Declarations – East

Checks Held Up in Banks

“After insurance companies have sent homeowners checks to pay for repairs, the money should not be sitting with the bank because of red tape.”

—New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on some banks’ delay in processing payment checks that insurers issued to policyholders who suffered Sandy losses. Some $208 million in insurance payments in 6,600 checks haven’t yet been released from banks to Sandy victims, Cuomo said on Feb. 12. These payments must get over several bureaucratic hurdles when homeowners have mortgages.

Homeowners Insurance

“Catastrophe losses are much higher in the last five years than they have been at almost any period in history and so those costs need to be passed on to customers.”

—Allstate Corp. CEO Thomas Wilson on pricing trends. He said in a Feb. 7 interview with Reuters that in the homeowners insurance business, he is expecting prices to continue to rise throughout the industry.

Adjustments Post-Sandy

“Whenever you get an event as large as Sandy, it is always going to bring some adjustments.”

—Dino Robusto, president of personal lines and claims at The Chubb Corp, on planned underwriting adjustments. He said the company will see some narrowing of the underwriting appetite in some coastal regions, based on the state of beaches and the infrastructures available to access towns.

Naming Nemo

“The Weather Channel has named winter storms because they feel it raises awareness, which is a good thing as we want people to be better prepared for winter storms, too.”

—Loretta Worters, vice president at the Insurance Information Institute, on the weather news outlet’s decision to name major winter storms beginning this winter season. She also said these names, including “Nemo” for the Feb. 8-9 snowstorm, most likely will not have any implication for named-storm clauses included in many property policies.