About

My name is Rita Nowak. For thirty years I was a field claims adjuster in Buffalo, New York — the person who arrives after the fire or the burst pipe, walks the house with a tape measure, writes down what is damaged, and tells you the number.

Fires, ice dams, wind, water, and a few catastrophe deployments to Florida and the Gulf. I left staff work in 2023, when the company moved to estimating losses from photographs instead of sending anyone inside, and I still take a couple of files a month to keep my hand in.

What this is

A letter, six mornings a week, about the paperwork you already own.

Most money writing covers decisions you might make later: what to buy, when to move, how to get ready for something that may never happen. This covers documents you already signed and filed. The policy. The escrow statement. The deposit terms. The fund fees. The beneficiary form nobody has looked at since 1997.

Each issue takes one of them, explains how it behaves rather than how it reads, and ends with one thing worth checking that costs nothing and takes about ten minutes.

At least once a week the thing costing money turns out to be mine. My own dwelling limit has not moved since 2019 and I have not fixed it yet. You will hear about that until I do.

What this is not

I am not an agent, a lawyer, or a financial adviser, and I hold no license that would allow me to advise you on your own situation. Nothing here is advice. Policy forms, carrier practice and state law all vary, so anything you read here needs checking against your own paperwork before you act on it.

I do not sell anything and I do not tell anybody what to buy. When a letter carries a sponsor, it says so in the same paragraph as the link.

Writing back
Replying works, and I read what comes in. Reader questions turn into letters more often than anything else does.

Subscribing
It is free and it arrives at 6:30 in the morning, Eastern time. One click unsubscribes and I do not chase anybody who leaves.