Officials in New York have changed the regulations to help ease the process and help victims.
Homeowners insurance companies that are providing coverage to residents of New York whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Sandy will now be facing some different rules to help speed up claims processing.
The new rules have to do with the acceptable forms of loss documentation.
For claims relating to damage caused by superstorm Sandy in New York, homeowners insurance companies are now required to accept the documentation of the losses provided by the policyholders, instead of having to send an adjuster or inspector out to observe and document the damage.
This new homeowners insurance regulation went into effect as of Monday.
This decision was put down by the governor of the state, Andrew Cuomo, who sent his directive to the New York Department of Financial Services in order to allow homeowners insurance customers to photograph and document the damage so that they can start to get rid of the debris on their property before a new storm makes its way into the region.
Another storm is headed toward the U.S. east coast before the end of the week, and the governor is hoping to give residents as much of a chance as possible to protect their homes and properties from further damage.
The state has also set a thirty day moratorium into place on the termination or cancellation of policies for both small businesses and homes. This is the case even if the policyholders fail to pay their homeowners insurance premiums during that month.
According to a homeowners insurance news statement from Cuomo, “We are acting to preserve homeowners’ insurance rights when much is beyond their control.” He then went on to add that “They have suffered enough and should not be hurt further by red tape or technicalities.” Among the largest insurers that have been affected by this law include Allstate Corp., Travelers Cos. Inc., Chubb Corp., and American International Group Inc.
The hope is that this temporary homeowners insurance regulation will help the claims process run much more quickly and easily, and it will allow residents of the state to prepare for upcoming severe weather.