We are finishing up our discussion of holiday parties — before, we hope, the holiday parties are finished — and the potential liability they carry for the homeowner and renter hosts. The basic rules of thumb are to know your state’s “social host” laws and to be familiar with the liability coverage terms of your homeowners or renters insurance policy.
We are continuing our discussion of insurance issues not really unique to the holidays but certainly more easily overlooked at this time of the year. Some of us love the bustle of preparing for parties, making last-minute or well-planned forays to the stores and rifling through catalogs looking for deals on shipping and gift wrapping. Some of us would rather hunker down with our homeowners insurance policy just to be absolutely clear about our potential liability if carolers stop by and when we have our annual neighborhood get-together.
We may not have a white Christmas in Miami, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know how to celebrate. This time of year is jam-packed with office parties and get-togethers with friends. We deck our halls with boughs of whatever and invite people in to make our spirits bright. Seldom do we wonder about the insurance implications of our annual Christmas Eve cocktail party.
Many homeowners on the East Coast have learned a valuable lesson in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and it’s a lesson Florida homeowners can take from as well. The lesson is this: Many homeowners whose properties were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy did not understand their insurance policies and as a result will not be compensated for the hurricane’s damage.
It happens frequently in Florida after storms and hurricanes, and now homeowners in New York are feeling the frustration. In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, hundreds of thousands of homeowners are still waiting for their payments from their insurance companies. For most, it has been weeks and weeks since they filed their claims, and they still have yet to see a check.
Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is currently under investigation after closing its Office of Corporate Integrity. The investigation was ordered by Florida Gov. Rick Scott after the property insurance company hurriedly shut its internal watchdog’s doors following the compilation of a 73-page report indicating extensive misconduct within the corporation.
After receiving word that a predominant Florida insurance company had begun canceling the policies of homeowners only after they filed a claim, the state’s Consumer Advocate called for an investigation, resulting in one case of the company paying the insured’s claim and another case in which they refused to pay.
There is a seemingly never-ending list of financial concerns plaguing today’s homeowners. A new survey of Florida homeowners clearly indicates that the rising cost of homeowners insurance is of even greater concern to them than the burden of property taxes on their residences.
Cross your fingers, because Florida may have survived another hurricane season without a major storm. With about six weeks left before the official end of the hurricane season, forecasters say the state will exit 2012 without incurring significant losses from tropical storms. Twenty years after Hurricane Andrew devastated southern Florida, that should be good news.
When the first results started to come in from the 2010 Census, one trend made the headlines more than any other, it seemed. The first decade of the 21st century saw a 5 percent increase in the number of households inhabited by two unrelated adults. The increase translates into one out of every eight homes, and for insurance companies that means a lot of new homeowners, renters and auto insurance policies.
