News & Resources

In September 2012, we wrote a post about force-placed insurance with the catchy title, “Force-placed insurance companies feeling the heat.” At the time, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners was just beginning to look into the practice, and Florida was dubbed “Ground Zero” for what regulators believed was an unfair business practice. Two years ago, force-placed insurance (also called “lender-placed insurance”) was the looming sub-scandal of the housing crisis.

A fire erupted in a Fort Lauderdale apartment complex last weekend. The good news is that no one died in the blaze. The bad news is that three families, a total of nine people, are now out of their homes.

Sometimes, an event will occur, such as a fire, which causes a significant amount of damage to a person’s home and the property in their home. After such an event, one thing a homeowner will often do is file a claim with their homeowners insurance provider to try to get financial relief for the property damage. Among the things homeowners insurance generally includes is property insurance. This type of insurance provides coverage for homeowners for certain types of property damage.

Leona Helmsley made headlines after she died by leaving her dog, Trouble, about $12 million. The money was held in trust for Trouble’s care and feeding and, some said, extravagant lifestyle. The move made sense to some of us: Trouble was part of Helmsley’s life.

The holidays can be stressful for those of us who have hard-to-shop-for relatives. Books, neckties, kitchen gadgets, socks, movie tickets, fruit baskets and gift cards — it has all been done before, sometimes many times before. We came across something the other day that could be perfect for a certain sub-category of the hard-to-shop-fors: pet insurance.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’re probably aware that an insurance policy is a contract. All the basic issues of contract law apply — including the duties of good faith and fair dealing that are implied in all contracts.

Insurance is big business, and insurance companies have significant resources to fight back against claims of bad faith. These are claims that the insurance company put its own profit concerns above the interests of policyholders.

When we left off, we were talking about the different way defense costs are handled under commercial general liability insurance policies and directors and officers insurance policies. Remember, CGL covers personal injury and property damage; D&O covers financial harm resulting from officers’ and directors’ management mistakes.

Power and responsibility may come at a price: liability. Serving on the board of directors or as an officer of a for-profit or nonprofit organization may be lucrative or rewarding or both, but the positions also carry risk for the individual. Think about Enron: When the company imploded, officers and directors scrambled to prepare for lawsuits and criminal charges against them personally and as a group, even if they knew they had done nothing wrong.

There is a naysayer in every crowd. When you buy a fancy new car, your first indulgence in a long time, one of your friends or coworkers will point out that the car lost a third of its value the second you drove off the lot. When you buy your first house, that same person, who just happened to purchase a home last year, will not congratulate you. He will kill your excitement by tossing in a “Just wait ’til you have to replace the roof” comment.