimal in terms of damage," said James Pursell, state executive director of Farmers Insurance Group, which has a large share of the Boulder insurance market.
"Most of it will be from smoke, where the fire might not have gotten to someone's property to burn buildings but still caused damage."
Pursell said it is too early to put a price tag on the damage, although he said the company likely will pay out "thousands and thousands of dollars" in hotel and other living expenses for those who had to evacuate.
Still, claim activity should be relatively low, at least compared with other recent events that cause damage. For example, insurance companies have paid out millions of dollars for people whose homes were damaged by high winds late last month.
Farmers Insurance said it still has extra staff in town working on those cases, so they can assist with claims from the fire, if needed.
To speed up the claims process, experts say residents should contact their insurance agents immediately and gather all their important insurance documents. It also helps to have pictures or videos of your belongings.
"If you do lose your home, this way you can show what you had," said Christina Loznicka, a spokeswoman for Allstate Insurance Co. "Taking an inventory of your home and keeping your insurance agent informed will be a huge step in the whole (claims) process and can help speed it up."
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January 8, 2009
12:06 p.m.
Suggest removal
datbinnurick writes:
Absolutely not! Do not call your insurance before you know there will be any damage. Some Insurance companies will report your call as a claim on the clue report and guess what? That will stay on your report and rate you higher risk!!!