Barry Wyndam answers:

Absolutely not. You have no claim. You didn’t have a policy on the property and you didn’t own the property at the time of the loss, therefore, you don’t have a loss.

This type of thinking is exactly why so many people are paying ridiculously high homeowner’s insurance premiums.

Barry Wyndam answers:

You need to get an estimate on repairs and then call your agent to find out what your deductible is if you don’t know. If your damage is less than or just above your deductible amount then you will need to pay it yourself. If its more and you need to file the claim, then call your agent or companies direct claim line to report it. They will send an adjuster out to look at the damages and then he will figure what will be paid and how much. You will then get a check for repairs minus your deductible.

Barry Wyndam answers:

It depends on exactly what type of policy you have as to what happens with deprecation.

Some policies are RCV (Replacement Cost) but have hold back provision. The insurance company subtracts deprectation. If you get the work done (usually with in 180 days of the loss) – you take the receipt to the insurance company and they will pay you the deprecation. If you chose not to get the work done – you don’t get it.

Some polices are ACV (Actual Cash Vaue). These are usually Dwelling Policies or Fire Policies. With these the insurance company only owes you the deprecated value. So you can’t go back and get the deprecation.

However, the contractor has to be paid for the entire cost of the job. That means you owe in 4700.

Give your adjuster a call. They can tell you if you have the kind of policy that will pay you back the deprecation after the job is done or not.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Technically you ARE tied into the job. As long as they haven’tt spent any money ordering material or actually met with your insurance then you could advised them that there are no damages to them finacially and you don’t wish to pursue a claim. Most roofing company contracts our contract states  there is a 10 -15% fee if you cancel. That is to cover time invested in consulting with you and agreeing to set up the job. If the company won’t agree to let you out of the contract when there is no claim, just make sure you have written proof of notification.  If there is no claim, the contract is no good.  Good luck

Barry Wyndam answers:

It impacts insurability – heavily. If you’re really, really lucky, your new insurer will give you 30 days to fix the preexisting damage. If you’re not really really lucky, you won’t find any insurance company willing to insure the house with preexisting damage.

The problem is, you’re much, much more likely to have interior water damage due to a storm – a covered loss – when the outside of the house has structural issues like gutter and window damage.

It’s not just about not being able to file a claim on the damaged items themselves. It’s ALSO about the potential EXTRA damage that having those damaged items, will cause.

You won’t have a couple years. The new carrier will pull a CLUE report, and find out that there’s old damage. You’d best negotiate the seller fixes everything before the closing – or gives you a large enough allowance that you can have a contractor do it within 30 days.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Professional storm chasers have meteorological training that allows them to understand the storms they’re chasing. They know when conditions are safe and when it’s time to back off. They also learn by chasing with other experienced storm chasers. Amateurs should never chase storms. Ever.

All storm chasers carry radios, phones and computers that allow them to receive a continuous flow of updated weather information. They can look at NWS data or talk to SkyWarn spotters, people scattered across the country who are trained to observe and report storms. At the very least, two people go on a mission — one can drive while the other checks weather data and tracks the twister.

Http://www.stormtrack.org/library/faq

Barry Wyndam answers:

Some NWS offices ask for you ID number so they can keep track of who is providing them reports of severe weather. They do keep records of everything sent in and those records typically go over to the Storm Prediction Center (www.spc.noaa.gov). You can view the records there. However you would have to ask the NWS Office you call into to see if they would provide the reports for just your area.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Weather.com

Barry Wyndam answers:

As an insurance agent I used to use:

http://www.wunderground.com

there is a history function on the site that lets you choose the date you want to look at. It gives pretty detailed info.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Forecasts are based on probable atmospheric and ground level conditions. This is not an exact science, but has certainly come a long way with accuracy. When it comes to severe weather, I’d rather have a ‘heads up’ and not have it happen, then to have it happen and not know it was possible.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Of course you filed a claim for the tree branch! Adjusters don’t come out, until/unless claims are filed! When they take no action – ie, deny the claim, or close the file with nothing paid, it’s still a filed claim!

They CANNOT remove that claim. It’s kept on database owned by a third party – the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. You can’t get rid of it. Not possible, not going to happen.

So, here’s my advice to fix the situation. Go talk to your agent. Ask them, would the insurer consider keeping you on, if you raise your deductible really really high, to $5,000. Or if you’re willing to exclude theft coverage from your policy. That would be the BEST scenario.

Second best, is buying a high risk policy through a company like Foremost Insurance – they specialize in issues like yours – but you’re going to pay maybe triple what you WERE paying for insurance, for coverage that’s not as good as a standard HO3 form.

Worst case scenario, is having your agent get you a policy through your state FAIR plan. There will be no theft coverage, and it’s even worse a property form (in most states) than the Foremost policy, AND, in many states there’s no liability coverage with it. BUT, at least they’ll give you coverage.

You’ll have to wait three years without any claims, before someone in the standard market will consider writing you again. And again, when you try getting back in, offer to take on a monster deductible, to show that those claims that you filed, won’t ever happen again.

And then, never, ever file for a claim that’s under that $5,000.

Barry Wyndam answers:

HI, your friendly insurance guy here, again!

Insurance companies are required to have a certain amount of money on hand to cover claims. That means they tend to invest conservatively with most of their funds. They also rely heavily on actuarial predictions of probable loss, and present value / future value computation.

Actuarial predictions: Actuaries are high-powered mathematicians who, among other things, help insurance companies figure out what the probabilities are of losses occurring. An Actuary may determine that, for example, the odds of a house burning to the ground in New Hampshire is 1 in (whatever number) per year.

They then multiply the expected number of house fires by the average cost of claim per fire to get an estimate of the expected losses due to fires that year.

Present Value / Future Value computations: Insurers tend to fund payment of claims by starting with the value from the first part of this post, for example, the expected cost of losses due to fire in a given year.

Let’s say the insurer expects to have $5,000,000 in fire-related claims. The company will buy something like a $5,000,000 face value 1-year bond. Such a bond can be purchased at a discount (meaning you pay less for it than $5,000,000).

At the end of the year, the bond comes due and provides funds to recoup the cost of paid claims, or pay due claims.

That’s a simplification, but it’s essentially a good example.

Also, since claims for a loss are INCREDIBLY fewer in number than premium paying clients, it’s actually not hard at all for an insurer to cover claims and still make a LOT of money.

Witness MassMutual, which had higher gross revenues last year than Coca-Cola. Belive it – insurers are taking in a LOT more money than they pay in claims.

The exceptions are cases like Hurricane Katrina. The only reason the home-owners insurance carriers in the area have not gone totally out of business due to claims is that they denied, and denied, and denied claims. If they paid out on all those claims they’d probably go under. That’s a case where a natural disaster caused SO many claims at once there’s no practical way for the carrier to cover its payouts.

Anyone reading who is an actuary can explain in more detail

Barry Wyndam answers:

Hail damage on it’s own will not cause your rates to go up (comprehensive loss). But if you have a history of claims it may combine with the others and cause an increase.

Barry Wyndam answers:

The color of the sky is the result of what is called the Rayleigh scattering; the scattering of the sunlight as it is reflected and diverted by our atmosphere. It account for the fact that the sky is blue and that it is sometimes red when the sun is low over the horizon.

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering

In a thunderstorm, there is a lot of updraft; warm and moist air never cooling down enough as it rises up in the atmosphere. This creates voluminous clouds, pockets of clear sky, and – generally speaking – a turbulent sky. This favors the display of many colors as the light of the sun bounces on the different layers of the atmosphere.

Another typical display of grandiose nature is the crepuscular rays, often seen in such conditions and with a low sun. Nature is really the best show on earth, isn’t it?

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays

Anyway, yes it is safe to use your laptop during a thunderstorm. The only thing that could happen, if it was plugged in a socket is that, if the lightning hits a power station, the surge could come up your power line and burn down the transformer of your laptop. But it wouldn’t be dangerous for you.

Last but not least: Storm is a word that is used in meteorology to define a wind in excess of a force 10 in the Beaufort scale. That is a wind that very few have ever experienced, if not seafarers. Sometimes storms happen at sea with a nearly clear sky. Thunderstorms may have strong wind gusts in the initial downdraft but they can also happen in no wind at all and sometimes, as I have experienced at sea, together with fog! Yes, that happens especially along a coastline with a strong cold current.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Thunder is, even today, not completely understood by science. The word usually describes a sonic shock wave caused by the rapid heating and expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning. The bolt changes the air into plasma and it instantly explodes, causing the sound known as a thunder clap.

This phenomenon occurs at the same time as a lightning flash, but a thunder clap is usually heard after lightning is seen because light travels faster (186,000 miles / 299,338 kilometers per second) than sound (around 700 miles / 1,126 kilometers per hour, varying depending on temperature, humidity and air pressure).
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The saying “lightning never strikes twice in the same place” is false. The Empire State Building is struck by lightning on average 100 times each year [3], and was once struck 15 times in 15 minutes.[citation needed]

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and yes, when lightening strikes sand, it is turned to glass. There is a whole industry that makes ornaments and glasses from that.

Barry Wyndam answers:

A. A vortex is a spiral motion of fluid within a limited area, especially a whirling mass of water or air that sucks everything near it toward its center.

B.  A thunderstorm is a transient, sometimes violent storm of thunder and lightning, often accompanied by rain and sometimes hail. Formed when heat and cold convection meet, the negative ions want to get to the positive ions in the ground so they travel down the drops of rain as lightning.  C. The gravitational pull of the moon causes the tides. A. Temperature is a measure of how hot or cold something is.too lazy to answer the rest. Go on www.ask.com for more info

Barry Wyndam answers:

The high seas were a storm surge, just like the storm surges from Katrina that flooded New Orleans from three different directions, south, east and north over Lake Pontchartrain, which is connected to the Gulf of Mexico. Lake P. (pun intended) is not land-locked, and is 24 miles wide in the north-south direction.

Barry Wyndam answers:

I understand your fear of tornadoes. Just being under a tornado watch raises my pulse a few beats. When sirens start going off, I have a tendency to cry in fear.

As for being afraid of thunderstorms in general, there’s actually a very specific phobia for it, called astraphobia.  Everyone’s got that one phobia they can’t seem to get over, like fear of flying or fear of water or fear of closed spaces; sounds like this just happens to be yours.

What can you do to stop it? Well it could just be a phase that you grow out of. I used to have a crippling fear of death as a child; one day as a teenager, I realized I was no longer afraid of it. Maybe it’s because I grew out of it, or somewhere along the line I accepted the fact that it’s going to happen to me someday.

If it’s not a phase, then there’s not much you can do to “stop” it. However, you can deal with it better by remembering that as long as you are in a sturdy building, you are pretty much 100% safe. Devastating tornadoes are the ones to be afraid of, and they don’t happen all that often. Lightning could even strike your school building, and chances are you’d never know the difference. Familiarize yourself with protective measures for thunderstorms and tornadoes; it might not make your fear go away, but you’ll be better prepared for them if your prepared for the worst. Remember, too, that it’s perfectly natural to be scared. It’s just a matter of being scared when it becomes necessary. If you’re scared before there’s real danger, you might not react in the best way.

Also–people who bug you about it have fears of their own, and don’t make it your business to find a way to get them off your back. You don’t go to school for people to bug you about your fears.

Barry Wyndam answers:

The fact that there IS a proximate cause (and there always is) does NOT mean that coverage applies. The normal growth of tree roots, alas, creates a condition of “deterioration” (to the pipes) which is excluded or might otherwise arguably be considered a maintenance issue as opposed to an out of the blue occurrence of a peril which is not excluded.

Now, supposing your neighbor had a big fire, and the fireman flooded the place with water, which went down your neighbor’s floor drains -and then came up through yours and several other homes.

What’s the proximate cause? FIRE. Were it not for the fire (cleary a covered peril) the sewers would not have backed up -and you’d get paid.

The doctrine of proximate causes extends historically to the time when policies insured fire, smoke, explosion, etc. Separately. In other words, you could insure against JUST fire and nothing else. A policyholder with just fire coverage filed a claim for smoke damage when his neighbor’s place went up in flames -discharging billows of smoke into the policyholder’s place. The insurance company denied the claim -you have no coverage against smoke damage! The court held otherwise. Noting the policy was silent on the matter of WHERE the fire occurred, the court observed the the policy restricted coverage only to damage TO the insured’s property. The court further noted that had there been no fire, there would have been no smoke -the fire was the “proximate cause,” and therefore coverage applied. Shortly thereafter, policies were re-written so that fire and smoke are always listed together in named-perils contracts.

And so, some people have come to think that the mere existence of ANY proximate cause is an argument in favor of coverage, which of course it is not. There is, in fact, no policy wording whatsoever that even lists proximate cause as a covered peril. Many people also beleive that homeowner claims are denied when damage arises from an “act of God.” No such exclusion exists, if it did, many lightning and wind claims would be rightfully denied.

I hope this helps.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Yes the other answerers are correct. It’s her policy and so she must approve the filing of the claim. She is being prudent, because often companies do cancel insurance for too many claims. Has she made others recently?

I also would wonder how someone got in the house and stole the laptops and nothing else. It all does sound a bit suspicious.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Water – one gallon per person per day for at least 3 days
Food – at least a 3 day non-perishable supply
Battery powered radio
Whistle – to signal for help
Dust masks
Baby wipes, garbage bags, and plastic ties – for sanitation disposal
Basic tools
Local maps
Cell phone and chargers
Changes of clothes
Feminine products
Warm blankets
ETC – as needed

Barry Wyndam answers:

Your individual premium cannot go up because of a catastrophic claim in most states.  That is not to say there will not be increases across an entire area or region due to high payouts of claims across the board.

Barry Wyndam answers:

The insurance company is investigating the claim. Your claim is being worked.

They have not “done NOTHING”.

If you don’t like the fact that the insurance company has to do a very detailed investigation, then you can thank all the people who deliberately fake theft claims with the intent to defraud. And when that fool neighbor/friend/family member brags about how he cheated his insurance company by filing a fake claim… Be sure to thank him. Not only does he make the claim process more difficult on honest people, he steals your money too. Every one has to pay higher insurance premiums thanks to that jack @zz.

What are your rights? Those are listed in your homeowners policy. As are your insurance companies rights. Among those rights and responsibilities is a duty you have to cooperate fully with your insurance company in the investigation of this claim.

If you and your children don’t feel safe in your home – purchase a security system. The insurance company would not pay for if. However, if that’s what it takes to make your kids feel safe then get a monitored security system and use is.

You can go purchase a replacement tv. Just save your receipt. Once the investigation is completed and the claim deemed to be a valid claim then the adjuster can work with you on that cost. If, for some reason, the claim is not covered – you’re going to have to replace those items anyway.

Theft claims take time.

Thanks to the friends/neighbors/family members who commit insurance fraud the insurance company can’t just take your word for it. They have to do an investigation.

Barry Wyndam answers:

If the ins. Co. Reports to CLUE forever. Almost all do

Barry Wyndam answers:

It sounds like you may have not reported the claim yet. If that is correct call your agent or insurance company ASAP. You do NOT have to wait until you put together a list of missing or broken things.

Waiting to report the claim can cause problems. Report it ASAP and the company will tell you what info they want you to provide them.

If you have already reported it to your insurance then you should have at least 30 days to get your list to the company. In most theft claims we handle the homeowner has the list done within 7 to 10 days.

Barry Wyndam answers:

If they were going to pay on your claim they certainly should have by now either way your agent should have contacted you by now as well to approve or deny your claim

Barry Wyndam answers:

You had notice of the step so your claim is quite weak. You can try, but case law will probably show that with your notice, the landlord is not liable. However, you may live in a state with great landlord/tenant laws. Call a personal injury attorney and set up a free consultation.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Usually within 2 weeks of having the following:

1. Fire marshall report
2. Complete inventory from the insured, of property lost
3. Completed proof of loss from the insured

Keeping in mind that the contents are initially paid at ACV, and after they are replaced, then the receipts are submitted and a supplemental check is issued for the replacement cost.

Barry Wyndam answers:

First off, thank God they are alright. My cousin’s daughter lost her apt in Joplin, but she was with her parents when it hit in another town in Mo.
What did it feel like when the tornado came over you?
How much of a warning did you get, if any at all?
Since you live in a tornado prone area, did you take precautions with just a rain/thunderstorm starting up knowing it could turn into a tornado?
If there was a siren is it loud enough for the entire population of Joplin to hear?
Is there basements or storm shelters for everyone to get to and hunker down?

Barry Wyndam answers:

Pizza or bake sale or something. Donate to Red Cross Disaster relief fund. Info: http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d8aaecf214c576bf971e4cfe43181aa0/?vgnextoid=46f51a53f1c37110VgnVCM1000003481a10aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default

Barry Wyndam answers:

It proves that when push turns to shove, the people of this nation will respect and recognize their elected leader. Certainly doesn’t mean their in love or support his political policies and directives. What he does to help relieve the situation is yet to be seen and THAT is what’s important.

Barry Wyndam answers:

No they’re in the northern part of Joplin, only the southern part sustained damage. Although, like the answer about mine says, they might have a problem with supplying them at the moment.

Barry Wyndam answers:

No, he’s safe & trying to work out a plan to raise money ‘Joplin Relief’

Barry Wyndam answers:

Those that can be repaired will be. Those that can’t, junked for parts. Dealerships have insurance too!

Barry Wyndam answers:

Politics. This is typical democrat revenge.

Obama refuses to help Texas because Texas does not bow down to him and go along with his agenda.

Sad that we have such a child in the office of the president. Ever notice that democrats are the only ones who act like this?

Barry Wyndam answers:

“Act of God” is a legal term, not an insurance term.

Tornado is wind. Wind is covered under the standard HO3 policy, in most parts of the USA. In states with heavy hurricane exposure, wind is either not covered, or covered with a higher deductible.

So it depends on the policy, but most likely, yes, it’s covered.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Ah, but Obama frowned.. Took Michelle along.. Oh ’twas a very serious affair.. Then hurried of to a fund raising, pat me on the back, dinner.

He is such a phony!

Barry Wyndam answers:

Yes, they will – however, if you have a mortgage on the house, the check gets paid jointly to you and the mortgage company. You won’t be able to cash it – after the work is completed to the mortgage company’s satisfaction, they’ll release the funds.

If you don’t have a mortgage, your plan will work – and you can keep the difference. You can even do the work yourself – but if you do/get bad work, they won’t pay to fix it.

Barry Wyndam answers:

“Full Coverage” does NOT mean “fully covered”. As long as she has comprehensive coverage, that includes wind, and it will cover her, subject to her deductible, up to the VALUE of her car. Not what she paid for it, not the loan balance, but what it’s worth.

Barry Wyndam answers:

Absolute destruction….. In other words, you would not be able to tell the difference between 4 trillion mile per hour ands and 300 mile per hour winds, because they would both destroy everything.