[TowerTalk] insurance

[Jim Jarvis]

There was an interesting thread starting regarding ARRL insurance,
homeowners and auto coverage.  This is a tad afield, but may be worthwhile.

I have an important message for you:  THINGS HAVE CHANGED SINCE YOU
LAST CHECKED.

Go to Google, and search on CLUE, Or Comprehensive Loss Underwriters
Exchange.
Look around a bit.

Every insurance company knows every thing about you.

I had a tower loss, up in VT last year.  Hurricane backwash blew an oak
across a guyset.  It was a $5,000 claim, to remove the dangerous/hanging
stuff, and rebuild/reinstall the antennas.  About two months later, a branch
from a 150' high white pine came through the roof of my house, causing a
major
leak...an $8,000 claim before we were done.

The result?  The insurance company which had had my car, homeowners, and
excess liability insurance decided they didn't want to cover me, when I
moved
to Maryland.  Had them for 25 years.  Never a claim.  I now pay 4x more for
car insurance...and the reason is?  "we see you had two insurance claims
within
the last three years".  but not on my car...."yes, well, that doesn't
matter."

Insurance companies are reeling from 911 losses, as well as stock market
losses
in invested premiums, over the past 4 years.  As a result, they are finding
any
and all reasons to eliminate potential claims.

OH...and if you go to CLUE's website...you might notice that all sorts of
information about you is for sale.  Try also looking on whitepages.com.
Poke
around a bit, and it will take you to another site....where your age is
visible,
and for 10, 30 or 60 bucks, you can obtain your credit history, driving
record,
list of outstanding judgements, etc.

If you think about this a bit, it's scary.  What if your medical history
were
available, too?  What's keeping an insurance company from revealing that
claims
history?

Back to the tower thread, does the ARRL insurance provide any liability
coverage?
If not, I STILL need to make sure my tower is covered under my homeowners
policy.

N2EA
jimjarvis at ieee.org