October 8, 2018 Survivors of Northern California wildfires are facing ‘no win’ decisions on rebuilding At a recent event for people who lost their homes in last year’s fires, a local yoga business owner led the room through a mediation exercise. She led off by sharing that her childhood home had been destroyed in the fires, and then dimmed the…
October 7, 2018 A year later, majority of North Bay fire victims still await reimbursements from home insurers to rebuild Consider the unfortunate plight of Laney Wall and Scott Rooks. They were married Sunday but remain unable to start building a new house to replace their Santa Rosa home that burned down in last October’s wildfire. The two are Air Force veterans who served in…
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 3, 2018 Get your papers in order Part of getting ready for a disaster means getting your financial house in order. Thousands of people who lost homes in the 2017 California wildfires discovered too late that their insurance coverage had not kept up with the rising cost of lumber, labor and other…
October 3, 2018 Trim Your Home Insurance Premium Whether you stay with your current insurer or switch, you can lower your rate without sacrificing coverage. Car insurance companies are falling all over themselves to grab your attention with clever TV ads, giving the impression that lowering your premium is as easy as picking…
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 27, 2018 Sonoma County Medical Association holds fires-recovery workshop Like anyone who has been affected by October 2017’s wildfires, physicians need ongoing support and assistance in rebuilding their lives. And they continue to receive it. On Wednesday the Sonoma County Medical Association held the third in its ongoing series of fire-recovery programs and workshops…
September 25, 2018 What happens when you buy a house in a disaster zone – and no one told you? In many states, laws don’t require sellers to disclose that a property is in a flood or wildfire area, leaving homeowners with unexpected damage and losses The house on Weber Hill Road is almost a year gone, but it still haunts Emilie Hayes. Thirteen years…
September 21, 2018 Bummer about your medical emergency, but your claim is denied because you didn’t call in advance Of the many dubious reasons insurers use for denying claims, one of the most bizarre is telling a patient they neglected to obtain prior approval for treatment in the midst of a medical emergency. Because, of course, the first thing most people think of in…
September 21, 2018 Private firefighters and five-star hotels: how the rich sit out wildfires With record-breaking wildfires carving up the American west this summer, firefighters have become the rarest of civil servants: the kind almost universally lauded as heroes. Reinforcements dropped into California’s firefight from as far away as Australia and American Samoa to bolster strained state and federal…
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 20, 2018 Carr Fire debris removal service limitations REDDING, Calif. — Debris removal from the Carr Fire is under way in Shasta County, but before the crews clear your land, there’s some last-minute information you should know. Janelle Galbraith Management Assistant to the City Manager, with the Redding city planner’s office says once…
September 19, 2018 Green Mountain Falls homes hit with mudslides, little help available Cascading hail accumulated on Lamar Mathews’ windshield as she made her way up the back road to Green Mountain Falls, through Chipita Park. She’d been stuck in traffic on U.S. 24 going west from Colorado Springs for quite some time before managing to get on…
September 19, 2018 Hurricane Florence’s next challenge: Dealing with insurers Soon after the still-rising flood waters from Hurricane Florence begin to recede, the rebuilding process in devastated parts of North and South Carolina will get underway. Insurers will have to write an estimated $10 billion check for that, said the Consumer Federation of America CFA).…
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…
September 14, 2018 Hurricane Florence storm surge damage may not be covered As Hurricane Florence makes landfall, homeowners along the North and South Carolina coasts could face up to 14 feet of storm surge — tidal water driven by high winds. But many of them could discover that their insurance doesn’t cover damage from that common hurricane…
September 10, 2018 Homeowner Advocate Seeks Wildfire Victims for Insurance Survey As the anniversary of the October 2017 North Bay wildfires approaches, a San Francisco group is interested in hearing from Californians whose homes were damaged or destroyed. United Policyholders, a non-profit that has held several workshops to help fire victims tackle insurance issues, is conducting…
September 6, 2018 Press Release: Wildfire-impacted households face emotions, decisions at the one-year mark: Help is available, survey underway SAN FRANCISCO, CA – September 6, 2018 – United Policyholders (UP), a nonprofit insurance consumer organization, will offer guidance to wildfire-impacted households on navigating deadlines, decisions and emotions at the one-year anniversary of their devastating losses at a free workshop. UP is also asking all…
