I have a three year old son and a fiancé. We just suffered from a home fire on 10/15/2009, thankfully we were able to get out of the home that we were renting safely. We just rented the property in July and ended up losing everything that we worked for along with having to move in temporarily with my fiance's grandfather. The house was a two family flat. We occupied the upper unit and the lower unit was divided amongst 4-5 people. The basement was a living area as well for 4-5 people. One of the tenants in the basement allegedly dropped a cigarette onto his bed sheets and that's the way the fire started. But the young man's girlfriend told my fiancé the truth. She stated that the young man wanted to kill himself, so he decided to light the sheets on fire. Apparently he tried to put it out but before he knew it the fire was spreading. So considering this tragic fired happened to us and we had no renters insurance, what type of action can we take? In order to replace lost items. Thank you so much for your response, it literally means the world to us, we have nothing left but our dignity and faith.

Unfortunately unless the young man is rich, I don't really see a way that you could be compensated for your loss due to the fire. I was in a house fire where I lost literally everything I owned clothes, furniture, everything! I just had to start over from zero and pray a lot. I made it but it was hard.

You would have been compensated had you had renter's insurance. Now, it's too late for you to do anything. Even suing the landlord is not an option for you.

I'm terribly sorry that you'll just have to pick up the pieces of your life and move on.

You can sue the man who started the fire, if he had renters insurance ( did he ?) then they may pay for your damages. But often they will have limits on coverage, so the apartment owners may also sue him for their damages ( or their insurance company will)

If the man who started it had no insurance, and has no money, you are just out everything. And will have to just start over.

And that's why you don't scrimp on insurance.

I will side track for a moment that is why almost everyone is under insured, both in home insurance with only 100,000 liablity, do you know how easy it is to spend. And it is even worst with car insurance many have 25 or 50 thousand max per accident or person. Get into a 2 or 3 car accident and that is spent before you get to most 3rd cars