Insurance Blog

Democratic Assemblyman Felix Ortiz introduced Assembly Bill A03908 that would require all gun owners in the state of New York to buy at least $1 million in liability insurance to cover potential damages caused by their guns.

If the bill pass as a law all current New York gun owners would have 30 days to purchase the required liability insurance or face confiscation of the their guns. Future gun buyers would be required to produce proof of insurance at the time of the sale.

The bill also states that in the event a gun is stolen or lost, the owner is legally responsible for all damages resulting from the use of that gun until the theft or loss is reported to police.

Estimates of the costs of a $1 million gun owner liability insurance policy in the media have ranged from a few hundred dollars to as much as $2,000 per year.

State    Policies-to-population ratio
1. Alabama    138.5%
2. Louisiana    110.0%
3. Mississippi    86.7%
4. South Carolina    86.1%
5. District of Columbia    79.7%

Alabama has the highest life insurance policies-to-population ratio in the U.S. with 5.3 million life insurance policies under the population age 15 and older, the state leads the nation with a coverage ratio of 138.5 percent.

Source the American Council of Life Insurers’ 2012 fact book and census data.

Long Islanders co-op residents struggle to rebuild their homes despite of insurance. They say restrictions on insurance coverage and federal disaster aid have left them without enough money for repairs.

Legislators are pushing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give more help to co-op owners.

Residents typically cannot buy flood insurance to fully cover items such as cabinets, major appliances and floors because of the legal structure of co-ops, where residents do not own their living space. In that case, any common property repairs not covered by insurance or grants may need to be covered out of co-ops' funds or through extra charges that shouldered by residents, on top of the cost of repairing their own units.

FEMA, which administers the National Flood Insurance Program, the nation's primary flood insurance provider, acknowledges that co-ops could face significant financial shortfalls. If a co-op building valued at $10 million were declared a total loss after a natural disaster, and had the maximum $250,000 in flood insurance, "there would be a huge exposure there that would not be covered," an agency spokesman said. But the federal law governing the flood insurance program imposes the limits, the spokesman said.

Here's a good infographics from progressive that explains why your car affects your insurance rate.