This week, as wildfires continued to affect Colorado communities, the state's Division of Insurance held a public webinar walking survivors through the claims process. Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway and the Division laid out clear, practical steps: file a claim immediately, request a copy of the policy (insurers must provide one within three business days), and understand what the law actually guarantees — a strong, homeowner-friendly baseline that not every state offers.
By law, insurers are required to pay out a portion of a policy's personal property coverage without requiring an itemized inventory. But a meaningful share of that coverage — at minimum around a third, depending on the policy — isn't released until documentation is provided and accepted. Additional Living Expense coverage can also help with temporary housing, food, commuting, and even pet boarding while a home is unlivable. The Division walked through how to vet a contractor for repairs, too: check their insurance, ask for references, and confirm they've handled insurance-funded work before. It's a genuinely useful playbook, and exactly the kind of proactive outreach that helps survivors get through a hard process faster.
On the documentation question
For homeowners without photos of their belongings, officials noted a fallback: reach out to friends or family who might have a photo that happens to include your things in the background. It's a real option when nothing else is available — but it's exactly that, a fallback, not something to plan around.
There's a faster way now
Documenting a home doesn't require waiting for a fire, and it doesn't require the kind of effort it used to. Current technology — a phone, a few photos per room, AI that identifies what's there — makes it dramatically faster to build an accurate record proactively, well before any claim is ever filed.
That's what Homvi was built for: a quick scan that documents as much of a home as possible in a short amount of time, with the option to go back and capture more meticulous detail — serial numbers, receipts, exact model numbers — on any item, whenever you want. Start fast, refine later. And for anyone facing a claim right now without a record on file, even a fast pass today is better than starting from nothing. Our guide on documenting a home quickly walks through both.
We're glad to see the Division taking such an active role in walking residents through recovery, and hope tools like Homvi can serve as one more resource that supports that work going forward.