If your property has been damaged due to a heavy rain and high winds, it can be tricky to collect insurance benefits to pay for repairs.
Home and renters policies exclude some but not all types of water damage. "Flood" damage (the policy should define what the insurer considers a "flood") and earth movement are excluded. Water damage from sewers and drains that back up may or may not be covered, depending on the wording in the specific home/renters policy. If wind or falling trees cause damage to pipes or contribute to water getting into a dwelling, there...
Read MoreBefore Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as "PPACA") and President Obama signed it into law, Americans with pre-existing medical conditions were struggling mightily to find and pay for essential health insurance. The ACA solved that problem for a large number of people but has encountered strong opposition and partisan politics that tried to defeat it at every turn. Six years of hard work have gone into implementing and defending the law. Now the incoming administration is poised to dismantle it. ...
Read MoreThe terms "Big Data", "Data Mining" and "Price Optimization" are all the buzz in insurance circles and among state insurance regulators. They, non-profit consumer advocates, the private bar and the Federal Insurance Office are all diving in to whether the massive amount of personal data that's now available to insurance companies is tipping the scales away from the bests interests of consumers and the healthy spread of risk.
Insurers used to pick from 90 rating classifications such as your driving record, address, age and vehicle. Now they can pick from thousands of them....
Read MoreToday began with a 7:30 briefing call hosted by the Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance, of which United Policyholders is a member. This "can-do" coalition seeks to make flood insurance affordable and available through the National Flood Insurance Program. They are aware of parallel efforts to bring flood coverage back into home policies and stimulate the growth of a private flood insurance market. But their current focus is on improving the NFIP so it can be a more financially viable "take all comers" source of financial protection for homeowners who want to...
Read MoreUP and the consumer advocate community have been fighting for decades against mandatory arbitration wording in banking and other commercial contracts that force people to use private binding arbitration instead of public courts to resolve disputes. Although some health insurance and most commercial property policies contain mandatory arbitration clauses, you won't find them in home insurance policies and UP is working to keep it that way.
As soon as we heard about a new Texas Farm Bureau home insurance policy under review that dangles a...
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