Last week, some family members and I drove to northern California and back. Never doing things the easy way, we drove 1900 plus miles in the first two days, enjoyed two days with extended family members, and drove 1900 plus miles on Friday and Saturday. Like the terrible joke about flying somewhere, Boy, were my arms tired!

Our cousins had lost their home and all of their stuff in the Camp fire that destroyed most of Paradise, California. Our purpose was to deliver a load of good used woodworking machinery and equipment to them so our cousin can get back to making wonderful creations for other people. Mission accomplished. They loved it!

Paradise was a small city in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains with a population of about 26,000 in 2010. For comparison, that is about 5,000 more than Sedalia, Missouri. At least 6,450 homes and 260 commercial business buildings were destroyed in one day.

When we drove up into what is left of Paradise today, a number of matters came to my mind. Of the remains of burned out homes and businesses I just saw, how many owners had sufficient fire insurance to rebuild? It is too early to tell. Of the businesses, how many owners had business interruption insurance?

This is unusually short and hopefully sweet today. Do you have all the coverages you need for your own home, your business if you have one, your income in case of sickness or injury, your life in favor of your beloved family members?

None of us are planning to have a fire that destroys our home or most of our entire city, but some will suffer the same fate or one similar to these every week, every month, every year. It is too relatively easy to find a trustworthy insurance professional not to be protected as we should be. We are able and responsible to be prepared.