Future of health care, latest research into cancer, stroke,pharmaceutical industry, heart disease, ageing. Longer more active lives and the end of formal retirement age. The new stages of life. Keeping in step with your biological clock. How your brain repairs itself every day. How your bone marrow cells can help heal your own heart. Why some animals don’t age in the normal way. How adult stem cells could cure blindness from macular degeneration. The future of hospitals and clinics, pharmaceutical industry and wellbeing. How older people will dominate decisions about health care and government health planning. Contrasts between wealthy and poor, rationing and health financing. Keynote conference speaker Dr Patrick Dixon, addressing AARP national leaders. This video is in 3 parts on YouTube. Science of ageing. How to stop getting old. Medical research into physiology of ageing. How cells get old. Tissue regeneration of heart, muscle, retina, spine, brain and other organs. Repair of tissue damage. Organ regeneration. Cure for blood pressure? New facelift therapy? Humpback whales, Rockfish Project and slow ageing in turtles and parrots. Human impact of anti-aging therapy. Social impact of living longer. Impact on longevity forecasts for life insurance and pensions risk. Cure for deafness and cure for macular degeneration.

Here is the video on Youtube:

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

1. After a disaster, insureds have hundreds or even thousands of questions and worries. In a large-scale disaster, many of your local customers will be coming to YOU for answers. You may find yourself answering the phone every few minutes to address more questions and to resolve their fears. As an agent you will find it necessary to read the policy and then get back to the insured with their answers. You may find yourself at odds with the insurer if you add your own opinion or interpretation of the policy language and it differs from the insurer’s. This is an area where a public adjuster can add value since they will be the ones working directly with the insured and the insurer to address all coverage issues.

2. Customers who have suffered a loss are very emotional and upset. You will likely be the first one to receive a call informing you of their loss. Your customer will be in need of some immediate assistance and resources. Some of the things they will need are emergency services and temporary housing. Customers will also ask you to report their claim for them and will inquire as to the entire process. It is likely they will ask for a copy of their policy with a full explanation of their coverages. This is an important process that can be handled by a public insurance adjuster.

3. For the insured who experiences a disaster, working with numerous company adjusters, independent adjusters and contractors can be cumbersome, time-consuming and sometimes may even be infuriating. However, you as an independent agent want to stay neutral – you don’t want your customers yelling at you for decisions the insurer may be making and you certainly do not want your insurance company clients upset with you either. This can be a very challenging position to find yourself in. This is another reason why it makes sense to engage a public insurance adjuster – they are outside of the decision making process and will be an advocate for the insured.

4. Our experience in adjusting large losses and large scale disasters has shown there are a large number of insureds that are under-insured. This is usually the result of the insured shopping for the lowest rates and ending up with inadequate coverage limits. If your insured finds themselves under-insured, the natural thing for them to do is to point their finger at their agent and accuse them of not properly insuring them. Sometimes, a very skilled and astute public adjuster can find additional coverage within the policy to minimize the impact. When selling a policy I recommend the agent spend additional time with the insured to fully explain the coverages that may quickly reach or exceed limits in case of a large loss – such as personal property with the sublimits; additional structures; landscaping; and building code upgrade to name a few. A good public adjuster will look for all coverages within the policy with a goal of minimizing the effect of an under-insured situation.

5. During the entire claim process it is common for the insurer and insured to have differing opinions on a variety of issues. A professional public insurance adjuster will relieve the burden from the agent by answering and explaining coverages, processes, values and options available to them. In addition, the public adjuster will be able to obtain a value of the loss that is independent from the insurer’s. The goal of the public insurance adjuster is to pursue all coverage the insured is entitled to under the policy. Our experience has shown this is not always the same goal the insurer has. A professional public insurance adjuster can be a strong advocate for the insured and will work with the agent, insured and the insurer to resolve the claim expeditiously for its full value.

6. Remember a professional public insurance adjuster is the only adjuster that can represent the insured. The company adjuster and independent adjuster are only authorized to work for the insurer. If the customer does not engage a public insurance adjuster, then they will find themselves without their own representation – or will rely upon their agent to perform that work and you will quickly discover you have a second full-time job. It is an arduous and tenacious task to juggle all elements of a claim and one that should really be performed by someone that does this on a full-time basis.

If you help your customer pick a claims professional who understands the insurance claims business, adheres to a Professional Code of Ethics and has an excellent reputation, you will have done a great service for them.

Guidelines for How to Pick the Right Public Adjuster:

- They should be licensed in the state the loss occurs in

- A member of the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters (NAPIA)

- Experienced with a range of disasters and has worked with many insurance companies

- Local knowledge of contractors, repair and remediation prices, building codes, etc.

- Knowledge of your insurance company – its top adjusters and claims handling processes and policies

- References from satisfied customers

http://www.qualityclaims.com

Ron Reitz is president of San Diego-based Quality Claims Management Corp., a nationally licensed public insurance adjuster, providing hazard claim recovery services to investors, mortgage servicers, homeowners and businesses. Earlier, he pioneered the national hazard insurance claims business of GMAC-RFC (now GMAC-ResCap). A CPPA (Certified Professional Public Adjuster), Mr. Reitz is Past President of the California Association of Public Insurance Adjusters as well as an Officer of the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters (He will be President in 2012).

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

With the economy being in a state of shock many people are looking for a new career or just a way to earn some extra income. Consider a career in the field of Public Adjustment. This industry is not affected by the economy like most industries today. We are growing at an enormous rate with no signs of slowing down.

A public adjuster is an insurance claims adjuster who is an advocate for the policyholder in appraising and negotiating a first party insurance claim.[1] Aside from attorneys and the broker of record, public adjusters licensed by state departments of insurance are the only type of claims adjuster that can legally represent the rights of an insured during a property insurance claim process.

Here is the video on Youtube:

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

Even outside of the annual Hurricane and wildfire seasons, natural disasters, accidents and unfortunate events occur on a daily basis. Many of these catastrophic events result in damage to the mortgagor’s property. The mortgagor often elects to have professional representation and hires a public insurance adjuster. The adjuster contacts the mortgagee to inform them they have been hired by the mortgagor to resolve the insurance claim on their behalf.

Many mortgage servicers do not fully understand the role of a public adjuster. This article provides some basic information and answers a few common questions.

There are three types of insurance adjusters:

1) Company Adjuster – Works in-house for an insurance company and only represents the interests of the insurer.

2) Independent Adjuster – Performs field work and investigates claims for an insurer.

3) Public Insurance Adjuster – The only type of adjuster licensed to work solely on behalf of the insured.

A public insurance adjuster will review all policies in effect to evaluate coverages and calculate the amount of loss. The claim will be presented to the insurer and eventually settled. Sometimes there is a difference of opinion between the insurer and the insured on the claim amount owed. The public adjuster will strongly advocate for the insured.

How does the PA interact with the mortgage servicer?

Since the insured has certain duties under the terms of the policy, they often rely on a public adjuster to assist them in identifying and completing those duties. For example, the insured must notify their mortgage servicer of their loss and will be required by the servicer to complete certain forms and provide claim-related documents.

When loss drafts are issued for building damage, the name of the insured/borrower, the PA and mortgagee should be included. The public adjuster and the borrower will endorse the checks and forward them to the servicer. The servicer then places the insurance proceeds into a restricted escrow account. Funds will be released from the account based on the loan status and specific language in the Deed of Trust.

Most often the PA will charge a percentage of the claim amount and will expect to be paid their percentage from each check that is issued. This is where some of the challenges may arise.

Additional tips:

1) In order for the insured (borrower) to retain a public adjuster they must sign a contract with the public adjuster and it should spell out any fees being charged. Servicers should obtain a copy of this agreement as well as a document, signed by the insured (their borrower), authorizing the public adjuster to communicate with the servicer. It should spell out the nature of their relationship and what types of information the public adjuster can obtain (if any) about the loan.

2) While dealing with damages to their property, many borrowers will experience a temporary inability to pay their mortgage. This is an excellent opportunity to refer the insured to the servicer’s loss mitigation unit to assist the borrower during this period.

3) How does the public adjuster get paid if the servicer does not release the proceeds?

a. It is the insured’s obligation to pay the public adjuster. They can pay them from other proceeds – such as from the personal property claim.

b. Servicers should obtain authorization from the insured before making any payments to the public adjuster.

c. Courts have held that a PA has an equitable lien on the insurance proceeds for their fee. If a borrower retains a PA and then eventually loses their property to foreclosure, the mortgagee is still obligated to pay the public adjuster’s fees.

4) What if the proceeds are not sufficient to repair the property?

a. Is the PA pursuing additional proceeds?

b. What is the reason for the difference?

c. Is the PA contemplating referring the claim to an appraiser (for an independent valuation of the claim)?

d. Has counsel been retained?

5) Be on the lookout for PAs that are heavily involved in the repair process. In some states, if a public adjuster has handled a claim on a property they are prohibited from also repairing the same property, or having a financial interest in the repair, due to a conflict of interest. The servicer should make sure the property is inspected at each stage of repair, and ensure that the borrower documents their satisfaction with the repairs, to prevent problems down the road.

6) What if the public adjuster refuses to endorse the settlement check and send it to the mortgagee?

a. The mortgagee should be in direct communication with the insured and public adjuster. If necessary, the mortgagee can ask the insurer to interplead the funds and ask the court to assist in resolution.

7) Is the mortgagee advised to cooperate with the public adjuster? Yes.

a. As the representative of the borrower, the adjuster is the most knowledgeable about the claim and in the best position to keep the mortgagee informed.

b. If the mortgagee finds the public adjuster to be non-cooperative or hostile they can reach out to the borrower to resolve whatever issue is at hand.

Who regulates public adjusters?

a. Public Insurance Adjusters are currently regulated in 46 states by each state’s Department of Insurance – or its equivalent. There are only a handful of states that do not require licensing.

b. Some states have fee caps regulating the amount a PA can charge for their services. You may want to make sure your borrower is aware of this.

c. As of the date of this article, three states, Alabama, Arkansas and Alaska, do not allow PAs to charge any fees and do not recognize PAs.

9) What are some of the things a servicer can do to check the background of the PA?

a. Licensing status can be verified on most state’s Department of Insurance website, in the state where the loss occurred in. This verification is made easier by asking the public adjuster for their license number.

b. Servicers can determine if the PA belongs to any professional trade association. The most reputable and oldest trade association is the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters NAPIA has a strict Code of Ethics that members must comply with. Additionally, NAPIA has minimum educational requirements that must be met.

Public Adjusters provide valuable services by assisting the insured in correctly valuing, adjusting and settling their claim. As the only licensed advocates of the insured, they should be considered a valuable resource in time of need. Maximizing the insurance settlement benefits the mortgagee as well as the borrower. Like all professions, not all PAs are created equal. If you encounter a public adjuster that seems to be a problem consider contacting their state insurance regulatory authority for assistance.

Ron Reitz is president of San Diego-based Quality Claims Management Corp., a nationally licensed public insurance adjuster, providing hazard claim recovery services to investors, mortgage servicers, homeowners and businesses. Earlier, he pioneered the national hazard insurance claims business of GMAC-RFC (now GMAC-ResCap). He is the past president of the California Association of Public Insurance Adjusters and currently serves on the board of the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters. Contact Quality Claims Management at (866) 45-1183 or http://www.qualityclaims.com.

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

Is our unemployment level the highest in US history? I would say yes because the job-structure of 1933 America is quite a bit different than it is today. Also the “news claims” data suggests a increasing cumulative number of jobless people in the total economy. Todays market moving statistics don’t mean anything. I do see “Political Economy” using laws to slow the hemorrhaging down in three unproductive fields including government, finance, and healthcare-insurance administration. Nothing is being done to develop the physical economy; this can be done through technology and changes to social structure.

Here is the video on Youtube:

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

More women receive privately paid for care at home for lingering health issues with more obtaining this care at older ages than men according to a new report from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. Nearly 60 percent of those receiving care were women with over 80 percent age 75 or older the study found.

“Most studies include home care services paid for by Medicare or Medicaid which do not reflect the usage for the vast majority of individuals who pay privately or have long-term care insurance coverage,” explains Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. The independently conducted study examined the usage of home care services received by 1,000 men and women during a 1-week period in March 2010.

“The vast majority of both men and women home care recipients were over age 71 and most received care for three days a week or less,” Slome notes. The study found that 88.6 percent of users were women age 71 or older compared to 81.1 percent who were men. When it came to number of service days per week, two-thirds (66 %) of women utilized private in home care for three days a week or less. Just under half (49%) of men received care for three days or less. The remainder paid for four or more days.

Both men and women appear to pay for about the same number of hours of care per-day the study found. One fourth of women (24%) received only one hour of (daily) care, while three-fourths (76%) received care for seven hours or less. That compared to 73 percent of men. Costs for home health care vary by the type of services required as well as by location, experts note. “The average cost today is about $20 an hour,” Slome says. “Someone needing care three days a week for six hours a day is looking at a cost of between $20,000 and $25,000 annually which is why increasingly individuals purchase long-term care insurance with a home care benefit.”

The number of days care was required varied significantly by age. The study compared care usage among men and women age 64 with those age 82. “People do need long-term care services at younger ages typically as a result of accidents or illnesses,” Slome points out. The Association reports that the vast majority (90.7%) of long-term care insurance claims begin after age 70. According to the study, some 20 percent of women age 64 received care for a 7-day period while another 40 percent received care for 5-days during the weeklong period. Only 25.3 percent of women age 82 needed care for five days per-week or more.

Approximately 7.6 million individuals currently receive home care because of an acute illness, long-term health condition, permanent disability or terminal illness according to the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. Annual expenditures for home health care are $60 billion.

The comprehensive findings of the study will be published in the 2010 Long-Term Care Insurance Sourcebook available from the Association. A leading national home care service company that examined only individuals receiving care services paid for individually or reimbursed by their long-term care insurance conducted the study for the industry’s trade organization.

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

Check out “Insurance Company Rules” – a collaboration between Health Care For America Now (HCAN) and Public Service Administration (PSA).

Here is the video on Youtube:

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

WASHINGTON, DC, April 16, 2009 – The American Insurance Association (AIA) today expressed its strong opposition to H.B. 1657 which seeks to overturn a recent unanimous decision by the Texas Supreme Court. In 2008, the Texas Supreme Court held in Entergy v. Summers that a premises owner may provide workers’ compensation insurance for an entire jobsite, and therefore be protected from third-party lawsuits. H.B. 1657 would expose premises owners to third-party lawsuits, serve as a disincentive for jobsite owners to provide workers’ compensation insurance and will lead to increased litigation and construction costs.

“We are very concerned about this legislative attempt to overturn a well reasoned decision by the Texas Supreme Court,” said John Marlow, assistant vice president for AIA’s Southwest Region. “Under current law, injured workers are able to obtain fair compensation for a workplace injury from an employer who carries workers’ compensation coverage without proof of fault in a court of law. H.B. 1657 will force injured workers to go to court to prove fault for their injury before receiving appropriate compensation for medical care and lost wages,” Mr. Marlow said.

H.B. 1657 seeks to undermine the Texas workers’ compensation system by eliminating tort immunity for owners of a jobsite, currently accorded “statutory employer” status by virtue of the Entergy decision, and by fostering third-party lawsuits. Like many states at the turn of the 20th Century, Texas’ workers’ compensation laws were adopted to provide speedy and just compensation to injured workers because the reliance on a common law tort system was found to be an exceedingly inadequate method of resolving these claims. Texas is unique, however, in declining to make workers’ compensation a mandatory requirement for employers.

“If enacted, HB 1657 would generate more litigation while raising the cost of construction and create impediments to securing compensation for injured workers,” said Mr. Marlow. “Texas’ workers and the state’s workers’ compensation system will be best served if “statutory employer” provisions affirmed in the Entergy case remain in place,” concluded Mr. Marlow.

H.B. 1657 passed out of the House Business and Industry Committee on April 14, 2009 and is now pending before the House Calendars Committee. AIA has joined a broad coalition of the business community to urge committee members to not advance the bill further.

# # #

The American Insurance Association represents approx 350 major insurance companies of all lines of property and casualty insurance. Collectively they write $123+ billion in annual premiums. The association is based in Washington, D.C., with representatives in each state.

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

Then, in 2008, Taxes insurers were force to pay out on one of the most destructive hurricanes in state history, i.e. hurricane Ike hitting Galveston and Houston, the Texas Department of Insurance reported. The damage and insurance cost of this hurricane caused that insurance loss ratio to skyrocket to 127%. This ratio was also influenced by insurance costs of the hail storms in Northern Texas and Hurricane Dolly in Southern Texas, both 2008.

The Dallas Morning News today highlights that the findings of the Texas Department of Insurance were released at a time when lawmakers are considering changes to the insurance regulatory system, which consumer groups say currently enables insurers to charge residents some of the highest premiums in the nation and allows insurers to reap hefty profits.

However, the Insurance Council of Texas points out, “We have our good years, and then we have our storm-plagued years. We can be thankful that Texas had a string of good years prior to 2008 so that the industry was able to meet its financial obligations in the aftermath of the weather-related catastrophes.”

Texas Watch contends that the loss figures may be overstated given that combined loss and expense ratios depict insurers with “bloated overhead expenses,” which can include large CEO salaries and agent commissions. Texas Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin says that the cumulative loss ratio between 2002 and 2008 was just above 58 percent, which is right in the middle of where insurers want to be in order to remain profitable.

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.

NAIC’s financial risk disclosure requirement is broad, as climate change impacts insurers through a plethora of risk issues. Extreme weather events, government controls & effects of carbon emissions, rising water levels are just some of these issues.

Insurance companies are to report on how climate change will affect their business, in terms of financial risk plus their intended measure to manage this risk. Specifically, the climate change risk reporting requirements of insurance companies include:

1. Altering risk-management and catastrophe-risk modeling vis-a-vis the challenges caused by climate change;
2. Action plans to engage and educate policymakers and policyholders on the risks of climate change;
3. Changes in investment strategies.

Insurers, are not required to offer quantitative, forward-looking information nor commercially sensitive data.

“Climate change will have huge impacts on the insurance industry” said Joel Ario, chairman of the NAIC Climate Change and Global Warming Task Force of NAIC.

By bringing such focus on climate change, the insurance commissioners are leading the attention of insurers directly and policy holders indirectly to where it is due. The US insurance regulating body is also suggesting that insurance companies to tailor new products to the reality of climate change, such as insurance policies that curb emissions from policyholders, with auto coverage that tracks how many miles are driven and discounts for driving less.

Every insurance company whose annual premiums exceed $500 million will be required to lodge such an annual Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure report. The first report is due May 1, 2010.

The NAIC is a voluntary organization of the chief insurance regulatory officials for all 50 of the United States, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. Formed in 1871, the NAIC serves the needs of consumers and the industry. It has an overriding objective of supporting state insurance regulators as they protect consumers and maintain the financial stability of the insurance marketplace.

Advice on Personal Insurance & Commercial Insurance. Copyright ©. All Rights Reserved.