Sad to hear the good people at Timbernation had a fire (and no insurance).

Even if it was an intentional decision, I would have a hard time looking down on someone who made a decision to not carry insurance if they are willing to accept the risk and consequences.  The insurance industry is corrupt, greedy, and sorely in need of regulation.  What they regularly get away with is criminal.  They specialize in how NOT to pay claims and spend incredible amounts of your premium dollars accomplishing that thousands of times every day.  Sickening.

Had the OP told the entire story about the insurance mix up, I would have been more sympathetic.  Here is a fact:  none of us suck.  What sucks is not getting the entire story and then ragging on the ones who disagree and show no sympathy. 
 

I can relate to the mix up as I had a not so similar run in with Farmers Insurance.  On Dec1, 2022, my mortgage holder paid my new homeowners insurance in full.  The bill was due Dec20th.  On January 3, 2023, I received a letter from my insurance co stating if my policy was not paid within 10 days, it would be cancelled.  Yesterday, Jan5, I spent close to 3 hours on the phone with my insurance co and the bank holding my mortgage.  Long story short, Farmers never received the payment, the bank put a stop payment on the check they issued an then did NOTHING!   While I was still on the phone with the bank, they told me they issued a new check and were overnighting it to the insurance co.  What a coincidence that they just happened to be issuing a new check while I was on the phone. I checked last night and the check was dispatched. 
 

What galls me is if I had given up and not spent 3 hours on the phone, I would be screwed.  The bank and insurance co should have worked this out and I should not have had to get involved as there was plenty of money in escrow and the bank should have followed through.  If something similar happened to Timbernation, then I take back what I said. 

So is Audiogon going to be used as "tragedy central" now? My wife was the chair of our region's United Way. We give more to charity than most people earn in a year and I personally have volunteered my services completely free of charge literally hundreds of times...do we suck for not contributing to some random business that doesn't know what they're doing? No fire safety sprinkler system? Has no roof repair safety skills? Self inflicted money issues are exactly that, kids with cancer will get my hard earned money well before any small business who somehow "forgot" their insurance. Keep your guilt trip to yourself as it's just insulting and really lame, and certainly does not belong in this forum.  

I gotta +1 that!

Is this the Timbernation that makes hifi racks?

$7000 is such a small amount of money. Maybe they didn’t lose much?