Those New Year's Eve fires in 2019 were horrific, but we stayed to fight them. If we hadn't, the house and everything in it would have burned down, as the wooden verandah steps were already burning when we formed a bucket brigade.
Did we get a Christmas card from our insurers for having saved them a million-dollar pay-out? Of course not! Instead, we got an even higher premium bill on the next renewal date for our home & contents insurance, and so we went ahead to replace the burnt-out verandah steps. Since I did it all myself, it cost even less than the policy's excess.
We are back to bushfire weather, but this time we won't stay! We're ready to run at the first sign of fire, taking with us the receipt issued when we paid our insurance to give them no wriggle room to get out of paying us the $900,000 for the house and the $90,000 for its contents.
PS I also take the last tax return, so I know what lies I told the taxman!
