After the dust settled, the smoke cleared, and the water dried, our families, friends, and neighbors, who had just endured losing something important to them – sometimes everything –  found out that it wasn’t over. In fact, their worst nightmare had just begun.

Siobhan was no stranger to what happens after catastrophic losses. A close friend’s family home burnt to the ground in a forest fire twenty years ago, and is still fighting with their insurer to be compensated for the loss. Her sister lost a treasure trove of heirloom china and crystal to an earthquake, and was compensated for only a fraction of the replacement cost because she lacked documentation of ownership. In 1985, her grandmother not only lost a lifetime collection of fine jewelry she owned to a burglary, but was then horrified to learn it wasn’t covered by her insurance at all.

Carl was ten years old when he watched his family home on the sand become submerged in four feet of seawater after a storm seawall failed, destroying the contents of the entire first floor, battles over compensation slowing recovery to a four-year crawl. As an adult, he helped friends and neighbors search for priceless family heirlooms when mudslides destroyed their homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains, after their insurer offered a fraction of their replacement value. 

Having just become homeowners ourselves, we had documented our own belongings in case of a crisis; we took photos and videos on Carl’s iPhone. Simple, right? 

But then, our friends and neighbors, recovering from recent burglaries, catastrophic water damage, and the Pacific Palisades and Altadena fires, started telling us their stories. And suddenly, the idea of ensuring our financial recovery turned out to not be as simple as pulling out an iPhone.

A couple we met survived the fire, but got a fraction of what their book collection was worth, because their records relative to the size of it were so incomplete; “We could have fought it harder, I guess,” she said, sadly, “but we were just so fried. We needed to move on.” 

An electronic musician we know told us, “After the robbery, I had the serial numbers and everything, but I didn’t have physical evidence of all of it in my possession, like recent photos of each and every synth. I couldn’t prove I hadn’t sold them myself before it happened. So they capped it. I don’t know the actual amount it was under valued, but definitely in the tens of thousands.”

After a water leak destroyed our friends’ collection of rare board games, mold intrusion created a biohazard, making preserving them as evidence impossible, and constructing a ledger of the entire contents much more difficult. “They were basically asking if the video I sent them was AI-altered,” he fumed, “while I’m standing ten feet away from what amounts to thousands of dollars turning into mushroom food. I don’t know what I raged about more: the question or the timing of it, but it was really overwhelming. Sign of the times, I guess.” 

So not only had the process not improved much, if at all, since Siobhan’s grandmother’s experience over forty years ago, having photo and video in all of our pockets hadn’t made the process of securing adequate compensation for a catastrophic loss any better. In fact, it has just gotten a whole lot worse.

We thought, we know a better way to do this. 

If you’re anything like us, your stuff isn’t just stuff, it’s memories, passions, hobbies, expertise, and joy. It means something, and it’s worth something to us. If you feel the same way, let us help you quickly and easily secure all the facts so that if the worst happens, you can get on with your recovery that much faster.