The massive wildfires that reeked havoc on thousands of acres and homes has now taken out the California claims record according to a National Underwriter article.  The claim count was dispersed by the Insurance Information Network of California (IINC) and was based on “a survey of the insurance industry.”

According to the IINC survey there were “at least 22,700 claims filed from the Southern California fires and windstorms” compared “with 19,100 claims in 2003 when 3,600 homes were burned.”

Interestingly enough even though more home were destroyed in 2003 there were still more claims filed due to this year’s wildfires.  IINC believes this is due to “the mass evacuation of San Diego County, which resulted in increased claims for additional living expenses.”

All of this information really hit home for me because I was living in Oakland during the 1991 wildfires that destroyed “2,900 homes” and triggered “$2.4 billion” of insurance claims to be paid out (“the Oakland Hills fire remains at this point the most destructive single brushfire in California history”). 

I was a little surprised about the results of a recent study of seniors between the ages of 62 and 75.  According to National Underwriter an Irvine, CA based reverse-mortgage lender, Financial Senior Funding Corp. posed the question to seniors “If $100,000 suddenly arrived in the mail what would you do with the money.”

Not too surprisingly the majority (55%) of respondents “said they would put a windfall into a savings account or certificate of deposit.”  However the second most common answer (48%) was “Pay off debt.”  That many seniors have debt?  I wonder if the debt is mostly a mortgage or credit cards?

The third most popular answer (41%) was “Give some of the money to charity.”  Sounds like a fair amount of seniors are interested in donating money to worthy causes.  I think younger people would be a little less inclined to give the money to charities.  

What would you do with a windfall of that size?