Tech Tips -- Not All Homeowners Insurance is the Same

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/not-all-homeowners-policies-are-alike/?hp


Here’s one example: The standard contract insures a home against risk of “direct physical loss to property,” he noted. But some insurers have altered that language to say “sudden and accidental” direct physical loss to property. (His paper doesn’t identify which specific insurers use the language, he said, because he wants to focus on changes regulators should make.) Such wording, he said, might be used to deny claims for vandalism or from a threat that grew over time — say, an old tree that weakens and eventually falls on a house. It’s conceivable, he said, that the language could be used to deny claims for theft on the grounds that the loss wasn’t “accidental.”


May 11, 2011: I checked my homeowners policy with Cincinnati Insurance Company and they are in the "good guys" camp.  At least I am 90% sure, without reading the 40+ other pages plus the second document which is the June 2001 addendum carefully.