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You never think its gonna happen but it did! About a month ago I had a major house fire and lost most of my life's treasures including a bunch of mounts. The house didn't burn to the ground and luckily the most important mounts were savable, my two Bighorns, a big Muley an big NM pronghorn and an Oryx. A Mountain goat full body looked like a blackened marshmallow, lost an elk a couple more pronghorns and a mountain lion skin, Cape Buffalo, Asian Ibex, Caribou all goners. Lots of euros are blackened and mixed results on bringing them back. That smoke damage is more like acid paint and it is in the horns/antlers like a heavy stain. I had a taxidermist go over the saved mounts and they are okay, but not great. The Bighorns horns were that blond what color and now dark. We tried to bring them back but the started looking orange and decided to leave them dark.
Any suggestion on handling the smoke damaged mounts.
Also, I am getting lots of mixed thoughts on the insurance and what they will pay for mounts. Some say only what you can get similar used on Craigslist or Ebay and others say they gotta send you on a comparable hunt and everything in between. What are people experience with this I am wondering. I am with State Farm and they have been really good so far. I haven't brought it up with my adjustor yet and wanted to be better armed with ideas.
Thanks!
They are not sending anyone on any hunt! So sorry for this happening to you.
Typically they give you a cash payment that is prorated based on the cost of the mount.
As mentioned, they aren't going to send you on a hunt. The hunt wasn't insured.
I had my house burn but not completely and it was not a total loss until I fought them nearly 7 months. Send me a PM and I can tell you some watch-outs for sure. Sandbrew
"They are not sending anyone on any hunt!" Bou, I'll bet this legal scholar would disagree! :)
Just as an FYI to everyone, SCI offers mount specific insurance, and I think they might even have policies that will send you on a replacement hunt.
Trust me I wasn't thinking they were going to send me on a hunt, but a few suggested they would.. Any suggestions or reviving antlers and mounts?
I'm sad to hear of your house fire and loss.
I have just finished a claim with State Farm for a total loss of our house and contents. For the contents portion, I had a video that I took as we were evacuating so they didn't question if we actually had our items. I was told to find items of similar quality and claim that price...I looked for the highest price item, then provided a link to that item. Every item in the house, a real PITA. Of course, they depreciated the heck out of it. I did get the 100% "limit" of my policy by providing 137%. On firearms, they depreciated. On ammo, not so much.
Sorry to hear about that. I have no personal experience, but everyone I've talked to says insurance companies will fight you on EVERYTHING. Partial loss is often more difficult to get covered than a full loss, where they just pay out the full coverage. Everyone should be prepared for something like this ahead of time. We have photos of everything. Pictures of every room, every closet, storage space, drawers open, EVERYTHING. Cindy scans every invoice, once a month. Then we keep a back-up of all that, and all of our photos, in a safety deposit box that we update about twice a year, and before going on vacation, so we can prove what we had in case of loss. Back-up drives can also be grabbed quickly if you're at home when something like that happens. I don't trust cloud storage, but that's an option also. Like said above, it's a real PITA. Generally, taxidermy is worth fair market value for the actual taxidermy, NOT the cost of the hunt also. You can get additional riders on specific things, like taxidermy, if you want to pay for it.
Smoke damage probably can't be fixed to restore your mounts to what they were. I had a layover once where the hotel had a large "brown" bear mount that the owner had killed. It was obvious to me that it was not a brown bear but a polar bear. I asked at the front desk about it and was correct. The polar bear mount was in a fire and was smoke damaged. It could not be brought back to white. I would think a taxidermist would be your best resource as to what can be done.
If you are not happy with your insurance company you can hire a public adjuster. They will fight for every penny but it does prolong the process and they get 10% in the end. As far as the mounts go, look into ultrasonic cleaning. I used to be in the fire and flood resto business. Fire damage is one thing but the soot is the real bear. The ultrasonic bath will get into every nook and cranny and remove any soot and debris. My concern would be the mounts withstanding being submerged in water. It’s worth looking into.
Can’t they completely bleach the horns white and stain them? We had a house fire many years back when I was living with my parents. The fire damage was luckily minimal the smoke was thick and completely filled the house. The mounts got cleaned and eventually that smoke smell goes away, wasn’t near what you had though. I do know it would’ve been way easier if everything just burned and went away rather than trying to salvage stuff.
Very sorry to hear that Ted. Did you lose lot of artwork too?
Geez, Ted, what a sucky thing to happen. My insurance buddy who is also a hunter said with his companies your mounts are worth eBay pricing unless you have a specific rider for specific mounts. I looked into it and decided it wasn't worth it, but may rethink that now.
Keep us posted on how it works out.. Damn.
Had a major claim on my house in 2005, do not expect the Ins. Co. to be your friend and neither what the policy say, it is all about the money.
Your policy may have a 2 yr. arbitration clause and a 4-5 yrs litigation , if you can financially set back 6-7 yrs to wait out the settlement fight then do it, high % can not do it. I should have put didn't, just want to move on asp.
The home adjusters have their own agenda and that is to save their company as much money as they can, the local insurance sales rep has no say in the matter except a pat on the back and stay with us.
The best thing with fire let the house totally burn down and less insurance problem, as far as your mounts you can get replicas through a taxidermist if you want to pay the money, other words be thankful that no one got hurt.
As a good friend that is a long time taxidermist he tells his clients that their mounts is just a luxury and not an investment but represent the your personal adventure.
Sorry for your loss, been there and life moves on, just do not let it take your job of life away, grieve and move on.
Sorry to hear it’s unimaginable to me. Insurance will fight you and pay as little as possible, don’t give into them.
We had a house fire in the early 2000's at our place in Ohio. The contents were a total loss.
Our adjuster and the restoration company that we used could not have done a better job or have been easier to deal with.
Yes, lost lots and lots of artwork and such. I make my living as a bronze sculptor www.schnackfinearts.com They need to supply me a comparable home for the rebuild and everything said and done that would set them back about 5-6 grand a month. At the end of the day my artistic mojo is super important to me, and I was on a real rip and sculpting lots and incredible ascending things were happening. My home was my magic place and where it all my work was done for the most part. To get my mojo back plan on I will be sculpting abroad during the rebuild, it will cost the Insurance company much less and it will help me get back on track. Amazing how things can so quickly change. Just four days before the fire I was on this guys show. Many consider him the #1 Catholic evangelist and a collector of mine. The sculpture I gave him he gave to his daughter who has MS, and he sent me the most heartfelt message from his daughter the day of the fire I have ever gotten in my life. Much of my work now is "God Art' and I deeply believe we live in a spiritual world and some dark forces don't seem to like the message I am sending. It makes me even more determined to follow this path
The piece I was working on Christ sending the demon swine to be drowned .... all gone...I'll make another
So sorry to hear this. We had a forest fire come through in southern Colorado in June of 2018. Total loss included a dozen or so euros and other sentimental things.
We had to itemize everything we lost and assign a value to it. We were above our contents limit so it didn’t really matter as we maxed it out. The Adjuster said they only question really high valued amounts so assigning $500 to a mount wasn’t a big deal.
Best of luck, Rob
While we haven't experienced any tragic losses like y'all, we have discussed the subject of replacing lost mounts with our State Farm Agent. Their counsel was:
1 Photograph each mount you own.
2. List the type of trophy, special characteristics and cost of each mount.
3. Secure the photos and list in a safe place (ours is in our file at the agent's office and our "fireproof" gun safe.
We were told they wont pay the cost of the hunt or tracvel but they would reimburse the cost to replace the mount itself (how that gets determined is anyones guess.)
You might be better off having replica horns or antlers made and buying other capes? Maybe give those costs to your insurance? Sorry for your loss.
Saved the most important mounts...they were on the far wall the rest are goners....plus lots of Euros... I had a lot of stuff and what's gone is gone and not going to try and replace it and just get the payout. The past two days were the content company a dozen people come and take pictures and account for EVERYTHING. The fire came through the center of the house right up through the main coat closet all completely gone. I guess you just start to make a list. I was told it is like and audit unless it is crazy they will go along and there are general parameters they follow.
Those that believe that you have a "fireproof" safe will want to rethink that...store your photos/electronic data in the cloud or off site.
Sorry for your loss, Ted. What a nightmare to have to deal with, both physically and emotionally! Any idea on what caused the fire?
That really sucks, and I wish you the best. Luckily (if there is such a thing), my only fire experience was when I had nothing but clothes and few various electronic items. My apartment burned when I was in college. It was a fall weekend, so I was not there. Others are right that the smoke smell will eventually fade on most stuff. I kept a lot of "smoke-damaged" clothes that didn't burn.
Likely the cause was somewhere in the laundry room or furnace...now that I'm looking it seems crazy to me that code will allow a "Fire box' ....furnace 10 inches away from pine studs that are getting drier and drier right next to the furnace. Seem like there should be required some fireproof barrier...
I have no advice on the insurance claim or the cleaning. But, I am sorry for your losses and pray God triples them.
My mom died in a house fire.... a friend in Kansas just lost everything in a house fire. Horrible thing!
Our house burned down back in 2011. The most important lesson we learned from the fire is to get an independent adjuster to handle negotiations with your insurance company. Your insurance company will appraise your loss at a much lower value than what you actually feel the worth. Our independent appraisal was significantly higher than our insurance company. In the end, we ended up with a much better settlement than initially offered.
