Well here is my reality from last April 16th. I actually had a night off and stayed home with my girlfriend and watched a movie. Went to bed around 11pm or so. At, what I later learned, around 1am my door bell went, "Ding......", but never donged! I woke up feeling a weird feeling about that but at this point didn't hear, smell, or see anything. My girlfriend woke up also. I then decided to check it out. Last door bell ring in the middle of the night was someone coming to tell me my father had died. I sat up and put on a pair of sweat pants. My dresser mirror reflects the outside window and I saw would looked like meteorites flying from the bottom up. I said, "What the F--- was that", which prompted her to get up and check. She pulled the blinds back and screamed that the neighbors house was on fire. (I had a two story condo with 4 units total all attached). I grabbed our dog who sleeps with us and her and by the time I we made it to the top of the steps the bedroom window broke in from the heat and in came the flames and smoke. We had sustained gusts of wind that night clocked at 55-60 mph. On the way down the stairs I felt the cat hit me in the leg on her way down the stairs. When I got down the stairs it looked like the sun was on my back deck. Just a huge, bright orange glow. My vertical blinds were already twisted up from heat and the sliding glass doors looked like a weird, translucent black color and I could hear the flames just roaring. To the front door we went. My girlfriend grabbed her purse and the front door was already pretty hot and starting to warp. So, out the attached garage door we went. I put both her and the dog in her car and told her to get the car out of the driveway to make room for the fire department and call 911. She kept screaming to get the cat so back in I went. I made it halfway to the living room and the sliding glass doors just caved in. The noise and roar of the flames and smoke that came rushing in is something I'm likely to never forget. I jumped backwards and fell down. I crawled out as fast as I could. With all berber carpet I had some serious rug burns!! I couldn't breath even on my hands and knees and it got really hot really fast. Back out the garage I went and had to dodge some serious flames and embers that the wind was blowing right my way, just to get down the driveway. So there I stood in the neighbor's driveway across the street in a pair of sweat pants, no shirt, no shoes, no cat, no wallet, no keys, nothing. We eventually had 6 different cities there to fight the fire and the best they could do was barely stop it from burning up the next row of condos which was on it's way already.
Fast forward a little. My fireproof safe proved to be worthless in my situation. I spent a lot of money on it and the safe itself did kinda O.K. and I didn't find the safe until they demo'ed the place because there was no way to get through the rubble until then. When I did get to it everything inside except for melted jewerly was ash. besides, most of the stuff I wanted to save wouldn't fit into the safe anyways.
Fast forward a little more and on to insurance. I sometimes do a little tour work as a fill in and I have everything I would use listed on an add on policy for that purpose. I had a great homeowner's policy also. Come to find out, anything that I have used to make money with or have filed taxes because I've money with it is considered a business tool. Under my homeowner's policy I have a cap of $500. for business tools. Anything else is replaced per the policy! So yeah, my recording studio, p.a. and lighting system, personal instruments and my bass rig(s) and everything else I've used in this business fell under the $500. cap! It was all safe in my car or on the road but assuming it was safe in my home was a big mistake on my part.
All I can say at this point is practice your escape route and alternate routes like you would a serious bass line so you can do it cold with out thinking. If you have kids, do the same with them and don't just talk through the motions, make them do it until they are good at it. I hope to god you don't ever need it but in the rare event you might, it pays off! And for insurance, don't beat around the bush with your agent. Ask very specific questions and test the agent with scenarios and speific gear questions to make sure everything is cool. For example, "Hey agent, is my stuff covered under my home owner's insurance"? "Why yes Mr. Gray, it's all covered". Fine print, up to $500 worth for business tools! As far as everything else I owned in my life up to date, well, it's in the pic below.
