House Burned right before Insurance Policy was taken Out :(

[Jim Goebel]

Hi everyone.  It's been awhile since I was on here.  I'd value any input.

We had a house where we were ALMOST ready to start painting, and I hadn't quite made the call to get an insurance policy going yet, and it had a major fire that doesn't look salvageable (total loss). It's a very heavy hit financially for us, and this asset was owned under a self directed IRA.

The investigation is still ongoing but so far the fire and police sides have informed me based on a couple items so far, that they suspect Arson.

I can be a little aggressive in how I handle certain contractor items, and I have maybe 3-5 relationships just in the last year where I can imagine, perhaps, that someone might have felt aggrieved.  Anyways, now I'm really trying to think in terms of controlling this risk in the future.  

We are going to have to demolish the house which is of course more salt in the wound.  I had actually thought in terms of getting insurance set up at least a couple times just in the last couple weeks (we were right at that point) ---- 

Here are my thoughts/questions for everyone:

Are there insurance policies that we can take on - for the really aggressive 'down to the studs' kinds of projects that we are taking on, in the future - and then perhaps transition the policy into a more traditional homeowners' policy once it's a bit more finished (I've been told in the past those are available when you have all the drywall work done often)?

I'm trying to search for ways to help handle this kind of risk but borderline blaming myself.  I think I'm having trouble separating the two.

Generally if anyone has any thoughts that might help me to psychologically move on, I'd appreciate it.  This just happened two days ago but I can already tell that although financially we can absorb this, psychologically it is impacting my desire to get involved / continue down this road.  It's just such a bad feeling to have that much time and effort and money into something and to know someone made the choice to burn it all down

Protecting our other assets and other two ongoing projects now is top of mind.  I'm thinking, cameras, adjusting our contractor onboarding, adjusting site security protocols, etc.

I'd appreciate thoughts on ways people have handled this stuff in the past.

[Greg Scott]

Sorry for your financial loss.  Instead of being a devastating blow, I hope it simply becomes a lesson that propels you to bigger and better things in the future.

When you have a house under major reconstruction and vacant, you should have a builders risk policy.  Your insurance professional should be able to help you with this.  If they are not familiar with this sort of thing, you have the wrong insurance broker.  Find one that is investor-friendly.  A good broker can help you find the right policy for any and every property so that you have protection against catastrophic loss.