I’ve known two DME owners whose businesses were destroyed by fire. In one case, a consulting customer of mine owned a DME in a Upstate New York strip plaza. Two doors down was a laundromat and fire broke out and actually traveled through the walls. The structure remained standing, but their inventory and the entire interior of their storefront were destroyed by smoke and water, despite the best efforts of the fire department. The second case was a business in the south, located in a rented warehouse in a rather remote location. The fire was arson, and investigators eventually prosecuted the building’s owner for arson and insurance fraud. In both cases, the businesses had adequate insurance, and the owners rebuilt. However, in both cases, the owners bemoaned their losses, suffered terrible inconvenience, and recounted stories of the irreparable harm the fires did to their operations.
