Should You File That Claim? The Answer Changes at the State Line
A small property loss is a pricing decision as much as a repair decision, and the rules that govern it are written state by state.
Margot Ferreira·
Section
Personal Finance
8 pieces, newest first
Your Neighbor Excavated and Your Slab Cracked. What the Earth Movement Exclusion Is Doing There
An exclusion is not an escape hatch. In a boundary excavation claim, it usually tells you which policy is supposed to pay, and how to reach it.
Margot Ferreira·
Burned the Countertop in a Rental? The Exclusion That Sounds Fatal and the Exception Under It
A renters policy appears to exclude damage to the apartment itself, then carves several perils back in. What that clause is doing, and how a tenant reads it before the landlord's bill arrives.
Kwame Asante·
Filing a Claim After Your Neighbor's Tree Came Down? How to Keep the Next Renewal Clean
Claims history now drives renewal pricing more directly than it used to. The paperwork you assemble before you call decides how a loss reads three years later.
Margot Ferreira·
Reading Your First Policy? How to Work Out What Each Exclusion Is Doing There
Exclusions are not traps hidden in the back of a homeowners policy; they are pricing decisions, and learning to sort them by purpose is a skill you can build in an afternoon.
Margot Ferreira·
Filing a Renters Claim? The Paperwork That Keeps It From Following You Into Renewal
For tenants, the difference between a question and a claim is recorded somewhere. Here is the file to build first, and how a large carrier's claims desk helps you keep the record accurate.
Kwame Asante·
Renovated the House and Never Told the Carrier? Five Checks Before the Next Claim
How the coinsurance condition trims an otherwise valid claim, what drives replacement cost on an older house, and the five checks that catch the gap before a loss does.
Bridget Callaghan·
Your Old House Is Insured at Last Decade's Prices. How the Eighty Percent Rule Trims a Claim
Coinsurance and averaging clauses were built for partial losses, which is what nearly every claim on an older house turns out to be. Here is how to keep the arithmetic on your side.
Bridget Callaghan·