Fires, Insurance and rambling

My cousin is an amazing woman... she was the one I wrote about in this post .

She and her husband were married over 4th of July weekend.

This past weekend - Sept 6 - my cousin and her husband moved into a new condo to start their lives together. The unthinkable happened - Sept 10 (4 days after they moved in) - some men were refinishing the floor in their condo and it exploded. The three workers were very seriously hurt (one has burns over 80% of his body - all three are on ventilators and in comas - not doing well), so we have been praying for them. Apparently the company had the employees trying to save money by using a combination of chemicals that was unsafe. My cousin and her husband are ok - but literally everything they own is gone. Including ALL of their wedding presents, wedding photos, clothes, memories... etc.

Thank God they are both okay.

Wayne was the one who had let the workers in - and had just left to run an errand when this happened. I'm in tears thinking of what could have happened.

There are some links to the news articles at the end of this post. If you could keep them in your prayers - and the other families who have been displaced (their condo was the only total loss - but the others in the building lost some things as well - and had to leave their homes) - and the workers who are in such terrible shape.

Also - As some of you may know but I just recieved binding authority this week as a Property and Casualty Insurance Producer - and my whole life the last 3 weeks has been insurance while I completed my onboarding. My point here is to make sure you are properly insured. Most of the people I know in our complex do NOT have renters insurance, and lately I've realized that so many people are under insured. Jewelry, fine art, guns, etc have special limits that lower the amount you would get in case of a loss (jewelry in most states is $1000 - do you have more than $1000 in jewelry???). Also - consider if you own a home or have a measure of wealth - to carry an umbrella policy to cover your liabilities. I will get down off my soap box now... but make sure you are properly insured!! (BTW - this isn't a sales pitch since I can only bind insurance in the state of Maine...)

Links to articles about the fire:
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080912/NEWS/80912044

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6382159

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080910/NEWS/80910024/1020/NEWS0402

http://www.goleader.com/08sep11/

http://www.tricountyredcross.org/2008/09/red-cross-responds-to-scotch-p.html