Insurance claims, financial losses take toll on N.S. wildfire victims

Walking around the concrete foundation of their home in Upper Tantallon, N.S., Peter Walsh and his son Reilly are finally imagining what it will look like and where the rooms will be.

"It's been a lot of stress and a lot of figuring things out as we go," Peter Walsh said, referring to the insurance claim process that has taken up a lot of his time and energy.

Losing their home to the fire, finding somewhere to live in the meantime, while also trying to replace some of their possessions has been a huge upheaval to the family.

"It just hasn't really felt real," said 14-year-old Reilly Walsh, who has a 12-year-old brother and a sister, who is nine. 

Their Westwood Hills home was one of 151 lost to the wildfire that started on May 28 in the suburban communities west of downtown Halifax last year, causing an estimated $165 million in insured damage.

Since then, the family compiled a list of everything they lost to make their insurance claim, which turned out to be more than 100 pages.

"It was pretty chaotic at one point," Walsh said. "A lot of evenings just sitting in front of the TV with my laptop, just trying to go over spreadsheets."

When CBC talked to Walsh after the wildfire in July 2023, he said dealing with insurance was like taking on another job.

Since then, he said he has exchanged dozens of emails with his insurance provider and spent hours on the phone "trying to clarify things that you just don't understand going into the process."

One of the things he discovered was how some items are classed as non-essential in his policy and therefore are considered to have depreciated in value by as much as 90 per cent.

This depended on the age and the item, he said, and included his tools. 

It was not what he was expecting but, "You just have to kind of leave a lot of the emotion out of it," he said.

Tricia Murray-d'Eon, who lost her Highland Park home in nearby Hammonds Plains, N.S., is only just getting going with her rebuild.

She has also run into complications she never considered.