Oh man.
What a terrible loss. There is no way your friend will recover financially from the investment he had in his shop.
I saw a burnt Model A on a two post hoist in the ruins of a home shop. Broke my heart.
That reminds me, I was suppose to call and up our contents coverage. Look at the money you guys have in your shops. Unless you have a supplement to your standard fire insurance you will only receive your content coverage limit if you are lucky.
You settle with your insurance, there is dwelling A, dwelling B, extended living and content coverage. If anybody want s to ask me questions please PM me.
In our case, we had to take $130,000 from our content money to buy the house. (There was such a high demand on houses after the fire, the prices went up 20% plus). That left our content replacement funds short by that amount. We did OK considering all my tools and machines were purchased with what was left in our content coverage.
Is that clear as mud?