It's designed to cover a catastrophic loss; complete destruction or very serious damage to your home. Having 85 percent of the costs to rebuild your home covered is way better than having all of it to cover on your own.

Stains, musty smell, sand or silt under the mats, rust around bolts. Look around the engine compartment to see if there's corrosion, iron parts will be rusty looking, copper parts will be green, and aluminum wiring turns whitish in salt water.

It would be naive for a buyer to assume that's because it's a long way away that these vehicles haven't made it to our state. Likely there are less here than in areas close to New Orleans. But if you were a scam artist, why not go as far away as you can where they're not thinking about it.