Insuring the American Dream

Food, clothing and shelter. Economically speaking, those are the bare essentials without which a human being has a tough time existing on this planet. With this edition of Insurance Journal, we focus on insurance issues in relation to the “shelter” part of that equation and an integral part of the American Dream—home ownership.

As Constance Parten reports in “Homeowners Update: Across State Lines,” from New York to California the rock-hard pricing and limited availability of the previous few years seems to be softening a bit, if only ever so slightly. Parten notes, however, that states like Florida, Texas, California and Louisiana are still troublesome and have a long way to go before they approach anything close to an easy market.

In “Barbies, Apes, Model Trains Galore … ,” Jill Bookman of American Collectors Insurance, reminds agents not to forget collectibles when writing homeowners policies for their clients. Bookman says even though you may not think that much of your client’s enormous collection of “Planet of the Apes” action figures, to neglect their collectibles when talking to your insured about homeowners coverage is a big mistake.

Whether homeowners like it or not, the comprehensive loss underwriting exchange, or CLUE, report is wielding more and more influence in the way insurers underwrite homes in the United States. As Lynn Knauf of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) puts it in our “Parting Shots” column, reports of prior losses on a dwelling help insurers to know what they are underwriting. They are also important to insurers since the policy issued covers both the property and the policyholder.

But the National Conference of Insurance Legislators, at their mid-year meeting in February in San Antonio, acknowledged the controversy surrounding the CLUE database. After hearing testimony on the issue, the legislators’ property/casualty insurance committee said “not so fast” to a rubber stamp acceptance of the way insurers use CLUE. While they decided to take an in-depth look at the practice at NCOIL’s meeting in Chicago this summer, the committee did hear some interesting and sometimes heated debate on the issue at the February meeting.

Okay, not everything in this edition is about insuring homes. Rounding out this issue we have articles about mad cow disease, controversial changes to the national crop insurance program and the influences of science and technology on the agribusiness market. Also included are tips for improving your clients’ contractors surety bonds, as well as plenty of good advice on how to grow your property/casualty business.

Plus, there’s so much more—you’ll just have to look inside to find out.