The Small Print: Anti-Concurrent Causation Clauses

Many home insurance policies contain so-called anti-concurrent causation clauses. The Consumer Federation of America says this language makes it easier to deny coverage if two factors destroyed a home around the same time. (paraphrased from WNYC-FM)

If two events damage the same structure at the same time and one is covered and one is not, the insurer can deny both. It was an issue that affected some claims after Hurricane Katrina, and there was concern that the same problem would resurface in the aftermath of the nor'easter which followed Superstorm Sandy in areas like Breezy Point where fire destroyed homes after flooding.

Just one more reason why someone needs to learn to read carefully.  Many people learned to their regret that there is a difference between flooding and a storm surge.

I'm waiting for the exposés.

Monkey's Paw Biblio-Mat

The Monkey's Paw used bookstore in Toronto, created a Biblio-Mat vending machine to dispense at random books which used to go into their dollar bin. NPR aired a story about the Biblio-Mat on their November 18, 2012 broadcast.

Not quite the way I want to get books. I think back many years to a throw-away passage in a story in Playboy magazine. The story, as I remember it, was told in the first person and described an adventure driving in the Mid-East in a Phaeton touring car during the 1930's. Being in Playboy the narrator stayed in a house with several nubile daughters with whom he slept. However because they made love in pitch darkness he couldn't tell with whom he had indulged. At one point he gives the woman a little nip on the neck so he will be able to identify his partner. The next day each of the women weas a scarf.

The big surprise of the story hits after he has left the house when he learns that there is a daughter who is kept hidden because of some disease or disfigurement.

The reason I remember the story has nothing to do with the sex, but what occupied the backseat of the car: a crate or two of books. When the car broke down, something which would be expected with some regularity, he would reach back, pick any book at random and head for a comfortable place to wait and read until assistance materialized.

This fits into the profile of the men in my family: Give us a comfortable place to read and we're content. When heading off to where we might have to wait, we pack reading material. Reading makes the DMV experience almost painless. (Padding the benches would make it painless.)

Spared by Sandy

The Frankenstorm Sandy came barreling through the area on Tuesday, October 30, flooding homes, knocking down power lines, and killing a few people.

Everyone had a story.  Mine might be the most unusual: we lost cable and Internet access for a day.  Other than resetting the clocks on the radios it was a normal day.

For the neighbors and the county, however, the storm lived up to its billing.  There were huge trees down in some of the wealthier neighborhoods.  Houses on the South Shore of Long Island were flooded or knocked off their foundations.

We'd muddled through about a week without power when hurricane Irene came through last year.  I anticipated that Sandy would finally convince me to buy a generator.  It has.  What Sandy has also done will be seen in subsequent years.  I expect:

• People will stock up on gasoline for their cars and generators prior to storms. 
• Insurance policies will get another evaluation.  Sandy was not technically a hurricane.  The damage caused by a storm surge is not damage caused by a flood.  Some insurance policies are written so that no payout is necessary for coincident events.  Expect the courts to be littered with split hairs.
• Someone who loses everything becoming unhinged and do something terrible to an insurance agent or adjuster.  It'll make for interesting reading, a tragedy for those involved, and have no deterrent  for insurance companies to write policies accurately described by Tom Waits in his song "Step Right Up" on his album "Small Change":

  the large print giveth and the small print taketh away