Ask Tim

​ The latest insurance disciplinary action report from the New York State Department of Financial Services is out. Most of it is not particularly noteworthy. There were 27 actions taken against agents and/or brokers, and 17 were for failure to report or disclose various run-ins with the law or regulatory authorities. Only 9 actions were taken against New York resident agents and/or brokers, and 3 of them were in the failure to report/disclose category. The six other actions against New York resident producers were: $1,000 fine for running two Facebook ads that referred to insurers without including the name of the city where they are…

​It's been awhile since I added to my list of examples of subtle but possibly significant differences between insurance policies of the same type issued by different insurers. This one does not involve a loss (that I know of,) but I thought it was interesting enough to cite as another example of why it's important to have copies of coverage forms on hand to review.A member wrote in the other day about a client who owns a piece of vacant land with her daughter. They're going to have a house built on the land, and the daughter will live there. The member had questions about…

​Question from a BINY member: “We had an insured who called yesterday to add her boyfriend/domestic partner to her homeowners policy as a named insured. My first reaction was that cannot be done as the boyfriend has no financial interest in the home which I explained. They pushed the issue and kept telling me it could be done (per another agent). I called our company underwriter who advised – you can add a domestic partner as a named insured to a homeowners policy. How is this okay if the second named insured has zero financial interest in the home and is not on the deed?…