May 23, 2019 Car insurance roulette: You could pay more because you’re a woman regardless of driving record Download the PDF
May 20, 2019 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…
May 20, 2019 California’s Fires Hit Rich and Poor Communities. Guess Which Ones Are Recovering Faster. Fires are indiscriminate. Recovery isn’t. On the afternoon of September 12, 2015, the Valley Fire erupted near the outskirts of Cobb, California, an unincorporated community shadowed by Cobb Mountain in the Northern Interior of California. The fire grew so rapidly that it trapped the first…
May 17, 2019 Fires are indiscriminate. Recovery isn’t. On the afternoon of Sept. 12, 2015, the Valley Fire erupted near the outskirts of Cobb, California, an unincorporated community shadowed by Cobb Mountain in the Northern Interior of California. The fire grew so rapidly that it trapped the first responders from CalFire’s Helitack Crew…
May 14, 2019 Fanning The Flames Over Homeowners’ Fire Insurance Woes Sonora, CA — Increasing difficulties homeowners and would-be buyers are experiencing with fire insurance has Mother Lode realtors, insurers, and government officials abuzz. Tuesday at the Tuolumne County Association of Realtors TCAR) Office, members who attended the recent California Association of Realtors CAR) Legislative Day…
May 13, 2019 I Wish It Would’ve Burned’: Navigating Insurance When Your Home Survives a Wildfire After Misty Attaway and her family were forced to flee from the Camp Fire on the morning of Nov. 8, she heard some shocking news: Her home in Paradise, unlike much of the rest of the town, had survived. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m…
May 7, 2019 California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara Holds Malibu Town Hall Even six months after the Woolsey Fire, some fire victims are still having difficulties collecting what they’re owed by their insurers; that includes residents with partial damage to their homes as well as those experiencing total losses. To help smooth the way, California’s top insurance…
May 3, 2019 How to make insurance affordable under climate change Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance firm, lost $24 billion from last year’s California wildfires, and it says global warming made a “significant contribution.” Insurer Lloyd’s of London found warmer oceans, caused by climate change, made for a 30 percent increase in storm surge damage…
May 1, 2019 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…
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 30, 2019 Insurance Coverage Drying Up As California Wildfire Recovery Drags On After the Tubbs Fire reduced their Santa Rosa, Calif., home to ash in October 2017, Chris Keys and his wife, Sara Jakel-Keys, said deciding to rebuild was easy. But a year and a half after the fire, the road to normalcy has proved longer and…
April 25, 2019 For California Fire Survivors, Rebuilding Can Be Long And Painful After the Tubbs fire reduced their Santa Rosa home to ash in October 2017, Chris Keys and his wife Sara Jakel Keys say deciding to rebuild was easy. But a year and a half later, the road to normalcy has proven longer and more painful…
April 23, 2019 Techquake: The Biggest Threat to California’s Tech-Sector May Lie Directly Beneath its Feet California’s technology sector has had a tough year with state and federal policymakers, to say nothing of the general public. Concerns about the size and scope of internet firms have led to a “techlash,” bringing with it uncomfortable hearings and the resurrection of truly noxious…
April 21, 2019 Two Sonoma County men file lawsuit, urging state to protect fire survivors from unlicensed adjusters Two Sonoma County men are suing the California Department of Insurance for allegedly allowing out-of-state insurance adjusters to work illegally in the state without proper registration, enabling unsupervised adjusters to dole out costly bad advice to wildfire survivors. Plaintiffs Jeff Sengstack, who lost his Santa…
April 20, 2019 Wildfires make it harder for California homeowners to get insurance As the cost and risk of California wildfires grow, it’s getting harder for homeowners to get and keep insurance in fire-prone regions including the Sierra foothills, Tahoe and some parts of the Bay Area. Homeowners rejected by mainstream companies are turning in greater numbers to…
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…
April 4, 2019 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…
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,…