Fire

[heidigoulet]

Big fire on Brent Road

[Symbonite]

Hopefully they have insurance...if you have a place like that you should have insurance....Please no sob stories if you didnt.

[Steve-O]

Or......Sure hope no one got hurt.

[Symbonite]

doesnt sound like anyone was home...

[bazinga42]

Hopefully they have insurance...if you have a place like that you should have insurance....Please no sob stories if you didnt.

Its not always as simple as that. There was a rich guy a few years ago that lost his $1M+ home and it wasn't insured. Like you, I was like "what an idiot... deserves what he got". And while I still find it hard to feel sorry for the rich, there was more to the story. There are homes that are just uninsurable. You can't get a policy for them. Period. A friend of a friend of a friend of mine is in that situation. They bought the land in a forested area for privacy and because of its high fire risk (proximity to trees) and insufficient access to a hydrant... no ability to at all buy insurance. He didn't find that out until AFTER he pumped over a million into the home because you can't even shop for the policy until after you have the structure to insure. He was able to get construction insurance with no problem before it was finished (and that included fire protection) but once it was finished and he had an occupancy permit, only then did he find out he couldn't get insurance.

Actually I myself had a some-what similar situation when I lived in Coquitlam. I bought a home that had aluminum wiring. OK, no big deal, there are insurers that will issue a policy for that. Then I moved away but kept the home and rented it. Absentee landlord, right? That's tough finding a policy for too, but they exist. TRY TO FIND ONE THAT DOES BOTH! We were forced to sell the home because there were ZERO companies that would issue a policy. Ok, we could have changed to copper or moved back to Coquitlam... but it was easier to just sell it. I gotta say though, it was stressful while it was being sold because we had no policy and the bank was breathing down our neck because its a REQUIREMENT for the mortgage that you have insurance. The could have called the mortgage at any time and forced immediate repayment.

My point: not always as it first appears.

[TylerM4]

Its not always as simple as that. There was a rich guy a few years ago that lost his $1M+ home and it wasn't insured. Like you, I was like "what an idiot... deserves what he got". And while I still find it hard to feel sorry for the rich, there was more to the story. There are homes that are just uninstallable. You can't get a policy for them. Period. A friend of a friend of a friend of mine is in that situation. They bought the land in a forested area for privacy and because of its high fire risk (proximity to trees) and insufficient access to a hydrant... no ability to at all buy insurance. He didn't find that out until AFTER he pumped over a million into the home because you can't even shop for the policy until after you have the structure to insure. He was able to get construction insurance with no problem before it was finished (and that included fire protection) but once it was finished and he had an occupancy permit, only then did he find out he couldn't get insurance.

My point: not always as it first appears.

Either something was lost in the multiple retellings of the story, or your friend of a friend needs to do more legwork.

Insurance is available in wooded areas without a fire hydrant nearby. You just described 90% of the homes located within the regional district. There are literally 10's of thousands of homes in BC that fit your description - most of which have insurance.

Yes, you'll have to pay more. And yes, it's possible that a certain inusurer wouldn't insure in that circumstance. But insurance is readily available for houses in wooded areas (almost every home in a wooded area is nowhere close to a hydrant).

[bazinga42]

I think the devil is just in the details. There ARE circumstances where you can't get insurance, but I wasn't intending to say it was a simple as just "close to woods and no hydrant". Primarily the value of the property, but also construction material, grade of property... it all enters into the equation.

And OK, I should have worded it by saying it wouldn't be "practical", rather than "possible", to get insurance. It may be possible that if my friend of a friend of a friend (or that guy a few years ago on the lake) tried hard enough they could get a custom policy that cost $100k a year or something stupid like that. I don't know. That brings me to another example that I *DO* know about (by personal experience). I recently developed an automotive component for a particular car sold in the USA. There was some slight nervousness surrounding the potential for lawsuits if something went wrong with my controller and caused injury/death/etc (I was confident in my engineering so its more the possibility of being blamed for some idiot's poor driving, but whatever). My lawyer strongly suggested getting liability insurance just in case. Good advice, right? Well I searched for WEEKS and exhausted every agent, broker, etc locally and on the Internet and - in *my particular set of circumstances* - the policy just didn't exist. Nobody wanted to touch it. I finally did get a custom policy quote for $2M coverage (and that's nothing compared to a US lawsuit) that would literally be $20k per MONTH - far dwarfing the profit I would be making. In the end, I just had to keep the faith in my design and take the risk (or bail on the project, but 6 years later I am very glad I took that risk).

Once again, my point stands that you can't make judgement without all the details.

[TylerM4]

Once again, my point stands that you can't make judgement without all the details.

True that - we are too quick to judge on the internet.

Now - are you talking about the guy I think you're talking about? Very nice home on the lake, big shop, lots of toys? Sang a sob story to the media asking for donations?

If so - I seem to remember that there was a large public backlash to that one. He purposely chose not to buy insurance as a fire had gone through the area a year or 2 earlier and he didn't believe that there would be another fire so soon after the last one. If this is the same person - he had no problems getting insurance. It was a simple matter of him taking a gamble and loosing.

[bazinga42]

Actually that probably is the same guy. I admit I read/heard a different version of the story though. But yeah I do remember him looking for donations or public funds relief or something (and me thinking, "*sigh* poor rich guy") so it probably is the same dude.

Guess I should take my own advice about forming opinions on lack of facts lol.


Still... why my examples may have gone to *bleep* :) my point STILL stands lol.

[Symbonite]

you would think a house like that cost alot of money that you would want to insurance on it.

[kgcayenne]

Actually that probably is the same guy. I admit I read/heard a different version of the story though. But yeah I do remember him looking for donations or public funds relief or something (and me thinking, "*sigh* poor rich guy") so it probably is the same dude.

Guess I should take my own advice about forming opinions on lack of facts lol.


Still... why my examples may have gone to *bleep* :) my point STILL stands lol.

Is that the same guy who is now suing a public utility due to their not looking after the trees around the powerlines that ultimately caused the fire?

[Ken7]

Is that the same guy who is now suing a public utility due to their not looking after the trees around the powerlines that ultimately caused the fire?

Yes, same fellow now living in Mexico. Does anyone know the name of the owner in the latest fire??

[Symbonite]

Ronald Robert Amyot

A interesting news article indeed!

http://globalnews.ca/news/1334744/owner ... e-by-bank/

[bazinga42]

mmm... yes, interesting indeed.

[Ken7]

Not much of a garden area for all those large black plastic pots... hmm. To have 2.2 Million dollars credit card debt...big spender.