Tips for handling insurance claims after a disaster

The trauma begins with an evacuation order.

After rounding up your medications, personal documents, laptop, family photos and making your escape, you then spend endless, helpless hours worrying about whether your home will survive.

Then, comes the unspeakable horror of learning your home has burned down. And that’s just the beginning of what can be a years-long process of recovering from a wildfire.

Insurance officials say the claims process goes through a succession of stages...