Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - 6 Months After the LA Fires: What Nicole Wishes She Knew Before Her House Burned Down

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Six months ago, Nicole Lapin lost her home in the LA fires. Today, she opens up about what the last six months have really looked like: the emotional toll, the bureaucratic maze of FEMA and SBA, the painful process of replacing IDs and legal documents, and the financial strain of waiting on insurance. But this isn’t just a story of loss—it's a roadmap for anyone facing a crisis. Nicole shares hard-won lessons, must-do prep work (digital go-bags are non-negotiable), and why asking for help is not weakness—it’s strategy. Plus, she pulls back the curtain on the systemic cracks in disaster recovery that often go unspoken.  All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC.  *APY as of 6/30/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. See terms of IRA Match Program here: public.com/disclosures/ira-match.

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slash money rehab. One more time, public.com slash money rehab. This is a paid endorsement for public investing full disclosures and conditions can be found in the podcast description. I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert. You don't need a dictionary to understand it's time for some money rehab. Well, it has been six months and one day since my home burned down and I lost everything. In the time since then, I have been rebuilding and rebuilding some more, and it has been slow.

Normally, I wouldn't have said that six months is a long time at all. The first six months of building Money News Network went by in a flash. This has been the longest six months of my life. As the anniversary got closer, I knew I wanted to put out an episode that basically put together everything that I've done to rebuild in the last six months so that anyone else listening, who God forbid goes through something similar, has a blueprint for recovery. And I wanted to share the things that I wish I did before the fire, the little easy things that would have saved me

a lot of time and, most importantly, money. When I started talking to our executive producer, Morgan, about this episode, she asked that we do a little planning session on Zoom so that she could help me organize my thoughts. And as we started talking through all of it, I realized that we were actually just creating the episode we wanted to make.

So today you're gonna hear chunks of our conversation and I'll fill in some of the blanks, but here's where we started. All right, so the place that I want to start is just with some logistically ones. Like what were all of the, like, records and pieces of paperwork that you needed to get after the fire? Oh, man. I mean, ideally, we would have had, like, some form of identification. That would

have been really helpful. But all the IIDs, credit cards, debit cards, global entry, passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate, like all the certificates. And first loan to you, right? First loan, although she was a baby and she didn't have them yet. So we got those for the first time. But I think there's an office that does like marriage, birth and death, like all the essential documents. But yeah, we got all of those major documents and then Jared, my husband, went like full doomsday prepper. I think he felt really, I don't know, disappointed in himself. He obviously shouldn't have felt that way, but he thought he didn't

do a good enough job taking care of the family with all of those logistics. So he got like a special case for all of the paperwork and like this doomsday sort of prepper stuff. He got a generator, a starling, like this not real gun, but like a very aggressive baby gun type situation. No way. Yeah. So all of our important documents are now all in this little container which we didn't have before. So which ones were the first ones that you tried to get back? I tried to get my driver's license first but that was from New York and I wasn't planning on ever changing it from New York even though I haven't lived in New York since the pandemic. It was just a really good picture and honestly I

didn't want to change it until I had to. Yeah you tried to help me with this. You can't get an out-of-state license renewal. So what did you do? Did you have to take the driver's test? What did you do? I did. I did. Are you serious? Yeah. So the New York DMV sent over some record. I had to take that record to the California DMV. And then I had to take the written driving test, not the parallel park driving test.

You had to take the written driver's test again? Yeah. I passed. First time. It was also like so obvious. It would really scare me if someone couldn't pass. Yeah. Okay. Fair. Fair. But at the time you didn't even have a permanent address. So when you have things like your driver's license where you have to list an address, what did you put down? And also, like, where did you say that they could send these things? I have my Airbnb address on my driver's license now, which I don't want. But it's really hard to get one form of identification without any forms of identification.

Yeah, how did you do that? Not sure. I'm really not sure. What was lucky for me actually was that I grew up in California. And so my very first driver's license was a California ID. And so I was in the system. So what did Jared do? Because he didn't, right? He had a New York license or something? I don't know what he did. I think he had his passport in his backpack. So I think he used that. But I didn't, I didn't have my passport or anything. Which makes me really sad because obviously you can replace the passport, but you cannot replace the passport stamps. And I always loved my passport stamps.

Replacing documents has felt like the hamster wheel. I can never get off. I needed document A to get document B, but I didn't have document A. And in order to get document A, I needed document B. Rinse and repeat. I wish before the fire I created a digital go bag for my records. The fire happened two weeks after I had a baby, so go bags were very much top of mind at the time, but for a completely different reason. We of course had a go bag for the hospital that had things like change of clothes and

speakers because my husband really wanted to bring the vibes at the hospital. But anyway, the digital go bag has all of the things that Morgan and I were just talking about. Digital copies of my driver's license, passport, Social Security card, birth certificate, marriage license. All of the essential paperwork that is a logistical nightmare to replace. The digital go-bag is just a folder that holds all of these records. Obviously, I didn't have one before the fire, but I do have one now. I have my digital go bag accessible in two places. First, I have it stored in a password protected folder in the cloud. And second, I have it on a USB that I keep in a fireproof safe we now own. But recovering lost paperwork was just the

beginning. The part that has really eaten away at me has been the financial relief or lack thereof. Over the last six months, I told Morgan some bits and pieces of it, but I tried not to bother anyone with all the bits and pieces of it. So in the next part, you'll hear me fill her in for the first time. And even then I don't share every dizzying rejection, but here's most of it. Lauren Henry And I've just been hearing bits and pieces about all of the crazy stuff that you've been going through trying to get aid and like the normal kind of aid that you should expect as somebody who has insurance, but also as somebody who like is a small business owner

into their small business relief programs when things like this happen, class action lawsuit stuff. Like I've just been hearing bits and pieces about how it's all going horribly wrong. What's happening? Oh my God. Okay. So let's see? Oh my god. Okay. So let's see.

I didn't know any of this. Like I never read my insurance policy. My really comprehensive insurance canceled the year before. So I had like bare bones insurance, but I thought we're never gonna need it obviously famous last words and for our office I Was going to get insurance after I came back from having a baby And so that was too late for that sadly. So on the government side, there's FEMA and SBA and then that's the federal government side and there's FEMA and SBA. And then that's the federal government side. And then below that, there's the county and like government adjacent agencies like the Chamber

of Commerce. Spoiler alert, we haven't gotten any aid for our small but mighty business that was just built right in the fire zone. Why this is is the most frustrating maddening thing. So FEMA gives you or is supposed to give you $770 in a disaster. But there are these two other buckets from FEMA that are I think $42,000 for under insurance of personal property and under insurance of additional living expenses. So when you have a renters or homeowners policy, it's divided into a personal property limit. So all your stuff and then some sort of hopefully additional living expenses, ALE component, loss of use. You mean that you can only ensure a maximum amount of stuff or there's a maximum value of stuff you can ensure?

So for personal property, the coverage, I remember when I went through the broker process to the insurance and I got the lowest one, which I still have not forgiven myself for. The higher the premium, usually like the higher the coverage. So you can, you know, say that your personal property is up to 50,000 or a hundred thousand and your premiums every month would be higher for higher coverage. So let's say it was $50,000, you would need to show all of

the proof to get you to $50,000 and then once they paid that out, which insurance companies are the worst and their whole job is to not pay you out for what you are owed, then it's done. So like assuming you had more than $50,000, if you had $100,000 of personal property, which most people don't know until you have to know. So, you know, pulling receipts from Amazon, from your emails, from for clothes, for, you know, stuff that you can value that you had in the house. There are a bunch of templates that people have used, like going through photos you have to provide, and then once you hit that limit you're considered underinsured for the

rest. FEMA allegedly helps you up to $40,000 I guess, so if you had a hundred thousand dollars of contents you had insurance for $50,000. There is supposed to be additional help. Getting that is a whole different process. Jared met with the FEMA person at our burned down home. We still haven't gotten any, you know, FEMA assistance. It's been six months. you know, FEMA assistance, it's been six months. Do you have to go to the site with them? I think so. They have to, like, verify that it's gone. Jesus, that's so bleak. And then with the ALE, they're supposed to give you

what the insurance doesn't cover for, like, additional childcare, or if you're in temporary housing that doesn't allow dogs and dog boarding or you know what you would spend above and beyond what you normally spend for food because you may not have a kitchen or stuff like that. We haven't gotten any federal anything despite going through this process. It gets like just so much red tape. And then the SBA is for loans, low interest loans. They're ones for your home that you're underinsured for and ones for business. So far we got a loan that was two and a half percent interest. So low interest rate loan. The interest, you have to start

paying after a year and you get like 30 years to pay it off. And then we did not get anything for the business for a loan. I'm still fighting with them for all these government grants or loans. I've been rejected maybe 30 times on each and each time you have to write like a letter of reinstatement or you know provide more information. It's definitely like financial logistical colonoscopy. I've used this before on the show and having no actual paperwork. Like we had our business lease on paper that got burned. It's really hard to pull a ton of this information that they ask for because they ask for a ton. And our issue was moronic. My taxes personally and for the business went to a PO box that also burned down. And we did that for security

purposes, you know, we have some special snowflakes out there. It's in the rules that if your tax return doesn't go to the affected address, you're disqualified basically, I could not get through to anybody who wanted to make an exception or could understand nuance. So I wouldn't do anything differently. I mean, I would just suggest to people to keep something like that in mind. But I mean, open another PO box. Hopefully lightning doesn't strike twice. But you know, like using a PO box is is legal and legit for for business, for a mailing address.

But for a lot of this disaster coverage, they're not about it. Have you been rejected from FEMA or from the additional aid or they're just like, we'll let you know? We're fighting with our insurance company about ALE. So until that's finished, FEMA doesn't kick in, but we are fighting with them. And so it sounds like that will preclude us from any Femah additional living expenses. What's that fight with the insurance company

is around them rejecting our new living situation because technically it's two leases and together it would be the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms and stuff like that that we previously had, but the amount per month was more. So now they, and in LA at this time, it's impossible to find a rental, you know. And so it was just a logistical issue with the management company, but now they won't pay the delta. So basically you're responsible for the amount that you had previously paid, and they're supposed to pay the delta of, so let's say, you know, your rent was $5,000 on your mortgage, and now you have to pay

$6,000. They're not going to pay you $6,000. They're going to pay $1,000 of what's on top of your regular payment. And that can last for a federal disaster, I think 24 months with potentially 36-month extension. The way my policy happened to be written was that there was, it was unlimited, but I thought that that was a good thing and it's proven not to be, it's just like at their discretion.

And so they rejected that. If I had to go back, I would have kept more receipts or like right after the disaster of what we bought. But you're in such a daze and you're dealing with so much that having all this paperwork and all this stuff is just- You're already looking for other paperwork and doing other paperwork and just trying to find the receipts for all of the things that you lost, not necessarily accumulate more receipts for the things that you're doing in that moment.

Totally. And like not having itemized receipts, like they really went through every line item. Like they won't pay for alcohol. If you went to a restaurant, like they'll take out a glass of wine or something as an additional living expense, which is understandable, but it's like super, super granular. Like you find yourself. Yeah. So, so for the insurance, we're probably going to get a lawyer to fight for our additional living expenses coverage that's been denied. I also put a complaint into CDI, which is the California Department of Insurance. So once you have issues with them, they are supposed to step in and mediate. So originally I had like a lawyer friend

help write some letters that wasn't taken super seriously because he wasn't known in this space. Now we've found a lawyer who is really known in this little niche thing, as well as this company called Policyholders United that has really helped this woman like should come on the show. She just helps people navigate this, as well as Pepperdine University had a Caruso funded pro bono law clinic that we used to try and help us navigate some of the stuff. So that's like one lawyer that we need to fight with our insurance. And then everybody who had been affected needs to find a lawyer who's doing mass torts. So mass torts is like class action, except everybody's damages are different based on what you lost. So having this itemized list of all of the things that you've lost, you know, they'll take out the amount that you got from insurance, and the amount you got from other kinds of aid, like

amount you got from other kinds of aid, like FEMA or whatever. And then the delta of that is what you're hopefully going to get and made whole for minus the cut for the lawyers. So they're all on contingency. And everybody, there's a bunch of WhatsApp groups to help guide people to sign up for one of the major law firms in the area. And it's supposed to take like three or four years to go through and sue LADWP and the city and the county and all that stuff. The county had some grants. We were rejected for the business one because of the address fluke stupid issue. We did get a small $2,000 grant

but now we're being told that the paperwork that we signed to get that grant has language in it that indemnifies the county from any future lawsuits. So now people are really upset because they've like signed over their rights and nobody reads all of that fine print, which I completely should have. And so that's problematic,

but like these mass torts are going after, apparently not just the county, but what happened with Lahaina, they ended up getting damages years later, but against the utilities company and the city for the reservoir and the empty fire hydrants and all that type of stuff. But I've just been trying every angle because I can't understand like where all the funding has gone. And I think on principle, we should get it. We just haven't.

Hold onto your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more Money Rehab. The finances of it all has been keeping me up at night. Literally. I have nightmares about FEMA and paperwork and lawyers. And part of the reason it feels so unbearable is because I'm rebuilding her studio and it is expensive. I should have money from FEMA and my insurance company to help me, but I do not.

Another part of this is guilt. I feel shame, honestly, for not insuring the office. And I feel a lot of pressure and responsibility for making it right where I can. But even more than all that, it is just so deeply unfair. I know that it sounds small, but that, it is just so deeply unfair. I know that it sounds small, but that's what's gnawing at me. It's unfair for me, but it's unbearingly unfair to people who can't make ends meet without the aid that they are entitled to. What I wish I would have done is take a video on my phone of me walking through my office

and my home. This is something that would have made a take a video on my phone of me walking through my office and my home. This is something that would have made a dramatic difference in the process of submitting claims to my insurance company and to SBA and to FEMA and all of the agencies. Now I know that you're supposed to take these videos documenting all of your belongings, walking through every room, going through every door. I knew this and I did not do it. So I cannot stress this enough. If you don't have a video like this of your home, please do it today. If I had something like this, I would have saved thousands of dollars and a lot of migraines. So you might be wondering, what's the big point I'm making here? Morgan asked that too. So for the episode, do you want it to be sort of like an update episode? Yeah, I think you know what what would be interesting is like

what I wish I knew before my house burned down was like a lot of this logistical shit like also all the PO box stuff which was a nightmare. Like the UPS store is not part of UPS, and there's no forwarding. So if your PO Box burns down, you're fucked. That I didn't know, I didn't even think about. And all of this address stuff, like I don't know how I'm gonna try to safeguard against that in the future, but yeah, it's like what I

wish I knew about these policies and what I should have looked for and what I should have done. Like it's never a fun day to go through inventory of everything you've ever owned. And then you know being so massively under insured trying to figure out how to be made whole. And then also, you're like a lot of these policies are reimbursement. So you're out of pocket like a lot like and a lot of people don't have access to cash to pay for this stuff and then get reimbursed. I think it's like deeply, deeply unfair. Lauren Henry Because then people like go into credit card debt and then if they're reimbursed or they reimbursed for the interest, probably not.

Lauren Henry Totally. Lauren Henry Yeah. Lauren Henry Totally not. And like then Liberty Mutual is just like sitting on a bunch of cash and paying people to like fight you to not give you money. So yeah, I think like what I wish I had done or knew. Yeah. And then like where where is the money gone? And then I got identity theft did because a lot of people have been targeted. I don't know if it was because of that or something else. So going through that process Somebody tried to open loans in my name and then I had to file a claim for that

But their insurance company that's supposed to also cover you from identity theft they say in like some of the documents that they cover like child care that it took you to go through this and lost wages but I put in a claim for that because my whole year is all about filling out claims and and they rejected it because apparently it's not lost wages for identity theft. It only covers up to the amount if the scammer was successful. That's crazy. It just sounds like there's just so many catches

that no one ever gets anything. Yeah, so many catches. So many like, the rules are exactly this, and if you don't have exactly this Then your sol because they claim that these programs have been taken advantage of by fraudsters I don't know how a fraudster could get through the programs with the logistics and honestly if they could like they should get the money because I'm completely legit and can't get

through the system so like kudos to you for having the patience to go through all of it. Yeah it's it's it's I just I still can't believe how much of it is not resolved six months later. I just, I still can't believe how much of it is not resolved six months later. This is what I think about when I think about the unfairness of it all. I am one of the lucky ones. I did take out a loan for my business to rebuild, but I'm not going into credit card debt to put food on the table for my family. So this is why I'm obsessing, truly obsessing over these questions about where the aid is going.

Because my fear is that my story is just the tip of the iceberg. The system is impossible to navigate. I was the valedictorian of my college and I'm not saying this to be obnoxious. My point is I can follow instructions. I can fill out paperwork. I can ace assignments. I can fill out paperwork. I can ace assignments. I know this. I cannot ace the rebuilding process for the life of me.

And if I can't, with all of the privileges of being educated and having a platform, who the heck can? Yeah. And so is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that I should note as something that you wish that you knew? I just really feel like I was on it as much as anybody.

Like I certainly should have gotten our office insured before I gave birth. So as soon as you get an office insured, I did not, which was my fault for sure. Because for so many years, I overpaid on insurance. Like I was so over covered and I never had a claim. And so when you don't have a claim, you're like, why am I wasting thousands of dollars on like insurance until you really need it. And so I was feeling like pretty bearish

on gratuitous insurance. You know, I am mad at myself every single day about the insurance situation. That would be like something that was felt so like out of anyone who was supposed to get insurance. Like I should have practiced what I talked about. I don't know. So this is where I'm at right now.

It's not pretty, it's not whole, but it is better than yesterday and that's all I'm aiming for right now. I think the last thing that I wished I knew was that it was okay to ask for help. I wasted a lot of time not picking up the phone because I didn't wanna burden the person on the other line. But once I got over the discomfort

of accepting a helping hand, I got to appreciate just how lucky it is that there are so many good people in this world who truly just wanna do good. And so six months and one day after losing my home and my office and everything, that is what I'm most thankful for. If you've listened to the show for a while, you've probably heard me say this verbatim

about my mission after learning about finance the hard way. I just want to bring back buckets of water for those still in the flames. And that has a whole other meaning at this point. So for people who did this for me, for LA, literally and figuratively, thank you. Thank you. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan LeVoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some Money Rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention

with me. And follow us on Instagram at MoneyNews and TikTok at MoneyNewsNetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.