Tag: insurance

Insuring Your College Student’s Property

August is here, and the start of fall classes is just around the corner. I usually have a couple of phone calls from clients whose son or daughter are about to head to school and they want to confirm that their stuff is covered. The answer is usually yes, but there are a couple of considerations worth confirming. Let’s view this in light of where the student will live.

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Whose Insurance Covers an Accident Between Two Autonomous Vehicles?

A Washington Examiner article appeared in my Insurance Journal feed earlier this week raising one of the most interesting questions I’ve seen in a long time and that is, “If two self-driving cars get into an accident, whose insurance covers the damage?” I’m not aware of that happening yet, but it probably will happen. After all, the software that guides these vehicles is still being shaped as both human developers and artificial intelligence, and both are discovering things they may not have considered. There are two scenarios that give us a hint as to the possible answer.

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How the Government Shutdown Impacts Insurance

As I write this, it appears the members of the Senate and House of Representatives have come to their senses and agreed to fund the federal government for at least 17 more days or until February 8. Who knows what will happen by then! Regardless of who’s at fault, I thought it would be interesting to look at how such a shutdown impacts individuals and insurance.

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Tropical Storm Cindy Causes Insurance Moratoriums Along Gulf Coast

My email has been bombarded with notices since Monday from most of the insurance companies and brokers I work with. Each one has announced they are issuing a binding moratorium due to Tropical Storm Cindy. I thought this provided a good time to understand what an insurance moratorium is and how it impacts individuals and businesses when they occur.

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Autonomous Cars, Ethical Questions and Insurance

Imagine you’re riding in an autonomous or self-driving vehicle. The car is traveling 35 to 40 miles per hour and a pedestrian suddenly walks out in front of your vehicle. Complicating the issue there is a concrete barrier in the oncoming lane. Hitting the pedestrian may result in killing them while hitting the concrete barrier may result in the death of the vehicle passenger. What will the car do? Who will be liable?

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Will AI Replace Insurance Agents?

Sheri and I watched an episode of 60 Minutes in November on IBM’s Watson, a super computer equipped with artificial intelligence, or AI. AI was merely science fiction material when I worked in technology, however, after watching 60 Minutes, it’s easy to see how far it’s progressed in the past 20 years. I began to wonder what jobs could AI replace? Specifically, could AI replace insurance agents in the not too distant to distant future? There is no clear answer if that will happen, but I think it’s interesting to look at the arguments for and against it happening.

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Technology and Insurance, Evolutionary Beginnings

Technology has impacted our lives dramatically over the past 35 years. During that time, we’ve seen the birth of the distributed computing, the PC and Mac, networks, the internet, and smart phones. The iPhone I carry with me has more storage and computing power than the mini-computers I sold in the 1980s which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’re not done changing. Companies, such as Amazon, Uber, and Netflix have changed the way we live and shop.

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Do You Have to Have Insurance?

If you didn’t have to have insurance, be it car, home, or business insurance, would you? It’s an interesting question. Many people would probably say no simply because they don’t want to pay for it or think it’s a needless expense. Others would say yes, because they understand the purpose of insurance, even if they don’t care to pay for it.

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Insurance Blog for 2017

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful and safe Christmas and New Year! Sheri and I welcomed the New Year with friends at a lake house on Cedar Creek Lake. It was great to get away, unplug for a couple of days, watch football, fireworks, and hang out. It also gave me a little time to journal and think about things for the coming year.

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Insurance and Politics

Insurance and politics may sound like strange bedfellows but they aren’t. They share the same bed more often than most people realize and the impact can be profound for individuals and business whether it plays out on the national or state level. Such is the case since Presidential Candidate Donald Trump became President-Elect. Let’s look at two instances which will unfold after January 20, 2017.

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