A while back a tree crashed into the kitchen of one of our policyholders. She was surprised to learn that in addition to making repairs to the kitchen and roof she would need to have the entire house hard wired for smoke detectors. Building codes in most municipalities require that the undamaged portion of the house be brought up to code if another part suffers signifcant damage. Fortunately she had 'ordinance or law' coverage on the policy and the $1000 cost to install smoke detectors was covered. Not all companies automatically include this coverage. Either check your policy or call me to find out if it's on your policy!