With Superstom Sandy battering portions of the East Coast, I know your main concern right now is to make sure friends, colleagues, and loved ones are safe. That’s my main concern, too. Disasters such as this really put things like election polls and earnings reports into perspective.
We’ve been getting some awful weather here in Ohio, too. It’s 39 degrees right now, and we’ve been deluged with rain and beaten with strong winds and power outages for the past five days.
This week we will discuss something that will affect the more than 8 million households that lost power in the United States because of Sandy.
Editor's Note: Small-Town Ohio Accountant Uses Simple Forgotten Secret to Help Investors Pocket Millions
I was staying at the Embassy Suites and a man assured me that his hotel stay and meals, as well as mine, would be covered by insurance because we did not have power in our homes.
I instantly did not believe him and called my agent, who I have known over 40 years since he lived a street over from me as a child.
I trust him to be both competent and honest.
"Damage has to be severe enough to make your home uninhabitable. It has to be a peril of the policy: wind, water, fire or theft," said Michael Preisler, my Allstate agent in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.
In plain English: You are NOT entitled to damages if your power and phone go out and your home becomes 51 degrees like mine was after 36 hours of not having power. You are NOT entitled to hotel rooms or meals or lost food if your power goes out without any specific damage to your home.
If the wind blew off a large chunk of your roof, you would be covered. If the rain that filled your living room made your house uninhabitable, you would be covered.
Or if a burning transformer caused a fire or the damage was so bad someone stole your copper wiring that would qualify for coverage.
Editor's Note: Small-Town Ohio Accountant Uses Simple Forgotten Secret to Help Investors Pocket Millions
Preisler also told me that the damage has to be sudden and accidental.
Don't try and say that a toilet that has been bad for over a year all of a sudden got bad because of a windstorm.
Call your agent with any questions.
About the Author: Bill Spetrino
Bill Spetrino is a member of the Moneynews Financial Brain Trust. Click Here to read more of his articles. He is also the editor of the Dividend Machine. Discover more by Clicking Here Now.
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