Podcast Episode - Suze School: What You Need To Do Before And After The What Ifs

Suze reflects on the devastation from the LA Wildfires. She then talks in depth about why it’s so important to plan now, for the “what ifs” of life.  Plus, what you need to do after something catastrophic happens. 

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Podcast Transcript:

January 12, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast and everybody smart enough to listen. Suze O here.

Now I said to you on Thursday that this podcast would be on insurance and everything that you needed to know.

And as you can imagine, I've been watching, as I'm sure all of you have, the news and the reports and the pictures and the realities that are coming out of Los Angeles. I personally have a tremendous amount of friends who live in Los Angeles, obviously in the entertainment industry, many who have lost their homes, my lawyer lost his home on and on and on. I'm friends with a man who's head of Warner Brothers Studio, and he sent me a text as to how many of his employees have lost their homes. And again, on and on and on.

As I'm watching this and I'm watching television. The other day I turned on the TV and there was this man going through all of his items, the dust, the ashes, the everything to find this safe that he had all of his stuff in, and he found the safe and when he opened it up, there was nothing in it cause it had all turned to ash.

And all of us are watching people who have lost everything. They left with just the clothes on their back. They did not leave with any of their paperwork or anything. They had time simply to get out with the clothes on their back, and that was it.

And here we are now still in the midst of all the fires burning. Now, obviously this was a very wealthy neighborhood in certain areas, multi-million dollar homes, people with a lot of money that even though they lost everything and they lost memories and they lost all of that, I'm sure they'll be able to replace it. Maybe they have another home that they can live in in the meantime, but that's one sector.

A lot of these people that lost their homes were workers that didn't have money that were dependent on their paycheck from the businesses that were burnt down to be able to pay the mortgage on their home.

To be able to own a home was their dream. It's what they wanted. So many of you write into the podcast and you tell me that it is your dream you want to own a home, and this was their dreams. There was a woman who was in her 90s, in her 90s, and she had lived in this home for 75 years. And her fire insurance had been canceled. Her insurance had been canceled even though she had paid into the exact same insurance company that canceled her insurance. They canceled her insurance a little bit ago. Her house now has totally burnt down. She doesn't have money. Now what does she do?

So it's very difficult. It's very difficult because as much as I have shouted from the rooftops. You have to have an emergency fund. You have to know if the unthinkable happens that you can get by for at least one year, one year if you lost your job, if you lost everything.

And yet story after story that I'm watching on the news and I'm watching it almost 24 hours a day. I don't have any savings. I don't have any money. I don't know what I'm going to do, and I, I don't know where I'm gonna go and I'm just lost.

Now I can relate to this very well. Because when the Oakland Hills burnt down, I was still seeing clients at the time at the Suze Orman Financial Group, and one by one they would come in and see me. And they would be crying over the fact that they lost the pictures, they lost their memories, they lost everything. And the insurance company isn't helping them. Suze, you've got to help me. The insurance company isn't listening to me. They're not going to pay me what I need. I can't get by. Can you help me, Suze?

And I don't know how many people I spoke to and I saw. But one of the biggest problems was even those that had insurance, the insurance companies were not paying. They were stalling. Adjusters had to go out. There were so many of them that everybody was applying at once, and all the companies had set up these little booths everywhere for people to go, and maybe they were given a check for a few hundred to go get some food and clothing and things like that, but overall, the insurance companies were equally as frustrating to these people who lost everything because the insurance companies weren't meeting their needs, especially in a timely way.

And so I'm sitting here and listening to stories just like this over and over again. And I'm like, what good is it gonna do me to explain all the differences between the insurance policies and what insurance A versus B versus C means and this and that. What good's that gonna do?

So then I started to think, well, what can I do that can help you now? Now, there's not a lot that I can do for those that have already suffered this loss. Maybe I can go down there, meet with them, try to work with their insurance companies and do things like that. But that's not what's happening at this moment in time, obviously. The fires are still burning. We'll see what happens there.

But many of you listening to me right now who are not in the situation that these people are in, these people who never in a million years thought that they would be living this reality.

How many times have I said to you, you have to plan for the what ifs of life, and in this case there is no bigger what if than this.

And I was texting with my very good friend, one of my best friends in life who has her bags packed, ready to go, waiting for the evacuation as the fires may be going towards her. And I asked her certain questions. I said, Did you do this? Did you do that? And she said, No. And then I gave her a list of every single thing I needed her to do while she was still in her house, while there was still time.

Because after your house has burnt down and there is nothing left, you're going to wish if this ever happens to you, and you should live your life as if this is going to happen to you. You are to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

So if you were to prepare for the worst and if you were to do the things that I'm going to ask you to do right now just in case a fire, a hurricane, a tornado, a flood, whatever it is, and there's all those things that are happening right now, if those things were to happen, possibly your dealings with the insurance companies if you happen to be insured will be a lot easier.

I want to start the Suze school today with what should you do before the what ifs. So take out your notebook, a pen and you listen closely to me.

But it's more than you just writing down what I am about to say to you. It's about you promising yourself that you are going to do this today, not tomorrow, cause you don't know what tomorrow will bring. You don't even know what 5 minutes from now will bring everybody.

And so therefore you have to promise, promise you're going to do this today. Now the few friends that I spoke to on the phone and gave them this list.

This list is now done and at least they have the comfort of knowing that if they do need to leave and it looks like they probably are going to have to and their house burns down, at least they know what to do before and what to do for after. So let's just start with everything's still OK. You have a house, you have an apartment, you have whatever. I want you, today, to take pictures of every single thing, take your little iPhone or whatever kind of phone you have, and I want you to go through your entire house. I want you to open every closet, every box, every drawer, every single place that you may have something in your entire house. Everything and you might as you're doing it take note of those things that are valuable.

Because if you think when your house burns down that you're going to be able to remember, assuming you do have fire insurance, you're going to be able to remember all the things that have been in that house for 2 years, for 10 years, for 20 years, for 30 years, or 50 years or more. If you think you're going to be able to do that. I'm here to tell you, having worked with hundreds and hundreds of people, they do not.

So for you to be able to make a claim on your policies, your insurance policies for what's inside of your home.

You're going to need to be able to prove what was in that house and what is the value of it. What did you pay for it? Your TVs, the gifts maybe your parents gave you or that you inherited from them, every single thing you need to take a picture of. And then if you were smart, you would print out all of those pictures and write down what they are worth, what room they were in, and you should do it room by room. Go first to maybe the master bedroom and put down master bedroom, everything, everything, and then go on to the next bedroom or go on to the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathrooms, closets everywhere. Basements, garages.

All right, do you promise me that you will do that, because if you do that and you document everything, and then something happens. Now when you file a claim with your insurance company, the first thing they're going to ask you for is that. And you will be able to give it to them right then and there.

Next you need to take a picture and count every tree, every shrub, everything that is around your house. Do you know how many trees you have? Do you know how many shrubs you have? Do you even know if they're covered under your insurance policy? But it is very possible that they are, but only if you can tell them, Oh, I had 10 trees, I had this, I had that. Those things are expensive to replace everybody, but you have to prove that you had them.

Next, I want you to do something that I know none of you want to do or maybe you've ever even done is I want you to get out your home insurance policy as well as your car insurance policy. And then I want you to call your insurance agent, and I want you to go through every possible question that you might have with them.

Such as, if my house burnt down today, what kind of money would I get for it? What am I insured for? What aren't I insured for? Where do you see holes into what might be happening? And the reason that I say that is this even though your home may have increased tremendously in value. You're not going to get the value of your home. You're going to be paid by the insurance company what it will cost for you to actually rebuild your home. And your insurance agent might even be able to tell you what they think it would take for you to rebuild your home if your policy actually would pay you to replace it, a replacement value because you want to know that if you have a home and it's burnt down that you have enough insurance to actually replace it given inflation with everything that it costs today. The labor is more expensive. The material is more expensive. Everything is more expensive, especially listen to me during a time when everything has burnt down.

Think about LA right now. Labor is going to be at a premium. Everything is going to be at a premium because over 10,000 or 20,000 or how many ever houses it is are going to want to be rebuilt, so prices will escalate. So the question that I want you to ask is if I had to rebuild my home today and I wanted to, am I adequately insured.

You have to ask them, do you have a replacement value, insurance policy, or an actual cash value? You need to know what those things mean. You need to know if in fact you can rebuild somewhere else if in fact you don't want to rebuild where that property happens to be, because maybe it is in LA and everything around you is in ash, and you just want to go somewhere and build somewhere else. You need to know that you need to know that your car, what is your car insured for.

And I'll keep saying this over and over again. Remember, if you don't have comprehensive insurance on your car and your car is in a fire, it's not going to cover it.

Next, I want you to make copies of or gather the originals up to you of your marriage certificate, your birth certificate, anything that is valuable to you, including your insurance policies, by the way, and I want you to get yourself either a little portable box, something that you can grab and go.

And that box is to hold everything that is important and that you will need if you have to leave within 5 minutes. And what are those things? Are you writing this all down?

It's prescriptions. It is extra medication. It's extra glasses. It's those types of things your passports, your social security card, your credit cards, everything that is kept in that box so that you can just grab and go. I can't tell you how important that is because let's just say you were in the LA fires you left with only the clothes on your back. Do you even have the phone numbers? Maybe your phone was left in the house. Do you even have the phone numbers of your insurance agent? Do you have the policy numbers? Do you even know who you would call, what you would tell them? Do you have the numbers of all your credit cards and all of those things, so you could possibly call them? You need to have with you in your grab and go box all the information that you could possibly need.

Next, you are to make a copy of all of that information and send it to somebody in your family or a friend that you trust with it because if everything is destroyed you don't have anything you can't even remember your password to get into your computers or your phones there's somebody in your family or a place that has it so that you can call it up and therefore be able to contact everybody that you need to contact.

These are the things that are really, really important for you to do.

Last but not least there is one more thing. And this is a very difficult thing because a lot of people really don't know how to answer this question. And it's if this were to happen to you. You've now done everything that I've asked you to do. And you are ready. You are ready.

But the very last step of all of this is, where would you go? Where would you go? Who would you call?

What would you do just to have a mental plan where you play this out. I just have to say, and I've said it so many times, and I just, you know, I said it earlier. One of the key ingredients for you to be really, really prepared for this is to have that one year emergency savings account.

Because if you think about it now, all these people that have lost everything, they didn't just lose their house. Many of them lost their ability to make money. Their places of work have been destroyed. So they've lost their ability to make money.

And if you think about how long it's going to take to be able to get your lives back together, do you all understand now why I really say a one year emergency savings account is absolutely vital. Absolutely vital.

Those are the things really that I want all of you to do right now to prepare for the what ifs of life.

Now, what do you do if something has happened? So if you have a relative or somebody in the fire area or they're going through this, they don't know where to start. You start by going back to the property when you can.

And do what? Take pictures of absolutely everything. Immediately you take pictures of everything, then call your insurance agent. In fact, you probably should already have called them and started the process. You should call your mortgage company if you have a mortgage on the property.

And tell them what has happened and can something be done to postpone mortgage payments? You are to call the utility companies and cut off all utilities, cable, everything that possibly you even have an automatic payment going out every single month to call them and stop the services. So, in fact, you don't have to be paying for things that you're not using.

One thing you need to know, however, is that if you do have insurance, you want to make sure that you continue to pay that insurance premium even if everything has been destroyed unless your insurance company says, OK, you don't have to for a time being. But your insurance policy needs to stay in effect and valid for them to cover everything for the next year or two or whatever it's going to take you to get through this process.

You need to do those things, so you need to know what your mortgage company is going to expect of you. You need to know is there enough insurance to cover the mortgage, because whether you all know it or not, your insurance company does not pay you if you have a mortgage. They will pay your mortgage company the insurance, and it is your mortgage company that happens to pay out to you.

If you're rebuilding as you're rebuilding or whatever it may be, so you really need to find out how all of that is going to work right now so that you can make a plan as to what you should do, what you can do, and what you cannot do. Once you have found the truth of everything, now you have the ability to be able to make decisions based in reality and not in you just thinking this is how it's going to work. Well, my house burnt down so I don't have to pay the mortgage anymore. Well, there's nothing to insure, so I don't have to pay the insurance premium anymore and on and on. Oh, I'm going to get a big amount of money from the insurance policy. You have to know the reality of your situation.

So that is what you need to do.

Right here and right now if you have suffered a loss or for those of you who haven't suffered a loss, and I hope you never do, but if you do, please remember what I am saying right here and right now.

All right. That's your little what you need to do before, what you need to do after Suze School, but I want all of you to know. That you are all really strong enough to handle whatever it is that you need to handle, and I know at this moment in time.

Many of you, hundreds of thousands of you, don't have a clue where you're gonna go, what you're gonna do, how you're gonna do it. The millions of us that are watching, including me, are like, what are you gonna do? I, I don't know, what are you gonna do? Who are you gonna call? Where are you gonna go?

I do know this. That shortly all of that will be revealed to you.

So just stay strong. Just keep putting one foot after another. Don't lose your faith. Don't give up hope. Don't just become somebody who's like, Ah, life isn't worth living any more. There's always something to live for. And if you don't feel that way right now, I promise you you will again sooner than later.

All right, on Thursday, Ask KT and Suze Anything is going to be a continuation of this. Now, maybe you have noticed, that I no longer have for this podcast and probably the rest of this year the unstoppable theme song by Sia. Not that I don't love it, I love it to bits.

But I just think that the theme song that I had the very first year that I did this podcast, which was Together We Will Rise. I think that's our theme song for this year.

So until Thursday there's only one thing that all of us really, really need to remember. And that is this together, together we will rise.