When the insurer's claims examiner reviewed the file for the third time that Wednesday morning, the tension between the homeowners and the underwriting department had reached an uncomfortable impasse. The wildfire that swept through the forest lands near Jasper had destroyed the couple's detached garage, damaged a significant portion of their main dwelling, and incinerated nearly everything stored in both structures. The contents claim alone exceeded the policy limits by a considerable margin, and the restoration contractor had already removed several truckloads of debris before discovering friable asbestos insulation in the collapsed portions of the garage. The homeowners, through their public adjuster, had now sent formal written instructions directing the insurer to apply every available dollar to their contents losses and to refrain from disbursing any portion of the policy limits toward debris removal. The insurer's response was equally firm: the Standard Contents Policy required debris removal to be addressed, the cost would come from within the policy limits, and the insurer was not prepared to leave hazardous material on the property simply because the policyholders preferred a different allocation. The question now squarely before all parties was which obligation took precedence when a single pool of insurance funds could not satisfy every legitimate demand upon it.