Courtesy of iii.org

It’s 2017 – and another hurricane season is about to be breathing down our necks. Maybe you’ve grown immune or indifferent after seasons of weather threats proved wrong. A word of advice: Never let your guard down.

Did recent reminders of the need for storm vigilance get your attention in 2016? Hurricane Hermine and Hurricane Matthew hit Florida last fall. If neither storm affected you, it might be easy to ignore them. The weather is wild and, despite all the scientific tools available, it’s hard to predict where the winds will go and how powerful they will be.

What you don’t know about preparing for bad weather can hurt you. For example, did you know that Hurricane Matthew last October blew up to be a Category 5 hurricane within a 24-hour time frame? If you are surprised, so were weather experts; they said no other storm had intensified that quickly. Read the report about Matthew defying weather forecast models, and then thank our lucky stars that it landed as a Category 1.

What if you prepared for a Category 1 (wind speed up to 95 miles an hour), but a Cat 5 with winds of 165 mph arrived instead? We don’t like to think about it, but thinking on it and acting on it – in advance – is storm-defying behavior. It’s time to review our Hurricane Season Insurance Checklist.

You may also like to up your awareness for the upcoming season by listening in to a couple of hurricane season awareness webinars from the National Hurricane Center. The NHC will be talking about new capabilities to issue advisories and warnings and also has a topic on inland flooding, which is an overlooked, yet deadly, threat.

Courtesy of iii.org

The Wall Street Journal frequently appears fascinated by some of the goings on in Florida. The publication has often written about anomalies that seem unique (or some other not-so-favorable adjective) to the Sunshine State. We have “issues” here that just don’t seem to occur in many other places. Living here, in the midst of it all, can cause a loss of perspective. So, without any editorializing in this space, you might find this editorial on the demise of a bill to stop insurance claim abuse interesting reading. Click the link and read it through.

The challenges with assignment of benefits and water damage claims has been documented on this blog several times. Insurers have been calling attention to this problem for at least three years. The reality of allowing the abuse to continue became ever more apparent last week when Citizens Property Insurance announced its first net loss since 2005 — of $27.1 million. Assignment of benefits is the clear cause. The clear solution now that there won’t be a legislative fix? Higher insurance premiums for Citizens’ customers, particularly in South Florida. That’s where assignment of benefits became a “unique” practice, allowing lawyers and contractors to take over a homeowner’s insurance claim and inflate the costs.

Ah, the high costs of being unique.

Courtesy of iii.org

Locating life insurance documents for a deceased relative can be a daunting task—for one thing, as of this moment there are no national databases of all life insurance policies. However, with a little sleuthing, you can successfully navigate the paper trail.

Here are some strategies to help simplify your search:

1. Look for Insurance Related Documents

Search through files, bank safe deposit boxes and other storage places to see if there are any insurance related documents. Also, check address books for the names of any insurance professionals or companies—an agent or company who sold the deceased their auto or home insurance may know about the existence of a life insurance policy.

2. Contact Financial Advisors

Present or prior attorneys, accountants, investment advisors, bankers, business insurance agents/brokers and other financial professionals might have information about the deceased’s life insurance policies.

3. Review Life Insurance Applications

The application for each policy is attached to that policy. So if you can find any of the deceased’s life insurance policies, look at the application—will have a list of any other life insurance policies owned at the time of the application.

4. Contact Previous Employers

Former employers maintain records of past group policies.

5. Check Bank Books, Statements and Canceled Checks

See if any checks have been made out to life insurance companies over the years.

6. Check the Mail for a Year Following the Death of the Policyholder

Look for premium notices or dividend notices. If a policy has been paid up, there will no notice of premium payments due; however, the company may still send an annual notice regarding the status of the policy or notice of a dividend.

7. Review the Deceased’s Income Tax Returns for the Past Two Years

Look for interest income from and interest expenses paid to life insurance companies. Life insurance companies pay interest on accumulations on permanent policies and charge interest on policy loans.

8. Contact State Insurance Departments

Twenty-nine state insurance departments offer free search services to residents looking for lost policies. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has a “Life Insurance Company Location System” to help you find state insurance department officials who can help to identify companies that might have written life insurance on the deceased. To access that service, go to the NAIC’s Life Insurance Company Location System.

9. Check with the State’s Unclaimed Property Office

If a life insurance company knows that an insured client has died but can’t find the beneficiary, it must turn the death benefit over to the state in which the policy was purchased as “unclaimed property.” If you know (or can guess) where the policy was bought, you can contact the state comptroller’s department to see if it has any unclaimed money from life insurance policies belonging to the deceased. A good place to start is the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administration.

10. Contact a Private Service That Will Search for “Lost Life Insurance”

Several private companies will, for a fee, contact insurance companies on your behalf to find out if the deceased was insured. This service is often provided through their websites.

11. Do You Think the Policy Might Have Been Bought in Canada?

If so, you try contacting the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association for information.

12. Search the MIB database

As we had said, there’s no database of policy documents, but there is a database of all applications for individual life insurance processed since January 1, 1996. (nb: There is a fee for each search and many searches are not successful; a random sample of searches found only one match in every four attempts.) For more information, go to MIB’s Consumer Protection page.