Archive for April, 2011

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Texas Wildfires Still Burning

April 20th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in fire insurance, homeowners insurance

From flooding to hailstorms to fire, it seems the central United States can’t catch a break this week. In today’s installment of Environmental Hazards and You, it’s the latter risk that is running rampant, this time in Texas.

As is typical in a La Nina year, Texas had an extremely dry winter, and the spring has been warmer and dryer than is usual, as well. This, combined with all the violent windstorms, is a fire threat waiting to happen. Except it’s not waiting. So far, almost 1.8 million acres of land have been seared this year, and that’s not all in the open plains. Instead, there are residential areas being burned, including 150 upscale homes in Possum Kingdom Lake, which is about seventy miles west of Fort Worth. Two days ago, 400 Palo Pinto residents (50 miles west of Fort Worth) were ordered to evacuate, and the inmates of the county jail were moved to other facilities, as well.

In another part of the state, there were 200 families who were forced to evacuate from a neighborhood in Austin, after a separate fire was caused by a homeless man’s untended campfire and high winds.

So far, none of the fires (there are more) are completely contained, but you can bet residents of Texas who are both east and west of the fires are taking this as an object lesson in the need for homeowners and fire insurance coverage.

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Tornado After-care?

April 19th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in advice and how-tos, homeowners insurance, tornado insurance

If you live in the mid- or southwest, you’ve probably heard tornado sirens once too often. In fact, as I’m writing this, we’re under a tornado warning here in Texas. We’re not likely to see any damage in my neighborhood, but all across the country people have died in tornadoes in the last week. It’s pretty awful.

As with hurricanes, most of the damage from tornadoes is covered by your existing homeowners, condo, or rental insurance policies, and fall into the “windstorm” peril listed within. Hail is also specified in some policies, generally in regions where hailstorms are common. In addition wind and hail damage to your car is covered if you have a “comprehensive” policy.

So what should you do if you’re affected by such a storm? The Property Casualty Insurers of America (PCI) has this advice:

  • Call your insurance agent or insurance company immediately.
  • As soon as it’s safe to do so, inspect your home and cars for any damage.
  • Make a list of any missing or damaged items, and take pictures of damaged structures, vehicles or possessions. If you still have the original receipts for those items, find them.
  • Take steps to prevent further damage to your property, or to ward off possible thieves.
  • When dealing with repair contractors, run background checks. If necessary, you can ask your insurer for a recommendation.
  • Keep detailed records of anything you spend – from repair costs to emergency housing – until your home and/or auto are restored to normal conditions.

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2011 Hurricane Season is Coming

April 18th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in flood insurance, hurricane insurance, wind insurance

It may seem as though winter hasn’t fully left us, and yet, we’re a mere six weeks away from the beginning of the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season. So, what are the weather gurus predicting for this year?

According to forecasters at Colorado State University, we’ll see an above-average Atlantic hurricane season. They’re predicting nine hurricanes, five of which are likely to be major, and a 70% chance that there will be at least one which hits the American coastline.

This forecast is actually a slight reduction from the one CSU issued last December, which predicted 16 named storms of which nine would turn into hurricanes, five of which would reach Category 3 or higher on the Saffir/Simpson rating scale.

Last year, there were 19 named storms making it the third most active season (tied with 1897 and 1995) in recorded history. Of those, there were 12 actual hurricanes (making it the second highest season, along with 1969), five of which were major.

The environmental factors determine this year’s prediction, which includes a 72% chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall in the U.S., include warm surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and neutral temperatures in the Pacific. The reduced prediction comes from cooling in the Atlantic and warming in the Pacific.

It’s important to remember that there is no homeowners insurance product specifically for hurricane protection. Instead, a combination of hazard insurance, wind insurance and flood coverage is required. If you live in or near a coastal area, consider checking your coverage now.

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Friday Film Strip: Not Intended to Be a Factual Statement

April 15th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in friday filmstrips, women and insurance

Sometimes we need a little levity, even when we’re talking about insurance. Or maybe that should read especially when we’re talking about it.

As you know, last week we posted a clip of Congressional Democrats defending Planned Parenthood as a vital source of women’s health care for women who don’t have health insurance.

This week, we’re sharing a clip from THE LAST WORD, which focuses on Stephen Colbert’s riff against Senator Kyl’s disinformation about the same organization.

Enjoy:

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Excerpts From President Obama’s Speech About the Budget

April 14th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in health care reform, health insurance

Yesterday, President Obama made a speech about his plan for sensible budget reform. As health care is one of his pet issues, and one we believe is vitally important, we were pleased to hear his views on that subject.

What follows are a two numbered excerpts from the speech:

1. “Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.

“Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare’s purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid. We will change the way we pay for health care — not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.”

2. “But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.”

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Press Release: Disabled Workers Fleeing Job Market

April 13th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in medical insurance, workers compensation insurance, world events

Senator Tom D. Harkin (D-Iowa) issued a press release yesterday morning, about the status of disabled employees in the American workplace.

Because we feel this issue is important, we are running the full text of the release:

WASHINGTON, April 12 — The office of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, issued the following news release:

This morning, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) gave the keynote address at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Corporate Disability Employment Summit. A longtime champion for people with disabilities, Harkin sponsored the Americans with Disabilities Act, and as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, he recently held a hearing to identify barriers to employment for people with intellectual disabilities and strategies that have successfully improved employment opportunities. Today, he sounded the alarm on a disturbing trend: more than two thirds of Americans with disabilities are without a job, and adults with disabilities are leaving the labor force during this recession at more than 10 times the rate of adults without disabilities. Harkin called on the CEOs and business owners in the audience to join him in his goal of increasing the number of disabled Americans in the workforce from 4.9 million today to 6 million in 2015.

“As we enter into the third decade of implementation of the ADA, my central priority is improving employment opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities. The ADA and the special education laws have combined to produce the best-educated population of people with disabilities in U.S. history. And yet, while the majority of them would like to be working, the shocking fact is that more than two thirds of Americans with disabilities are without a job. In fact, now that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting regularly on the employment situation for people with disabilities, we have strong evidence that it has gotten disproportionately worse for workers with disabilities in the last two years. According to BLS data, between March of 2009 and March of this year, the size of the disability workforce shrunk by 395,000 workers to about 4.9 million workers,” Harkin said in his remarks.

“When this drop is compared with broader labor force trends, you can see that more than one in three American adults who have left the labor force in the last two years have been people with disabilities. That means that, during this recession, adults with disabilities have been leaving the labor force at a rate more than 10 times the rate of adults without disabilities. This disturbing trend line has not received much attention from policymakers or the public. We need to recognize that it has a huge budgetary and social cost. For example, it has been accompanied by increases in applications for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, which have grown from an average of 200,000 new applications per month at the beginning of 2008 to an average of close to 250,000 per month by the end of 2010.

“If we work together, I believe we can set a realistic goal of increasing the number of adults with disabilities participating in the labor force from 4.9 million, today, to 6 million by 2015. Expanding the disability workforce by more than one million workers in four years is achievable if we get serious about making it happen.I want your ideas and I am asking for your collaboration so that our policies are producing real results on the ground–real results that become jobs for people with disabilities and a strong, talented and loyal workforce for businesses. If there are federal policies that are getting in the way of your efforts, I want to hear about those too so we can do something about them. Making a real impact on disability employment numbers is one of my top priorities and will remain so as long as I am in the Senate.”

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Ratewatch: Allstate to Raise Rates in Mississippi

April 12th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in homeowners insurance, rate watch

According to the Mississippi Insurance Commissioner, Mike Chaney, Allstate customers in that state will be seeing a 19.4 percent increase in their homeowners insurance rates. The increase is likely to happen in June, and apply to both renewals and new policies.

For nearly two years, Chaney has been in negotiations with Allstate about the size of this increase, which, when filed, was a ridiculously high 65 percent. That increase, along with the reduced request for a 44% rate hike, was rejected.

In 2006, after Hurricane Katrina, then-Insurance Commissioner George Dale approved Allstate’s request for a 29.5 percent increase which also came with a 90% increase in the state’s three coastal counties. That rate-raising was followed by a 14 percent hike approved by Chaney in 2008, though that was an average, and coastal homeowners actually saw their insurance go up by about 40 percent at that time.

Then, in late 2009, Chaney declared that he would only accept rate increases that were proposed statewide, rather than those broken down by property zone (i.e. inland vs. coastal locations).

In the most recent negotiations, Allstate threatened to drop 18,000 policyholders from their book of business unless the 44% increase was allowed, but after more back-and-forth, the insurer agreed to drop only 5,000 policies in Mississippi, no more than 150 of which are in coastal locations, and then only after a year passes.

A representative of Allstate said that any homeowners insurance customers who also have (or move) their auto policies to Allstate will not be dropped, and will also receive a 25% discount, which is ten percent more than the previous discount of 15%.

In a statement to the press, Chaney said, “This has been a painstaking process, and as commissioner, I worked diligently to negotiate the requested rate down to a 19.4 percent increase to the policyholder. I earnestly believe I have arrived at the most equitable solution possible, while carefully balancing the percentage of increase granted with the number of non-renewals by Allstate throughout the state.”

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