I am beginning to see part of the problem. People keep referring to their coverage as “hurricane coverage”. There is no such thing as “hurricane coverage”.
Unfortunately, people tend to slap nicknames on coverages or describe coverage with terms that are not always appropriate or accurate.
All coverages have exclusions. In Wayne’s case, I can’t tell if he knew flood wasn’t covered but declined the coverage anyway, or he thought that he was buying “hurricane coverage” which would cover floods. But, even if it was the later, he should have still become familiar with the exclusions to coverage, and his agent should have explained them to him.
I’ve been in the claims business for more than 25 years, and my area of specialization is coverage disputes. Yet, my SF agent goes over the basics of my policy with me every time I place new business with him, and every year at renewal of my homeowners, especially my deductibles and what’s not covered.
You lost me there, LL. What ever you’re talking about, it’s not what I’m talking about. Do you know what bad faith in the insurance litigation context is?
If you want to have a discussion on some intelligible level, I’m all for it. You’re just being silly.
Just had to chirp in one more time! I didn’t name this coverage “hurricane insurance”. That is what ALLSTATE called it when I bought it! And dumb as I may be, the only thing I looked at when the policy arrived some weeks later, was to make sure “hurricane insurance” was listed as a rider on the charges. If I had stopped to read the exclusions to learn when hurricane Insurance IS NOT hurricane insuance, then perhaps I would have also added flood coverage. I think it was misleading and I should have been told upfront, BUT WAS NOT! Perhaps Hurricane Insurance should be marked up to always include a provision for flood damage when purchased!
There’s nothing sillier than retroactive insurance. Let’s buy car insurance after we crashed the vehicle. That’s insurance fraud, and people are prosecuted for that.
Well, there sure is ammunition for a national standard insurance policy, as much as I hate the idea. At best there should be simple, common, easy to understand language and definitions on ALL policies in all States. I can’t and won’t speak for any Allstate agent, but if you rename a coverage to help a customer understand, you would have been better off to explain that a homeowners policy covers wind, regardless on the intensity or speed, but it does not cover flood or rising waters and certainly not a levee break. Policies cover certain perils and exclude certain perils. Hurricane is not a peril that any policy covers, they cover wind. Hurricanes also bring lightning, but that is another peril. Storm surge has its own definition, but it is covered under a flood policy only. My question is, if Flood insurance is sold seperately than why would anyone think it is also included in the homeowners policy? If there is a policy available for anything it is usually because it is not covered under any other policy. Like a motorcycle is not covered under an auto policy (at least in every state I am aware of) Auto insurance is available because, while you could argue that it is personal property, it is excluded from coverage under your homeowners policy. I suppose it is a darn good thing that Flood is not an optional coverage for auto insurance, or no one would have bought it either.
Missing the point, LL. You can argue the industry guidelines, practices and procedures, and any other standards as well as the policy language that comes out of these bodies until you’re blue in the face.
That won’t necessarily carry the day in court. If it did, there’d be no such thing as coverage and bad faith law.
You do love to throw words like ‘bad faith’ around. Just because you don’t like certain long-established policy wording, you call it bad faith. Did anyone lie to you by saying “your homeowners policy covers flood loss”? If we tell you something that is true, and you choose to inteprete it wrongly, that’s hardly evidence of ‘bad faith’.
The untimate cause of the damage was the wind. Without the extreme force of the wind there would not have been the water in all these places. It is therefore ALL wind damage.
RK, I thought I made it clear the cause of the flood is completely irrelevent. Meaningless. Jack diddly squat.
If rising water gets into your home, YOU ARE FLOODED. You are not winded. Get it? Residents of NO were drowned by water, not by wind, get it? Most floods historically were caused by some type of wind. It doesn’t matter what you think flood is. It has aleady been defined for a long time by FEMA. Only an idiot can call a flood a wind.
While I agree with LL on this one (did I say that) Most floods are not caused by wind, in fact only “Tidal surges” are usually associated with wind (except the occasional earthquake at Sea) But they are both excluded on property policies and only covered under flood policies. Most Floods are from excessive rain or as in this case a levee break. Lets not forget that New Orleans had very little wind damage and the water was not a problem until the day after the storm hit. Obviously other areas were not affected by the levees. But the wording in policies are not that complicated. Exclusions on the ISO HO3 policy state the following:
“We do NOT insure for loss caused directly or indirectly by any of the following. Such loss is excluded regardless of any other cause or event contributing concurrently or in any sequence to the loss.
1.c Water damage, meaning:
FLOOD, surface waters, waves,tidal water, overflow of a body of water, or spray from any of these, WHETHER OR NOT DRIVEN BY WIND.
Unless there is a mental handicap, if you can read it, it should be pretty self explanitory. NO COVERAGE FOR WATER DAMAGE, if the water comes into the home from outside, no matter what caused it to come in.
We had a claim a few years ago, where the next door neighbor of our insured hit his above ground swimming pool with the edge of his riding lawnmower, you guessed it, the side of the pool split causing 25,000 gallons of water to go rushing across the yard toward our insureds sliding glass doors, but it was also carrying the riding mower with it. The glass door broke and in came the water, flooding the majority of the house. it was about $75,000 in damages. They were properly insured on their homeowners and also had a flood policy. THERE IS NO COVERAGE FOR THIS CLAIM. Not even under the flood policy. Only our insureds house was affected. The pool was right on the property line, and the federal flood policy stated 2 properties or 2 acres of normally dry land must be affected by the water for coverage to exist.
Let me tell you about how pissed off a customer can get at the government flood program, and then at his neighbor. He was amazingly calm with us, because he knew it was a fluke accident and that there was nothing we could do to get him coverage, and he did read his policy so he went and played the lottery and won $525. Sorry to say his neighbor did not have any coverage, not even liability. Sometimes you can’t protect yourself, even against people that do not see a need to protect themselves.
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I am beginning to see part of the problem. People keep referring to their coverage as “hurricane coverage”. There is no such thing as “hurricane coverage”.
Unfortunately, people tend to slap nicknames on coverages or describe coverage with terms that are not always appropriate or accurate.
All coverages have exclusions. In Wayne’s case, I can’t tell if he knew flood wasn’t covered but declined the coverage anyway, or he thought that he was buying “hurricane coverage” which would cover floods. But, even if it was the later, he should have still become familiar with the exclusions to coverage, and his agent should have explained them to him.
I’ve been in the claims business for more than 25 years, and my area of specialization is coverage disputes. Yet, my SF agent goes over the basics of my policy with me every time I place new business with him, and every year at renewal of my homeowners, especially my deductibles and what’s not covered.
You lost me there, LL. What ever you’re talking about, it’s not what I’m talking about. Do you know what bad faith in the insurance litigation context is?
If you want to have a discussion on some intelligible level, I’m all for it. You’re just being silly.
Just had to chirp in one more time! I didn’t name this coverage “hurricane insurance”. That is what ALLSTATE called it when I bought it! And dumb as I may be, the only thing I looked at when the policy arrived some weeks later, was to make sure “hurricane insurance” was listed as a rider on the charges. If I had stopped to read the exclusions to learn when hurricane Insurance IS NOT hurricane insuance, then perhaps I would have also added flood coverage. I think it was misleading and I should have been told upfront, BUT WAS NOT! Perhaps Hurricane Insurance should be marked up to always include a provision for flood damage when purchased!
There’s nothing sillier than retroactive insurance. Let’s buy car insurance after we crashed the vehicle. That’s insurance fraud, and people are prosecuted for that.
Well, there sure is ammunition for a national standard insurance policy, as much as I hate the idea. At best there should be simple, common, easy to understand language and definitions on ALL policies in all States. I can’t and won’t speak for any Allstate agent, but if you rename a coverage to help a customer understand, you would have been better off to explain that a homeowners policy covers wind, regardless on the intensity or speed, but it does not cover flood or rising waters and certainly not a levee break. Policies cover certain perils and exclude certain perils. Hurricane is not a peril that any policy covers, they cover wind. Hurricanes also bring lightning, but that is another peril. Storm surge has its own definition, but it is covered under a flood policy only. My question is, if Flood insurance is sold seperately than why would anyone think it is also included in the homeowners policy? If there is a policy available for anything it is usually because it is not covered under any other policy. Like a motorcycle is not covered under an auto policy (at least in every state I am aware of) Auto insurance is available because, while you could argue that it is personal property, it is excluded from coverage under your homeowners policy. I suppose it is a darn good thing that Flood is not an optional coverage for auto insurance, or no one would have bought it either.
Missing the point, LL. You can argue the industry guidelines, practices and procedures, and any other standards as well as the policy language that comes out of these bodies until you’re blue in the face.
That won’t necessarily carry the day in court. If it did, there’d be no such thing as coverage and bad faith law.
You do love to throw words like ‘bad faith’ around. Just because you don’t like certain long-established policy wording, you call it bad faith. Did anyone lie to you by saying “your homeowners policy covers flood loss”? If we tell you something that is true, and you choose to inteprete it wrongly, that’s hardly evidence of ‘bad faith’.
The untimate cause of the damage was the wind. Without the extreme force of the wind there would not have been the water in all these places. It is therefore ALL wind damage.
RK, I thought I made it clear the cause of the flood is completely irrelevent. Meaningless. Jack diddly squat.
If rising water gets into your home, YOU ARE FLOODED. You are not winded. Get it? Residents of NO were drowned by water, not by wind, get it? Most floods historically were caused by some type of wind. It doesn’t matter what you think flood is. It has aleady been defined for a long time by FEMA. Only an idiot can call a flood a wind.
While I agree with LL on this one (did I say that) Most floods are not caused by wind, in fact only “Tidal surges” are usually associated with wind (except the occasional earthquake at Sea) But they are both excluded on property policies and only covered under flood policies. Most Floods are from excessive rain or as in this case a levee break. Lets not forget that New Orleans had very little wind damage and the water was not a problem until the day after the storm hit. Obviously other areas were not affected by the levees. But the wording in policies are not that complicated. Exclusions on the ISO HO3 policy state the following:
“We do NOT insure for loss caused directly or indirectly by any of the following. Such loss is excluded regardless of any other cause or event contributing concurrently or in any sequence to the loss.
1.c Water damage, meaning:
FLOOD, surface waters, waves,tidal water, overflow of a body of water, or spray from any of these, WHETHER OR NOT DRIVEN BY WIND.
Unless there is a mental handicap, if you can read it, it should be pretty self explanitory. NO COVERAGE FOR WATER DAMAGE, if the water comes into the home from outside, no matter what caused it to come in.
We had a claim a few years ago, where the next door neighbor of our insured hit his above ground swimming pool with the edge of his riding lawnmower, you guessed it, the side of the pool split causing 25,000 gallons of water to go rushing across the yard toward our insureds sliding glass doors, but it was also carrying the riding mower with it. The glass door broke and in came the water, flooding the majority of the house. it was about $75,000 in damages. They were properly insured on their homeowners and also had a flood policy. THERE IS NO COVERAGE FOR THIS CLAIM. Not even under the flood policy. Only our insureds house was affected. The pool was right on the property line, and the federal flood policy stated 2 properties or 2 acres of normally dry land must be affected by the water for coverage to exist.
Let me tell you about how pissed off a customer can get at the government flood program, and then at his neighbor. He was amazingly calm with us, because he knew it was a fluke accident and that there was nothing we could do to get him coverage, and he did read his policy so he went and played the lottery and won $525. Sorry to say his neighbor did not have any coverage, not even liability. Sometimes you can’t protect yourself, even against people that do not see a need to protect themselves.