Best Practice for Reviewing Water Damage Language in Homeowners Forms
Our Ask an Expert helps provide best practices for reading the policy to understand water damage coverage.
Property Perils
Don’t Let Water Damage Claims Drown Your Agency’s Profits
In 2021 according to the Insurance Information Institute (III), almost 24% of losses under homeowners insurance arose from water damage (including freezing-related) claims. From 2017 to 2021, III reports that…
Vacation Season is Open Season for Burglars
Summertime can be a bonanza for burglars. If you insure second homes owned by “snowbirds,” the risk of burglary increases during the summer, especially in July and August, according to…
Insuring Hot Tubs on an HO Policy
An HO customer’s hot tub is damaged by the freezing of a water line. Does the ISO HO-3 cover this cause of loss? What if the root cause is mechanical…
Why is an Open Perils Policy Superior to a Named Perils Policy?
If asked to give examples of claims that would likely be covered by an open perils property policy but not by a named perils policy, could you? We’ve compiled a…
HO Coverage for Freezing Claims Involving Outdoor Hot Tubs
Is an outdoor hot tub Coverage A, B or C under a homeowners policy? If damaged by a covered peril, is recovery on a replacement cost or an ACV basis?…
The Homeowners Policy and Sewer Backup
Homes and the personal property within them are the frequent victims of sewer backup that originates on or off the residence premises. The question is, to what extent, if any,…
What is a “Windstorm”?
Most named perils property policies cover “windstorm.” Note that this doesn’t say “wind,” but rather “windSTORM.” So the question is, what constitutes a windstorm? This issue recently arose in an auto…
What is “Theft”? It Doesn’t Matter!
The insured sold her $29,000 ring…or so she thought. When she attempted to deposit the cashiers check, she learned that it was forged and the forger was long gone. When…
Boat Docks and Windstorm Damage
Last year’s swath of hurricanes brought numerous claims involving damage to boat docks and piers, along with numerous claim denials. Weather-related claims to boat docks are common elsewhere in the…