You can add the nation's insurers to those not formally observing The Weather Channel's plan to name winter storms, one industry executive said.
Some property insurance policies carry named-storm clauses, which can mean a higher deductible for damage caused by such a storm. In exchange, the policyholder typically pays lower premium amounts.
After The Weather Channel this week christened an East Coast snowstorm Winter Storm Athena, some people feared such names could trigger higher deductibles for homeowners first walloped by superstorm Sandy's winds, rains and floods and then by the nor'easter's wind and snow. Could a cable network's decision to name a storm really end up costing people money in damage claims?
Not so, said Chris Hackett, director of personal lines policy at the Chicago-based Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.
"The vast majority of the (clauses) that I've looked at require that the storm be named by the National Weather Service or the National Hurricane Center and make no reference to storms named by The Weather Channel," Hackett said.
"A lot of the (clauses) define named storms as including hurricanes, tropical depressions and tropical storms," Hackett said. "Obviously, there's no mention of winter storms in the (clauses) I've been seeing."
The Weather Channel announced last month that it would assign names to winter storms that meet its criteria: events that involve snow and ice or extreme temperatures or wind or a combination; that significantly affect travel; and that the network thinks people need to know about. First was Athena on the East Coast. Then came Thursday's Brutus, a winter storm in the Northern Plains. Next will be Caesar and so forth.
The National Weather Service this week instructed its forecasters to not use The Weather Channel's names, and few news media outlets seem to be recognizing them. Those that cited Athena, for instance, such as The Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle, noted The Weather Channel's involvement and did not treat the name as a universal acknowledgment.
Northbrook-based Allstate Corp. has referred to Athena by name on its website, though, which raises the question: Could some named-storm clauses soon be rewritten to include winter storms?
"It's a possibility," Hackett said. "At this point, I haven't seen any discussion of expanding the named-storm deductible to include winter storms, but that's not to say there aren't some companies out there talking about doing just that."
No comments:
Post a Comment