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Insurance essentials

3 Ideas when buying a home

(SPEECH)
[AUDIO LOGO]

(DESCRIPTION)
The Travelers umbrella logo. Text: 3. Ideas When Buying a Home.

(SPEECH)
JOAN WOODWARD:

(DESCRIPTION) A woman stands at a podium with the logos: Travelers Institute, Travelers. Text: Austin, TX, November 20, 2014. Joan Woodward, President, Travelers Institute; Executive Vice President, Public Policy, Travelers.

(SPEECH)
The event today we're hosting is consumer education around insurance. So we launched a nationwide series of educational informational events to help consumers understand what they're buying.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Text and logos: Insurance Essentials, Your Questions Answered. Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers.

#1, Know your market.

Eric Copper, Broker, Austin Portfolio Real Estate.

(SPEECH)
ERIC COPPER: With the growth that we're experiencing here, people come into the market and they aren't able to grasp it. They're used to a buyer's market, which we are not. So what we're finding is a lack of understanding and people coming in expecting to negotiate at a high level which, in a seller's market, there just isn't that level of negotiating.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
#2, Consult an insurance agent.

(SPEECH)
MARY RUSSELL:

(DESCRIPTION)
Mary Russell, Managing Director, Personal Insurance/Chief of Administration, Higginbotham Insurance & Financial Services.

(SPEECH)
When you start looking or you've decided on which home you're going to buy, then start talking to an insurance agent. I'm always going to recommend an independent insurance agent because I've got products. My job is to represent the buyer. I've got the different insurance companies that we're representing, not just me, any insurance, independent insurance agent.

But they're going to have a number of insurance companies and a number of products so that they're putting together that package of insurance that meets your need. As opposed to some insurance companies that have their product and it's sometimes maybe not customized to meet your needs.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
#3, Understand the mortgage process.

(SPEECH)
SEAN CONDON:

(DESCRIPTION)
Sean Condon, Private Mortgage Banker, Wells Fargo Private Mortgage Banking.

(SPEECH)
I can pass over a preapproval letter to their realtor and then they can start shopping for homes. Once something goes to contract, we would just start lock in a rate. Moving forward, we'd begin our underwriting process. The deal comes out approved typically in about a week or so

And then there's always going to be a secondary question from the underwriters. Can I see updated pay stubs? Whatever that is, letter of explanation if there's something we need to work around. We collect those items, submit the file back in for what's called our clear to close. Typically, that process is about 30 days.

[AUDIO LOGO]

(DESCRIPTION)
Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. Text: TravelersInstitute dot org. Hashtag, ThinkSafe.

3 Ideas for homeowner's insurance

(SPEECH)
[UPBEAT MUSIC]

JOAN WOODWARD: The Travelers Institute sits within the very large Travelers Insurance Company, one of the largest property and casualty insurance companies in the country. The mission of the Travelers Institute is really to educate and inform and be a resource for consumers, for businesses, and policymakers.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Text next to a checkmark reads, Insurance Essentials. Your questions answered. Travelers Institute ‘(registered trademark). Travelers. Text: Number 1: When should you start thinking about homeowner’s insurance? A man sits at the panel table, wearing a suit and a name tag next to Linda Jordan. Text: Erick Geitner, Senior Vice President, Cadence Bank Mortgage Division.

(SPEECH)
ERICK GEITNER: Insurance is not something you want to wait until just before closing because we're looking very, very closely at debt to income. What is your income versus your total obligation? And guess what, insurance is part of that obligation.

It's your PITIs, principal interest, taxes and insurance. So, you want to get with your insurance agent early in the process and start doing the research. So, we as a lender can accurately work up what your total obligation is.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Number 2: How do you find the right homeowners insurance policy for you? A woman on the five-person panel sits between Joan and Jimmie Gale Berg. She wears a black jacket. Text: Dee Ann Binion, Vice President, Cadence Insurance.

(SPEECH)
DEE ANN BINION: Think of your independent agent. We are out there to help you. We represent a lot of different companies. We can give you a broad spectrum of pricing if we have the expertise because these policies are not all the same, and we can help you to know what the differences are and what might be best for your particular circumstances. What you had five years ago may not be what's best for you now.

[JAZZ MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Number 3: What should you do if you have a claim? Jimmie Gale Berg sits at the far right end of the panel table. Text: Jimmie Gale Berg, Branch Manager, Cadence Insurance.

(SPEECH)
JIMMIE GALE BERG: You really don't want to do permanent repairs because if the adjusters go out there and there's nothing for them to see, that's pretty much what you're going to get paid. But pull your carpet out, dry it out, put tarps on there if you have to. If you have to pull everything out and put it in the front yard so it's not continuing to destroy the sheetrock in your house. Do those things, but make sure that everything that you remove from the inside is somewhere on the property for the adjusters to be able to see and definitely call as soon as you have the opportunity.

[AUDIO LOGO]

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. TravelersInstitute dot-org. Hashtag ThinkSafe.

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National debt

Overdraft (trailer)

(SPEECH)
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Governor Mitch Daniels (Republican, Indiana).

(SPEECH)
MITCH DANIELS: Some people understandably say, boy, this is sort of dry subject, dollar, cents, debt. What does it mean to me? If I read the mathematics, it means everything.

(DESCRIPTION)
Senator Kent Conrad, Senate Budget Chairman.

(SPEECH)
KENT CONRAD: I really, genuinely believe this threatens the fundamental economic security of the United States.

(DESCRIPTION)
President Bill Clinton.

(SPEECH)
BILL CLINTON: A lot of the Democrats are mad because they say, well, this is mostly caused by the Republicans who cut taxes and increase spending. The problem for the Democrats is that if you look at the next 10 years, most of it will be caused by things we care about.

(DESCRIPTION)
Cory Booker, Mayor, Newark, NJ.

(SPEECH)
CORY BOOKER: All of us are invested in this democracy. You are not going to have parts of our community succeed and parts fail. If government fails, we all fail.

(DESCRIPTION)
Joe Klein, Columnist, Time Magazine.

(SPEECH)
JOE KLEIN: We don't trust government. But we need government. And government is us when you come right down to it. Those folks in Washington weren't landed there from Mars. They were elected by us.

(DESCRIPTION)
Andrew Romano, Senior Writer, Newsweek.

(SPEECH)
ANDREW ROMANO: It's a complex problem. People want quick answers, but the fact is that there aren't quick answers.

(DESCRIPTION)
Jay Fishman, CEO/Chairman, Travelers Companies.

(SPEECH)
JAY FISHMAN: These aren't things that can be fixed in election cycles. And the question is, do we have the political leadership that is willing to invest that way?

(DESCRIPTION)
Kevin Roberts, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide CEO.

(SPEECH)
KEVIN ROBERTS: Rational thinking leads to one thing, conclusions. And conclusions are not going to solve the debt problem. Emotion, on the other hand, leads to another thing, action. We need to take action about the debt in the US. We need to change.

(DESCRIPTION)
Retired Senator Judd Gregg (Republican, New Hampshire).

(SPEECH)
JUDD GREGG: We're going to pass on to our kids a less prosperous nation where they'll have a lower standard of living, a massive debt that they can't afford to pay off, and therefore, a less secure nation.

(DESCRIPTION)
Alice Rivlin, Economist, Brookings Institution.

(SPEECH)
ALICE RIVLIN: I'm not giving up on democracy. I don't know what the alternative is. If you say a democratic government can't solve this problem, then you're saying we need a dictatorship. I don't think so.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Overdraft.

Overdraft "100 Words" - The American Opportunity

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Coastal resiliency

Mitigation Strategies for the Alabama Coastal Region

(SPEECH)
CHARLES M. ANGELL: I've received recently either phone calls or emails from some consumers down here in either Mobile or Baldwin County, and they're complaining because their homeowners' renewal premiums went up 10% or 15% or even more. And they're saying, wait a minute, we didn't have a hurricane last year. I haven't had a claim in a couple of years. Why is my premium going up?

Because surely my insurance company made a lot of money last year. And, actually, the answer is, no, your insurance company probably didn't make a lot of money last year. For 2009, in the state of Alabama, if you looked at all of the homeowners' insurance writers, they had a loss and loss adjustment expense ratio of about 98%. So that means that for every $100 of premium that they collected on homeowners' policies, they paid out $98 just to pay for claims and for the adjusting of those claims.

Over the last five years here in Alabama, I would estimate, from data that I've seen, probably one third of all of the homeowners' insurance losses were CAT losses, OK? One third. And, obviously, a good bit of that is coming off of the coast.

So you've got the carriers who are having to decide, how do I continue to generate these kinds of results in Alabama from the wind? And so some of them are deciding to pull back, not to write the wind or not to write homeowners at all down here on the coast. And, obviously, that's a problem from us, I guess, socially with regard to all of the workers that live down here.

So you have to look at, what are the ways to try and bring those coastal premiums, homeowner's premiums, down? We strongly believe that the mitigation discounts, the fortification and retrofitting of the homes, is one of the key solutions to the coastal problem that we have here.

JOAN WOODWARD:

(DESCRIPTION)
Travelers, Joan Woodward, Executive Vice President, Public Policy.

(SPEECH)
And I think, as we found in developing our coastal plan and talking about just insurance and availability and affordability, how to get there, we have found that it's fortifying and preparing and mitigating that saves lives, number one.

CHARLES M. ANGELL: Exactly.

Saves disruption, number two, and obviously saves money for the consumer and makes a difference. So we couldn't agree with you more in terms of mitigation.

(DESCRIPTION)
Habitat for Humanity of Baldwin County, Cliff Barros, Executive Director.

(SPEECH)
CLIFF BARROS: The reason we took a look at insurance as an area for us to concentrate on is because we were seeing so many of our families having difficulty making payments on their houses. And as we start investigating what the difference is between when they were making payments fine, and when they're having trouble, one of the biggest factors has been the insurance premiums since Hurricane Katrina have doubled, in some cases tripled.

And when your payment on your mortgage-- actual mortgage payment is only $75 a month, and you have insurance premiums of $125 a month, that's a pretty big thing for us to start paying attention to. So that's why we started to take a look at it. And then we also realized in talking to families that some of them, their way of dealing with that was to under insure. And as the mortgage holder on those 80 properties, that's something we don't want to see.

We are going to build three houses. The first one, as I said, we built that bank vault with windows and that's where I'm headed in hurricane. What we're trying to do is build what we call the middle fortified house. This house we expect to have a cost of 15% or in this case, $15,000. Thank you, Travelers, who's covering that difference for us, the difference between a regular house and the fortified house. And then after that, we're going to follow that up in the next year with a third house that will be a standard wood construction house for us, almost our regular house that we build, then we'll take all the additional steps.

And then we're going to watch it over the course of three to five years and measure the differences in insurance premiums, energy costs, because as you can imagine, the energy savings on a concrete home should be higher. Really what we're looking to do is just figure out what is the best way, the smartest way for Habitat of Baldwin County anyway, to build affordable housing here on out.
ERIC M. NELSON:

(DESCRIPTION)
Travelers, Eric M. Nelson, Vice President Risk Management, Personal Insurance.

(SPEECH)
The Travelers Wind Zone Plan has four key principles. The first principle that we stepped back and looked at is, how is insurance regulated? We would like to see wind zones when we think about coastal insurance. The state-- if you look at the states and you look at the size of the different coastal, Mississippi Coast is pretty small, versus you look at the risk across a broader geography.

The second item that we want to do is we want to talk about increased transparency in these winds rates. Our suggestion is that there's an independent commission set up to evaluate these models and certify that these models are appropriate to be used in rates versus 20 individual states looking at these models. And then if over time that these models are not consistent with actual experience, our program would require a mandated credit to consumers to account for some difference going forward.

The third principle in our plan is federal reinsurance for extreme events. So when we talk about extreme events, we're talking about events multiple the size of Katrina. So we advocate the federal government, provide the insurance industry federal reinsurance for those extreme events. Not a backstop. The insurance industry has to pay a premium for that coverage. The difference would be the industry would pay a premium for the lost costs, not for the profit.

And then last and most important principle is mitigation. And mitigation is so important. We're advocating federal development of building codes. Not to say that the building code in Galveston is the same as Birmingham. Building codes that reflect the perils and the risk of those local communities.

CHAD WILSON:

(DESCRIPTION)
Travelers, Chad Wilson, Second Vice President Personal Insurance.

(SPEECH)
Building to fortified standards can protect you and give you peace of mind. And even if you do that, what Travelers wants to do is give you additional peace of mind by providing insurance on the structure Charles mentioned, we do provide a discount of 35% on the homeowner's premium, and we're happy to be working with the Department on these credits.

In addition to that, we're launching a pilot in the state of Alabama. And what we're doing is we're expanding our areas of eligibility for these mitigated homes to a broader geographical region. And we're now accepting applications for coverage of up to $1 million in insurance limits. And that's important because if you're familiar with the wind pool, they only offer coverage up to 500,000. So we're excited about this program. In conjunction with our credits and discounts, we think we can be competitive in areas in the coast.