| Good morning from Boise, where we're headed for 102 today |
| At least 50. That's how many people and insurers a Massachusetts couple was just sentenced for defrauding through their own brokerage — premiums coming in, with no real coverage standing behind them. This week's letter chases the milder, everyday version of the same worry: making sure the coverage you pay for matches what it's supposed to protect. |
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By the numbers
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6.58%
30-year fixed rate
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5.0
Texas Panhandle earthquake magnitude
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$2.5 billion
Munich Re second quarter profit
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IN THIS ISSUE
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1.What a Texas quake has to do with your Boise policy
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2.Your house has two price tags
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3.The email theft that skipped the phishing step
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4.A calm quarter for the insurers' insurer
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The lead · COVERAGE GAP
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What a Texas quake has to do with your Boise policy
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| A 5.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Texas Panhandle early Thursday morning — one of the strongest the state has recorded. |
| Shaking reached into southern Oklahoma and New Mexico. Here's the part that travels: a standard homeowners policy excludes earthquake damage in Idaho just as it does in Texas, and coverage only exists as a separate endorsement or standalone policy. Anyone who felt the 2020 Stanley quake from a Boise kitchen can vouch that Idaho takes its turn now and then. |
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Why it matters: If the ground moves under your house, the standard policy won't pay for that damage — earthquake protection is a separate purchase, and renewal time is the natural moment to price one.
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Read at insurancejournal.com →
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RATE WATCH
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Your house has two price tags
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| Mortgage rates rose for a third straight week — the average 30-year fixed now sits at 6.58%, the highest in almost a year, per Freddie Mac — while home prices keep climbing. |
| For a lot of families, that math settles it: stay put, make this house the long-haul house. When prices climb, it's natural to assume your coverage should climb to match. But sale price and rebuild cost are different animals — one tracks buyers and land, the other tracks materials and local labor. |
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Why it matters: For anyone keeping the house long-term, the number to re-check every year or two is the dwelling limit against today's rebuild cost — Zillow's number, higher or lower, is measuring something your policy doesn't insure.
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Read the full story →
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CYBER FILE
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The email theft that skipped the phishing step
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| The US and more than a dozen allied nations say Russian hackers stole email from users of the Zimbra email program without fooling anyone — no bad attachment, no poisoned link. |
| Most small-business security advice starts with training people not to take the bait. This one had no bait. Some slice of cyber risk can't be trained away, because the attack never asks your people for anything. |
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Why it matters: If your business lives in email — invoices, client records — most standard business policies won't cover a breach unless cyber coverage was specifically added, and one look at your declarations page settles which side of that line you're on.
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Read the full story →
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BIG PICTURE
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A calm quarter for the insurers' insurer
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| Munich Re, whose business is insuring insurance companies, reported about €2.2 billion ($2.5 billion) in second-quarter profit, helped by what it called 'very low' major losses. |
| File this under mildly good news. Your carrier buys reinsurance, and its price is one of the ingredients baked into the premium you pay — so when disaster losses run light upstream, that ingredient faces less pressure. One calm quarter won't move any single renewal; the effect, when it comes, arrives slowly and across the whole market. |
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Why it matters: For your wallet there's nothing to do here — this is just the machinery behind why premiums climb after bad disaster years, and this quarter the machinery ran in your favor.
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Read the full story →
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Quick hits
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• Tesla expanded its driverless robotaxi service to Orlando and Tampa this week as it works to scale beyond its launch markets. →
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• The rest of the story behind this issue's opening number: a husband-and-wife brokerage sentenced for a scheme that defrauded at least 50 clients and insurers. →
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• Liberty Mutual introduced its first new brand character in eight years, a mascot named Liberty Biberty — we have no mascot news of our own to share. →
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Tip of the week
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Walk the house with your camera rolling
Late July always gets us thinking about fire season, so here's a small chore with a real payoff: one slow lap of the house with your phone recording video — closets open, drawers open, a pass through the garage, narrating as you go. Make sure the clip lands in cloud storage rather than living only on your phone. If a claim ever requires you to list everything you owned, you'll have the whole house on video instead of a memory exercise.
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How was this issue?
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Until next week,
Dana, agency owner
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| P.S. If somebody in your house got a learner's permit this summer, mention it next time we talk — several of our carriers give discounts for driver's ed and good grades, and they're easy to miss. |