Deadlines and Decisions: Two-Year Anniversary Bulletin for 2017 North Bay Fire impacted households
Deadlines and Decisions: Two-Year Anniversary Bulletin for 2017 North Bay Fire impacted households

Home insurance policies typically limit the amount of time you have to collect all available replacement cost and loss of use/ALE benefits and to file a lawsuit. Your insurance company is legally required to provide you with written notice 60 days before any deadline or benefit expiration they want…
Roadmap to Recovery Survey
Roadmap to Recovery Survey

Our surveys are one of the ways we keep our fingers on the pulse of the recovery.  The data collected helps us serve your community and informs our advocacy work in the courts, legislatures, media and public policy forums. Make sure your voice is heard!…
WRAP UP: The Wildfire Risk Reduction and Asset Protection Project
WRAP UP: The Wildfire Risk Reduction and Asset Protection Project

Above, R to L:  After his insurer threatened to drop him, a Moraga, CA homeowner contacted his local Fire Dept. for help. UP’s Amy Bach rode along with local fire officials as they inspected and prescribed steps to reduce risk and retain his coverage.  If…
THE PROTECTION GAP: Monitoring and addressing the extent to which US homes are under/uninsured: A national imperative
THE PROTECTION GAP: Monitoring and addressing the extent to which US homes are under/uninsured: A national imperative

In early August, 2019 at a national meeting of insurance regulators and stakeholders from across the country, United Policyholders helped set the stage for the important conversation that needs to be happening about the increasingly large gap between disaster recovery  costs and the amount of…
UP offers solutions to California’s home insurance crisis
UP offers solutions to California’s home insurance crisis

The problem: Generally speaking, insurance companies want to sell insurance. But they also want to be profitable.  Sometimes they will stop selling insurance in a region or to a group of customers they deem too risky.  They do this as a business strategy to improve profitability. …
Bach Talk: Your Money or Your Life (Insurance)
Bach Talk: Your Money or Your Life (Insurance)

  As with all types of insurance, you have choices to make when shopping for life insurance. If you’re in the market for life insurance, rates are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years. That is probably because fewer and fewer employers offer it as an employee…
Dropped by your home insurer? What to do…
Dropped by your home insurer? What to do…

In some parts of the country, home insurance is not as available and affordable as in the past, so UP is working hard to help consumers shop for asset protection. Avoid wasting energy being angry or scared when your insurer “breaks up” with you… Don’t…
Check UP: Volunteer Project – Helping homeowners review their insurance policies
Check UP: Volunteer Project – Helping homeowners review their insurance policies

On June 14, 2019, in Napa, United Policyholders hosted a community event called Check UP to help homeowners get prepared for wildfire season.  At Check UP, homeowners could bring a copy of their insurance policy and have an expert volunteer review the policy with them. …
A powerful disaster recovery model: Insurance Support Groups
A powerful disaster recovery model: Insurance Support Groups

Helping wildfire survivors form support groups by insurance company has been part of the United Policyholders’ menu of services since our beginning.  We’ve seen time and again how communicating with others who are navigating similar policy language, company rules, and adjuster personalities helps people overcome…
Advocacy and Action Update, Spring 2019
Advocacy and Action Update, Spring 2019

UP is continuing to advocate for policyholders and disaster survivors in the media, legislature, and other public policy forums. UP Executive Director Amy Bach had an impactful Spring: Providing expert testimony to the newly created California Governor’s Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Recovery; fighting against illegal…
Car insurance roulette: You could pay more because you’re a woman regardless of driving record
Car insurance roulette: You could pay more because you’re a woman regardless of driving record

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Full and fair insurance payouts foster safe and sound construction
Full and fair insurance payouts foster safe and sound construction

As anyone who has been involved in a major construction project will tell you, construction supervision is critical.  Contractor overhead and profit is what pays for that supervision, and it is a necessary expense of any project that involves multiple trades that have to be…
Shaking Your Assets?
Shaking Your Assets?

If you own property in an area that’s prone to earthquakes, chances are your insurance excludes coverage for repairs and rebuilding due to quake damage. Insurance companies carved out coverage for this risk decades ago, and you have to shop and pay to add it…
Nip coverage gutting in the bud, UP tells CA Gov’s Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Recovery
Nip coverage gutting in the bud, UP tells CA Gov’s Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Recovery

Insurance remains a critically important source of disaster recovery financing for individuals, businesses, and government, but insurers must do a better job at insuring homes to value and paying benefits in a timely manner, UP Co-Founder and Executive Director Amy Bach told a high-level California…
Bach Talk – Government supported property insurance programs are here to stay
Bach Talk – Government supported property insurance programs are here to stay

If a home or business owner in the United States can’t find property insurance in the private market, they can buy it through a variety of hybrid public/private arrangements, often referred to as “pools” or “Residual Market Mechanisms” (insurance lingo for programs that cover risks…
Explaining to Homeowners Reconstruction Costs Versus Other Valuations
Explaining to Homeowners Reconstruction Costs Versus Other Valuations

The source of this article is a business that provides services to the insurance industry. According to a recent CoreLogic Natural Hazard Press Release, the 2018 Camp and Woolsey Wildfires in California caused devastating losses between $15 and $19 billon. Because a home is most…
North Bay floods alert businesses to uncover the quirks of their insurance coverage
North Bay floods alert businesses to uncover the quirks of their insurance coverage

As North Bay business owners directly impacted by last month’s floods push through massive recovery efforts, they’re also having to deal with the fact that part of their business insurance coverage is useless. That part of the coverage is called business interruption insurance, part of…
Your assets – Your flood risk?
Your assets – Your flood risk?

After insurers began excluding coverage for flood damage in the 1960’s, most people’s homes became unprotected for that risk. The federal government and the lending and insurance industries created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and a requirement that homes with mortgages in high flood…