Ask Tim; Industry News

​Photo by jim gade on Unsplash​As reported in today's issue of The New York Times​, the way the National Flood Insurance Program sets premiums for coverage is going to change for the first time in 50 years next Friday. For some current and prospective property owners, the change may be painful. The methodology change takes effect for new policies on Oct. 1, 2021, with renewals following on April 1, 2022.The traditional way of pricing flood insurance has been to use a flood insurance rate map (FIRM) to determine the flood risk zone in which a property sits. For those properties in special flood hazard areas (SFHA),…

​<a title="Tommy Gao, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HurricaneIdaNYC2021.jpg"> As we're sure you know, horrible flooding hit the New York City metro area yesterday as the remnants of Hurricane Ida arrived, dumping a shocking amount of rain, stranding commuters, and costing lives. The loss of life is tragic and immeasurable, and the disruption to the lives of survivors is immense. And property was damaged. The Big I NY and Big I CT research departments have received questions from members about how personal and commercial property insurance may apply. Unfortunately, the news isn't good.Many commercial property insurance policies contain exclusions similar to this one from the ISO…

​Property-casualty broker (BR)  licenses for insurance agencies are coming up for renewal this October 31, and some of you who have renewed already are noticing a change. For as long as anyone can remember, BR licenses have expired on Oct. 31 in even-numbered years. That has changed.In 2017, the New York State Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo enacted a change in the licensing law, a change written by Big I New York. Any license, whether it is a broker license or an agent (PC or LA) license, issued to a business organization will expire on June 30 in odd-numbered years. Under the old law, agencies…