Quote:
Originally posted by RallyJon
There is another important issue here, though. It's very likely that many of the people in the area had no idea they weren't covered.
Have you ever read your homeowners policy? What a pain in the ass. There ought to be some regulations that the policy's coverage be described in plain low-reading-level english in two pages or less. It should also be a requirement that any exclusions are highlighted. So many policies are written as to what they DO cover, as opposed to what they DON'T. This should be turned around and the insurance company should have to tell you of any likely risks that aren't covered. And I can't imagine a more likely risk than flood for property at low elevations in a flood zone.
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They are written that way so that they can't be parsed by lawyers to mean something different than what is intended. Also, the language is inclusive because some new risk could come out of nowhere (or, more likely, be invented by trial lawyer) that would turn every insurance policy into a lottery ticket. That's exactly what happened with the mold scare a few years ago.
As far as not knowing that your homeowners insurance doesn't cover flood damage, there are two likely causes for this:
1) You are an idiot.
2) Your
agent misled you. Agents, like car saleman, sometimes stretch the truth to make a sale. Using this same analogy, this is like suing GM because your salesperson at the dealeship told you that your Geo Metro could do 0-60 in 8 seconds. GM never claimed that--and has made repeated statements to the contrary.