April 30, 2019 Minding the Protection Gap Ever since my own home burned down in the 2003 Cedar Fire, I have worked to understand why so many people think they have a fully insured home, only to later learn they do not. This is a particularly troubling and stubborn problem because it…
April 12, 2019 Wildfire Took Your Home? Don’t Count on Insurance Rebuilding It Own a home? No doubt you’ve insured it. Very sensible of you. But if that home were, say, burned to the ground, then your insurance company probably wouldn’t cover the cost of rebuilding it. Don’t feel too bad, though. It’s only partly your fault. Two-thirds…
March 25, 2019 UP presentation to state regulators on Disasters and Insurance – Marketplace Gaps and Fillers In this Power Point, UP Co-Founder Amy Bach and Professor Peter Kochenburger, (U.Conn Law) presented points to state regulators on the topic of insurance gaps that surface after disasters, and products to fill those gaps that may or should be available in the marketplace. November,…
March 23, 2019 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…
March 23, 2019 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…
March 5, 2019 A dark cloud over the Sunshine State UP weighed in today with a letter to Florida state lawmakers to urge their no votes on three bills that will gut policyholder protections in that state if enacted as written. House Bill 301, Senate Bill 714, House Bill 751. Honorable Florida lawmakers: Our non-profit…
March 1, 2019 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…
January 29, 2019 A coverage win for energy sector policyholders In a significant win for all policyholders in the energy sector, the Supreme Court of Texas reversed a lower appellate court ruling which allowed a consortium of Lloyd’s underwriters to limit their indemnity obligations to pay for defense expenses incurred by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and…
December 28, 2018 Government shutdown is delaying flood insurance needed for home sales Some 40,000 homes could be left “unsold” for each month the government shutdown lasts, according to the National Association of Realtors NAR). And in its latest monthly housing report, the NAR predicted “slower economic growth” if employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA) remain…
December 6, 2018 As wildfires drive insurance premiums up, will homeowners be able to keep up? At first, Lucy Reynolds was unnerved by the non-renewal notice from the insurance company two years ago. Mortgaged homes must have coverage so Reynolds and her husband needed to find a replacement, quick. She was turned down by her neighbor’s carrier and an insurance agent…
December 3, 2018 Hurry up and wait? What to do when your insurer goes “insolvent.” Disasters strain insurer’s claim-paying capacity in situations where they have alot of customers in the impacted region that all make claims at the same time. The vast majority of insurers have enough money on hand to pay their claims after disasters, thanks to regulations that…
October 4, 2018 Hurricane Florence Aftermath: The Best Financial Options for Repairing Your Home More than two weeks after Hurricane Florence’s devastating crawl across the Carolinas and Virginia, many homeowners are assessing the damage and beginning to make repairs. According to real estate data provider CoreLogic, the storm affected 624,000 homes, the vast majority unprotected by flood insurance. Standard…
October 1, 2018 Trick or treat…what’s in yours? Make sure your policy has more treats than tricks! The only thing scarier than how devastating the last year has been with wildfires, lava, flooding and hurricanes is language we’ve been finding buried in some of the insurance policies that impacted people have been showing…
September 28, 2018 North Bay fire victims should be aware of deadlines to sue their homeowner insurers As the first anniversary of the North Bay wildfires approaches, people who lost their homes in the natural disasters should take steps to ensure they do not lose the ability to sue their homeowner insurers if they think they have been treated unfairly, according to…
September 26, 2018 How claims SHOULD be handled Although this is an insurance company advertisement, and the policyholder is clearly reading from a script presumably written by the insurance company, it highlights how claims should be handled, and how they shouldn’t. We at UP fully recognize that catastrophe claims put strains on insurance company resources, and…
September 24, 2018 Guest Blog: The Supreme Court of FL Rules in Favor of Policyholder on Application of Florida’s Bad Faith Law By Molly Chafe Brockmeyer, Esq., Boyle & Leonard, P.A., Ft. Meyers, FL. UP Volunteer On September 20, 2018, in a case where UP weighed in as amicus curiae, the Supreme Court of Florida issued its opinion, affirming Florida’s long held bad faith precedent. The state’s high…
September 20, 2018 Footing The Bill For Climate Change: ‘By The End Of The Day, Someone Has To Pay’ By all accounts, Florence was a massive, wet monster of a storm — and an expensive one, too. Its historic deluge swelled inland rivers and wrecked homes across the Carolinas, racking up costs that early estimates set as high as $22 billion. When the floodwaters…
September 18, 2018 No flood insurance? You can still get help More than a million people in North and South Carolina have suffered from the flood waters driven ashore by Hurricane Florence. Nearly 750,000 of them were forced to evacuate, while others were trapped by a deluge of more than 30 inches of rain. Even when…