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Jamie
Jamie

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Get Insurance - A Real Story

TL;DR

If have any things in your house: GET INSURANCE!


For those of you who missed it, I tweeted this out on Thursday:

Essentially what happened was:

  • the UK had a month's worth of rain in 24 hours
  • many parts of the UK where affected
  • there was chaos on the roads and railways

Also, my home office was flooded out.

Flooded

My home office was in the basement of my house - which was the only free room in the house. It was the room where I did remote work for my clients; it was the room where I recorded podcast interviews and episodes; it was the room where I wrote my open source projects and worked on my websites.

Before the flooding, that room contained my:

  • desktop PC - a machine which was less than a year old
  • XPS 13 - a machine belonging to my company
  • Apple Macbook Air

It also contained all of the hardware that I use to record the shows, and all of my books.

Right now, it contains a marsh-land of a carpet, a dehumidifier, and a radiator which is working 24/7 to try and dry everything out.

I was able to rescue the XPS 13, and the majority of the desktop (SSDs are safe, but the spin rust drives are gone), but everything else is ruined.

Reflections

As I said in the edition of the newsletter that I released shortly after the event:

First, I need to apologise for the potential sombre feel to this newsletter. Secondly, let me say that no one is injured or hurt in anyway.

There were a lot of people who were more gravely affected by the recent weather - there have been reports of people having lost their lives - and I'm eternally thankful for the fact that no one I know was harmed.

I'm also incredibly thankful that I have a multi-stage backup process. This is a process that I follow when creating episodes of the podcast:

  • I record the episode or interview
  • I store the raw files on a local NAS
  • Those raw files are then backed up, offsite

At every step along the editing and rendering path, all data goes back through that same pathway. Meaning that, even though the majority of my drives where kaput, I still had two copies (one warm, and one cold) of all of my data.

And of course, I'm thankful that I have insurance which covers the damages. Once every thing has dried out, I will be able to have contractors in to rebuild, and I'll be able to get new hardware to replace the lost parts.

It will mean that things are a little difficult for me for the next month or so, but The Show Must Go On and it will do.

In short: GET INSURANCE!

Top comments (3)

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matthias profile image
Matthias 🤖

I feel sorry for you!

I live in a region where flooding often happen too.
Most importantly you and your family are safe and weren't harmed. Everything else are just items and can be repaired or purchased again.

Luckily you did store your data on another place too.

Keep your head up and I hope you can recover quickly from the horror.

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kevinjh1 profile image
kevinjh1 • Edited

Unfortunately, many do not even understand how real estate insurance works, so they make a lot of mistakes. The logic is as follows: certain parts of the apartment are insured against certain risks. For example, you insured repairs and things from a fire, and it happened. The insurance amount will cover only them. If windows that belong to structural elements have melted or broken during a fire, they will not pay for such damage. Therefore, it is so important to choose a good company and find out all the details in advance. I preferred youi.com.au/home-insurance.

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kyliecl profile image
KylieCL

That's crazy. Without insurance there is no chance that you will not be stopped and your documents will not be checked. It's better to be prepared for that.