Vacant or Unoccupied Homes

An unoccupied home is a temporary condition and an exception to a residence normally having occupants A vacant home generally represents abandonment of property. Either condition may affect your coverage under a typical homeowner policy. It is quite important to understand the consequences of either condition in order to keep your coverage intact.

Generally, a homeowner policy has a couple of areas that may be affected by a home’s occupancy status: damage caused by freezing, or certain property and loss due to vandalism. Let’s talk about them in detail.

A homeowner policy usually protects a home from any loss that is caused by a frozen:

• plumbing system
• heating system
• air conditioning system or
• appliance

 

Example 1: Fern Guddyson and her family leave their home in Minnesota in January. They’ll spend the next 16 weeks in Miami because Fern is teaching a graduate course in Zen awareness at Palm Leaf University. During a bitter cold spell at their home at the end of March, the water line to their refrigerator (for its ice-maker) freezes and breaks. Later, when the line thaws, it overflows and, eventually, soaks all of the home’s oak flooring and carpets. Fern makes a claim to her insurer when the family returns home. The insurance company rejects the claim when they find out the home was unoccupied for more than the policy’s specified number of days before the loss.

Unfortunately for the Guddysons, most homeowner policies will not cover freeze-related losses that occur during an extended period in which the home is either vacant OR unoccupied. But this loss of coverage can be avoided if the homeowner takes special steps. Precautions usually involve either draining any systems or appliances of water and shutting off the home’s water supply, or keeping the home heated during the absence.

A homeowner policy typically offers protection to a home that is damaged by acts of vandals.

Example 2: Fern Guddyson and her family leave their home in Minnesota in January. Again, they’ll be in Miami for the next 16 weeks while Fern gets her doctorate in surfing from PalmLeaf University. A week before the Guddysons return, a group of kids breaks most of their home’s windows. They then enter the home and use tools to smash doors, floors and walls. Fern makes a claim to her insurer when the family returns home from Miami. Their insurer estimates the damage and gives Fern a check to cover her loss.

Typically, vandalism losses are covered even during periods of extended unoccupancy. However, if the Guddysons had emptied their home of all furnishings and turned off the power for the time they were gone, the vandalism loss would not have been covered.

Why Are Such Exclusions Necessary?

Homeowner policies contain such exclusions in order to avoid special loss situations. A vacated home becomes an attractive nuisance, often attracting vandals. If a home is to be vacated, it may be necessary to purchase dwelling fire coverage to protect the home. In regards to loss caused by freezing, insurers want to encourage homeowners to do a little planning in order to reduce or eliminate the chance that a system or appliance causes a loss. If an insured refuses to act responsibly toward their property, they risk the chance of an uninsured loss.

If you’re facing a situation in which your home will be unoccupied or vacant for an extended period, talk to your agent and make sure you do whatever is necessary to preserve your full insurance protection

What is Lloyd’s of London?

Lloyd’s of London is an organization that has provided insurance worldwide for more than 300 years. The organization has a reputation for handling either very expensive or exotic types of insurance. Surprisingly, Lloyd’s is neither an insurance company nor, for most of its history, a corporation. It is made up of more than 3,000 active members. There are well over 10,000 inactive members. Memberships consist of the underwriters, the insurance brokers who bring them business, and the investors known as “names.” The underwriters accept insurance business on behalf of syndicates (groups of “names”).

The history of Lloyd’s begins at Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse in 1688, where he attracted a clientele of merchants, particularly ship owners with vessels and cargoes needing protection. Mr. Lloyd’s establishment quickly evolved into a meeting place where businessmen sought brokers to place insurance with wealthy, reputable men. Character and integrity were important because the persons (called underwriters) who agreed to invest in the ships and cargoes put their personal fortunes at risk in order to pay their share of any claim. If a ship’s voyage was successful, the underwriter would share in the profits.

Note: The term underwriter came from the practice of persons agreeing to insure a ship and/or its cargo by placing his signature under the name of the vessel he was willing to sponsor.

Lloyd’s of London has long been identified with British history and the growth of worldwide commerce. It is an international insurance market, located in London, whose members cooperate with each other, compete with each other and, of course, compete against other insurance organizations. There are four major markets at Lloyd’s: Marine, Non-Marine, Aviation and Motor. Lloyd’s also has a smaller market that handles short and long term life insurance.

Insurance is not placed with the Corporation of Lloyd’s, a society incorporated under Act of Parliament of 1871. The Corporation provides the premises, shipping information services, administrative staff and other facilities that enable the Lloyd’s market to transact insurance business. The actual insurance transactions are handled by thousands of Lloyd’s members. About one-third of the membership is actively engaged in the market. The remaining members provide capital, but do not actively place business in any of Lloyd’s insurance markets. Only the underwriting members may accept insurance business on behalf of a syndicate.

Historically, a policyholder with a valid claim could be certain that the claim would be paid, whatever the cost to the member who accepted the risk. Formerly, every underwriting member was responsible up to the full extent of his personal assets for his share business. If his personal assets were not enough, Lloyd’s would make any deficit out of its reserve funds.

Today, Lloyd’s liability is more conventional, limited in the same manner as traditional insurance companies. The change was necessary due to its long-term problem in handling losses associated with asbestos claims. Lloyd’s created a separate entity to handle that large source of loss and many organization members became inactive (no longer writing new business) in order to meet their payment obligations.

While the number of active memberships have substantially decreased; they are made up of, primarily, corporate entities, so Lloyd’s capacity to write business in the global marketplace is still substantial and makes it likely that Lloyd’s will continue to be an important part of the insurance market.

Wedding Insurance?

Weddings can be large and expensive spectacles. Although the recent economy has forced brides to consider scaling back their plans, the average cost of a wedding still approaches $30,000. Appropriately, it has become quite common to arrange for special protection for this extremely important, personal event.

Wedding insurance is not standardized, so policy wording can be quite different among the specialty insurance companies that offer the protection. Wedding insurance can help protect against the huge expenses suffered if, for certain reasons, the wedding is either postponed or is cancelled. Protection can be purchased to respond to loss involving unrecoverable expenses as well as to lawsuits that result from a wedding that is held as planned.

In most instances, to qualify for coverage, the wedding’s cancellation or delay has to be caused by an eligible source of loss/disruption such as catastrophic weather, a church where the wedding is to be held suffers smoke damage and is suddenly closed, or the reception caterer closes her business the day before the wedding.

Items covered by the policy are usually expenses that can’t be recovered (non-refundable). Eligible expenses often include the following:

·         Facility Rental (church, reception halls, etc.) Costs

·         Catering Costs

·         Clothing Rental Fees

·         Photographer Fees (in some cases, videographer fees may also qualify)

·         Hotel Costs

·         Transportation Costs (limos, taxi costs for transporting wedding party or guests incurred by insured or honoree)

·         Air Transportation

·         Other miscellaneous, non-refundable costs

Eligible expenses include those related to the honeymoon as well. Examples of “Other expenses” may be the deposits for services, such as florists, entertainers, etc. Naturally, payment of these costs is subject to the policy’s limit.

Wedding Personal Liability

When this coverage applies is purchased, the insurance company will protect the insured against losses or lawsuits that allege that the insured/honoree is responsible for bodily injury, personal injury or property damage to a third party. However, any claim must be due to an incident that takes place at the wedding (including reception). The coverage obligation does not only apply to losses, but also includes a duty to legally defend an insured/honoree against claims/losses.

Example: The Brydals are sued by a best man who was seriously injured when the nervous groom turned abruptly to get the wedding ring and knocked the best man off a podium.

Additional Coverage

Many wedding policies offer additional coverages such as:

·         Photographs and Video Tape Coverage

·         Gift Coverage

·         Rented Property Coverage

·         Special Attire Coverage

·         Jewelry Coverage

When some accident comes about to turn the big day into the big cancellation or the big disaster; having wedding insurance could take the financial sting out of the situation.

Certificates of Insurance

Business transactions frequently require the valuable protection provided by insurance. A Certificate of Insurance is a document that is often requested as proof that adequate insurance exists. A certificate is not the same as a policy and certificates do not affect the coverage provided by a particular insurance policy. Therefore, requests to “endorse the certificate of insurance” are inappropriate and misleading. A certificate is a separate document that is used to comply with a common contract requirement to verify certain types and amounts of insurance.

Certificate holders, the entity or party requiring the certificate, often demand that they appear as “additional insureds.” This requires an endorsement (change) to the policy and it gives them coverage for injury or damage resulting from the contract.

Example: Tenant A leases a building from Property Owner B. Property Owner B demands that the tenant changes its insurance policy to also show the property owner as an additional insured. If a tenant’s customer is injured on the premises and sues both the property owner and the tenant, the tenant’s liability policy would provide coverage for both parties.

Construction contracts require certain forms of insurance, certain insurance limits, a hold harmless agreement and the inclusion on insurance policies as additional insureds. A “hold harmless” agreement is a contract provision that states how much responsibility each party accepts for damages arising out of the agreement.

A certificate of insurance can confirm that the appropriate policies were issued and that other requirements were also met. It is important to have a system for monitoring receipt of certificates BEFORE any sub-contractors are allowed to begin work. If certificates are not obtained or kept up-to-date, when the contractor’s Workers Compensation and General Liability policies are audited, the payroll for the sub-contractors without Certificates will be included with the contractor’s resulting in an additional premium charge.

Ask your insurance agent to help determine if you should be obtaining or providing certificates of insurance in conjunction with your business. In addition, when you’re required to provide a Certificate, send your agent a copy of the contract. The contract allows the agent to assist you in determining what liabilities you are accepting and what can be done to modify your insurance program to best protect your financial well-being.