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Disasters come in all forms…from medical emergencies to burglaries to natural disasters. Some of these disasters can cause financial as well as emotional damage. Knowing where to turn to for financial aid is important. Here are a few ways to recover from financial disaster.

Make necessary claims

You may be insured against some disaster. Notify your insurance company as soon as possible after the disaster to see if you qualify for any type of compensation.

In other cases, you may be able to make a legal claim. For instance, if you sustained an injury in a car accident that wasn’t your fault, you may be able to hire an injury lawyer to help you claim compensation for medical recovery. Knowing your legal rights could save you from digging into your own pockets unnecessarily.

Use the right loans

If you need to borrow money for repairs, look into lending options catered to your cause. For example, there are low interest funeral loans specifically catered to those struggling with funerals. General loans may come with high interest rates and lenders may not be as sympathetic to your needs.

Look into charity funding

In the case of some disasters in which you cannot pay for necessary recovery, you may be able to seek charity funding. There are charities out there to help with everything from medical treatment to fire recovery. Just keep in mind that most of these charity funding options are specifically for low-income households.

Sell your story

Traumatic events are often newsworthy. Newspapers and magazines may be eager to hear your story, and you could get paid for it. As well as making some money, this could be a way of raising awareness for the issue you’ve gone through. If it’s been a while since the event, you may even be able to offer advice to others going through the same trauma.

Invest in preventative measures

Whilst financially recovering, consider investing in certain preventative measures that could stop the disaster from happening again. You can get unlucky twice (in fact, in the case of disasters such as burglaries, you’re very likely to targeted twice – so investing in a burglar alarm could be a priority). Or you may be able to insure against certain disasters to spare you from the costs if it happens again in the future (health insurance and home insurance are always worth having).

And of course you should start an emergency savings fund asap if you don’t already have one.