Colorado homeowners dropped by insurer despite exceeding fire protection standards.Find out if your home is high risk
The wildfire insurance crisis isn't just a California problem — Colorado homeowners are also seeing their policies canceled. Steve and Jen Hoogendoorn of Evergreen, Colorado, have spent years mitigating their fire risk.
Still, their insurance company recently informed them their homeowners' insurance policy will not be renewed, leaving them scrambling for coverage, reports CBS News. Their home features fire-resistant materials, including a metal roof, stucco exterior, and triple-paned windows.
"Steel roof, steel beams on the outside. So steel columns. Then after that, we went with concrete decking and not wood decking around the house," Steve told CBS.
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Every year, they remove trees to expand the fire buffer around their home, yet their insurer still deems them too risky.
"Not only are we a high catastrophe state but those catastrophes are escalating,' Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association, told CBS.
"There is a ripple effect from California."
Despite exceeding fire protection standards, the Hoogendoorns are still losing coverage.
"They have an A-plus," Jess Moore, wildland project coordinator at Evergreen Fire Rescue, told CBS.
Moore knows the Hoogendoorns and is familiar with the work the couple has done on their home and in their neighborhood.
The couple worked with local fire officials, cleared vegetation and hardened their home against fire — yet their insurer still deemed them too risky to cover.
So, why is this happening?
Insurance companies use complex risk models — often based on broad regional data rather than property-specific inspections. Many rely on satellite imagery, fire hazard maps and historical loss data to determine risk, meaning individual mitigation efforts may not always factor into their decisions.
Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway has pushed for insurers to better incorporate homeowner mitigation efforts into their pricing and coverage decisions.
"Insurers need to make it clear to consumers the value of those mitigation efforts. And insurance companies need to ensure that the predictive models that they are using meaningfully incorporate the mitigation that homeowners, communities, and the state are investing in," he told CBS.
While California law now requires insurers to factor in mitigation when setting rates, Colorado has yet to enact similar regulations. Lawmakers are considering a bill that would require insurance companies to disclose discounts for mitigation efforts.
However, that's little comfort to the Hoogendoorns, who are being dropped now, with limited options for new coverage.
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As extreme weather events increase, preparation is more important than ever. How you prepare will depend primarily on the risks in your area. The Federal Emergency Managemnt Agency (FEMA) National Risk Index features an interactive map that shows the main risks by geographic location.
The highest-risk wildfire areas include California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. To reduce wildfire risk, clear vegetation within 30 feet of your home, clean gutters and install fire-resistant materials like metal roofs and tempered glass. Local fire departments can offer risk assessments and mitigation guidance.
Hurricane-prone areas include the Gulf Coast, all of Florida and the Atlantic Coast from Florida to Maryland. The National Weather Service recommends covering all windows with either storm shutters or marine-grade plywood and following all evacuation orders during a hurricane. Elevating appliances can help protect them from storm surges. In hurricane-prone areas, raising your home on stilts — though costly — can reduce flood damage.
Flooding is one of the most common natural hazards, whether from coastal storms or overflowing rivers. To minimize your losses in a flood, FEMA recommends raising your home if possible and using flood-resistant building materials, such as non-paper-faced gypsum board and terrazzo tile flooring. Sealing your home against flooding can help protect it and may decrease your risk in the eyes of flood insurance companies.
Even with preparation, homeowners in high-risk areas are at the mercy of shifting insurance policies. The Hoogendoorns' experience is a warning: mitigation doesn't always guarantee coverage.
As insurers reassess risk models, homeowners must take action to protect their properties — and ensure they have the coverage they need before disaster strikes.
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
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Boston Globe
28 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Trump hails limited trade agreement with China after talks in London
Advertisement Less than two weeks after accusing China of violating a trade-war truce, Trump on Wednesday had nothing but praise for the Chinese leader. 'President Xi and I are going to work closely together to open up China to American Trade. This would be a great WIN for both countries!!!' the president wrote in a second Truth Social post. Under the renewed truce, the United States will impose a 55 percent tariff on Chinese goods, and China will hit American products with a 10 percent import tax, the president said. Those are both higher rates than before Trump took office, but lower than the triple-digit tariff levels that each nation imposed this spring. US and Chinese negotiators agreed late Tuesday to try again to implement the trade-war truce that collapsed amid recriminations on both sides just weeks after it was reached during an earlier round of talks in Geneva. Advertisement Speaking near midnight in London, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced what he called a 'handshake' deal to put into effect the terms of the May 12 US-China agreement that called for both nations to lower their tariffs and take additional steps to facilitate trade. 'We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents,' Lutnick told reporters, referring to a June 5 telephone conversation between Trump and Xi. 'I think it's really beneficial to the United States of America. It's very beneficial to the Chinese and the China economy.' Negotiators released no text of either the London framework or the earlier Geneva accord to de-escalate the US-China trade war. But Lutnick said both nations would remove new trade barriers they had erected as the truce broke down. That means China is expected to permit an increased flow of critical materials known as 'rare earths' for auto and defense production. As those shipments increase, the United States will lift measures that it imposed recently 'in a balanced way,' Lutnick said. 'We do absolutely expect that the topic of rare-earth minerals and magnets, with respect to the United States of America, will be resolved in this framework implementation,' Lutnick said. He did not specify which US measures would be lifted in response. But his department has implemented a number of restrictions on exports to China of aerospace technology and advanced semiconductor equipment, which Chinese officials urgently want removed. Lutnick described the diplomatic breakthrough as the first step toward expanding US-China trade, which topped $580 billion last year. The United States buys more than three times as much from China as Chinese customers buy from Americans, a trade deficit that the president has inveighed against for years as a measure of industrial decline. Advertisement 'We have an existing, significant trade deficit, and President Trump's fundamental goal is to reduce the trade deficit and increase trade. So this was the first step of the framework by which we will then approach and discuss growing trade . But first we had to sort of get the negativity out," Lutnick said. Briefing reporters outside Lancaster House, the 19th-century mansion in London's West End that hosted two days of talks, Lutnick credited the involvement of both presidents with producing quick results. 'You have to get things done if you're working for President Trump. I'm sure they felt they had to get it done because they were working for President Xi,' he said. The US delegation also included Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Bessent left the talks a few hours early to return to Washington in time to appear before Congress on Wednesday. The Chinese team was led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, a close associate of Xi. In China, Li Chenggang, China's vice commerce minister, said the talks were 'professional, rational, in-depth and candid,' according to Chinese state media, and Beijing hopes the discussions will 'be conducive to increasing trust between China and the United States.' Yao Yang, an economist at Peking University, said the fact that Beijing and Washington engaged in negotiations amid bitter trade tensions is positive. 'The Chinese government's stance has always been, if you want to fight, we are going to take it. But the purpose of fighting is not just for the sake of fighting, it is to prepare for negotiation or to bring the other side to the negotiation table,' he said. Advertisement Yet even as the latest attempt to put US-China relations on a sound footing moved forward, Greer nodded to the long list of issues that divide the two sides. The Trump administration has complained about Chinese policies that fuel what it sees as excess production of manufactured goods, which depress global prices and hurt American factory workers. 'There are some things that the Chinese and US economies, they just don't fit together very well. Other things, maybe they do. And there'll be a time for broader conversations on that,' he said. The 90-day pause on triple-digit tariffs that amounted to a de facto US-China trade embargo expires Aug. 12. In response to a question about prospects for an extension, Greer said that would be up to the president. Further talks are expected, though no date has been agreed to yet. The Trump administration notched a legal win Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled that many of the tariffs the president imposed on China can remain while the government appeals a lower-court ruling that found they were illegal. The Court of International Trade, a little-known specialized court in New York, ruled last month that Trump exceeded his authority by invoking emergency powers to impose tariffs on imports from China and other nations. The Trump administration quickly appealed and the appeals court temporarily paused the lower court's decision. On Tuesday, it said that pause could stay in place while the appeal was decided. Advertisement 'The court also concludes that these cases present issues of exceptional importance warranting expedited en banc consideration of the merits in the first instance,' the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Tuesday. The appeals court said it would expedite the issue and hear arguments July 31.


CBS News
36 minutes ago
- CBS News
Philadelphia-area family says moving company held family's belongings hostage for months
Jennifer Laible says her family's move turned into a nightmare after she claims the company they hired held their belongings hostage and demanded thousands of dollars more than their original contract required. She contacted CBS News Philadelphia for help. Laible said she signed a contract with a company to move them from the Philadelphia region to Florida in September 2024. But when those movers didn't show up with the equipment and trucks they'd agreed to, she said they were left scrambling to find an alternative. In her mad dash, she made a decision that she says turned her life upside down. "It has been months of a nightmare," she said. "It was hell. Trying to explain to your children where their stuff has gone is devastating." Hostage situation The same day her initial movers fell through, Laible secured another mover she found online. She showed us the contract she signed with Cross Country Movers, which quoted her an estimate of $15,863 and an email confirmation from a company representative showing that she had paid $10,762 upfront. But as soon as the truck was loaded, she said the trouble started. Laible claims the company jacked up the price by thousands of dollars. "The amount changed by the day," she said. "Today it's $11,000, tomorrow by this person it's $13,000, next week it's $28,000." The company sent a notice to Laible threatening to auction off her belongings if she didn't pay the $27,893.01 they said she owed for storage. "The emotions of going through your stuff missing is unbelievable," she said. "We went through Christmas with nothing of our family traditions, nothing of our grandparents' legacies." Laible admits in her rush to secure a new mover, she didn't do her due diligence. When CBS News Philadelphia began investigating Cross Country Movers, we found a history of complaints. History of complaints CBS News Philadelphia found the Laibles are not the only ones who claim they've had issues with Cross Country Movers. Searching the company's DOT registration in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration database revealed complaints going back three years. More than two dozen have been filed against Cross Country Movers since 2023, alleging things like deceptive business practices, delivery issues and similar hostage-like situations. The database doesn't show how those complaints have been resolved. The two addresses and phone numbers listed in the company's registration led to Better Business Bureau profiles for moving companies with different names, with the same owner identified for each, Yehoshua Vaknin. Court records reveal Vaknin has operated moving companies under several trade names, and he and several of his companies were civilly sued in 2018 by Florida's attorney general. The complaint echoes many of Laible's allegations, saying Vaknin's companies "regularly used unskilled, untrained agents who often damaged or stole consumers' property, and routinely provided deceptive, low-ball estimates, then extorted high fees by holding consumers' property hostage." CBS News confronted Vaknin in 2019 in Florida. He refused to talk other than to deny the allegations. Vaknin and his related companies formally denied the allegations in court. In 2020, Vaknin and his companies entered into a consent judgment that found them liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Court records show an agreement was reached, and $78,000 was paid for consumer restitution. CBS News Philadelphia made several attempts to contact Vaknin. Neither he nor his lawyers responded to our requests for responses to specific questions. But an attorney for Cross Country Movers emailed a cease and desist letter to Laible calling her statements to CBS News Philadelphia and similar statements she made to the FBI and U.S. Department of Transportation "harassment." The letter stated Cross Country Movers held Laible's belongings due to "unpaid contractual payments," but that an agreement had been reached to release her belongings and cancel the remaining payments. Laible contends no further payments were due. "I'm grateful eternally that our stuff is safe, but those four plus months of fighting for our stuff to be safe was something I hope no one ever, ever has to go through," she said. Protecting yourself When looking to hire a moving company, the Federal Trade Commission recommends doing your homework. If a company is moving you across state lines or outside the country, it must be registered with the U.S. Department of Transportation. You can search the DOT website to check registrations and get details about the company, including its history of complaints. A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said the agency is working on a new registration system to combat fraud by making it easier for the agency to identify companies reopening under different names and flag when a company may be registering new credentials. Some states also require certification for in-state moves. In addition to registering with the DOT, Pennsylvania and New Jersey mandate local movers to be on file with regional travel authorities. You can check the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's website or call the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs. A spokesperson for Pennsylvania's PUC said Cross Country Movers was sent a warning letter in April 2022 for not having a certificate on file for in-state moves. He said an application was never submitted. The FTC recommends getting written estimates from several movers before making any decision. A company should look at your property in person or ask you to fully describe it before it sends the estimate. You should never: Sign incomplete forms with blank spaces where important information like prices, dates and signatures should be. Hire anyone who demands cash or a big deposit up front before the move Hire an interstate mover that isn't registered with the DOT The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration offers free resources and tools to help prepare for your move and to protect yourself from moving fraud. Do you have a money question or a consumer story you want to share? Email InYourCorner@
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why Trump Is Losing His Trade War
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Donald Trump's trade war is fast turning into a fiasco. When the president started the war, Team Trump advertised it as certain to be fast, easy, and cheap. Trump would impose tariffs. The world would yield to his will. The tariffs would do everything at once. They would protect U.S. industry from foreign competition without raising prices, and generate vast revenues that would finance other tax cuts. Americans could eat their cake, continue to have the cake, and trade the same cake for pie—all at the same time. 'There's not going to be any pain for American workers,' Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, vowed in April. The advertising rapidly proved false. The U.S. economy is slowing because of the Trump tariffs; China's is thriving in spite of them. Team Trump falsely promotes vague five-page outlines with alienated former allies as big deals; China is successfully wooing some of its former rivals, such as Vietnam. America's standing in the world is measurably sinking; China's is measurably rising. Courts are ruling that Trump's tariffs are illegal; public opinion mistrusts the tariffs, regarding them as expensive and unproductive. The promise of huge flows of painless money from tariff revenues is evanescing as the fantasy it always was. Oh, and the country's largest chain of Halloween retailers canceled its traditional summer grand opening because of Trump-caused supply disruptions. What comes next, as things go wrong? Trump's first instinct is to blame the targets of his economic aggression for not cooperating with his wishes. On May 30, Trump accused China of violating an imaginary agreement with him. On June 4, he complained that Xi Jinping was 'extremely hard to make a deal with.' But Trump seldom chooses to quarrel with foreign dictators, saying in the same breath, 'I like President Xi of China, always have, and always will.' Today, in all-caps emphasis, Trump announced that a deal had been done, declaring that his 'RELATIONSHIP IS EXCELLENT' with the Chinese president-for-life. The lack of details in the announcement strongly suggests that Trump yielded more and gained less than his publicity apparatus wants Americans to believe. That's because, in reality, Trump's global trade war has always been subordinate to his domestic culture war. Trump much prefers to vent his rage against enemies within. Get ready for him to blame the failure of his trade war on fellow Americans who did not support him enough. The Trump tariffs will be ballyhooed as an act of patriotism, a necessary sacrifice to be laid on the altar of the nation. One of Trump's television talkers reminded viewers that Americans melted down their pots and pans to win the Second World War. If the president needs to ration dolls and colored pencils, how dare any true American raise a contrary voice? The coming call for national solidarity with Trump's Great Patriotic War against imported Halloween costumes deserves all the scoffing it will get and more. Trump ordered the nation into economic warfare. He did not do any of the things necessary to create any hope of success in that war. The impending defeat is his personal doing, entirely his own fault. [Jonathan Chait: The good news about Trump's tariffs] Recall the classic Norm Macdonald bit in which the comedian marvels that in the 20th century, Germany decided to go to war with 'the world,' twice. That was meant as a joke. Trump adopted it as his actual strategy. Trump's rationalizers invoke anxiety about China as his justification. Yes, China numbered among the targets of Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs. But so did Australia. So did Brazil. So did Canada. So did Denmark. So did Egypt. And on and on, through the whole alphabet of American allies and trading partners. The United States is by far the planet's strongest national economy, producing slightly more than one-quarter of the planet's goods and services. Including its historic and recent partners, the United States could potentially lead a group of nations sufficiently influential to write economic rules that everybody would need to take into account. That fact underpinned the Trans-Pacific Partnership concept of the Obama years: Form a large-enough and attractive-enough club, and China will have no choice but to comply with the founding members' terms. Trump's alternative concept is for a quarter of the world economy to cut itself off from the other three-quarters, and then wait for the three-quarters to beg for mercy from the one-quarter. Unsurprisingly, that concept is fast proving a stinker. But suppose the president sincerely believed that the U.S. had no choice: The one-quarter must fight the three-quarters as a matter of national survival, or 'liberation,' from the tyranny of foreign goods and services, foreign fruits and vegetables. Crazy, but suppose he did. What would follow? A rational president would grasp that a U.S. economic war against the rest of the world would be a big, protracted, and painful undertaking. Such an enormous commitment would require democratic consent from a large majority of the public, all the more so because the United States is starting the war itself. Trump's trade conflict is very much a war of choice. The president must explain why he chose it. A rational president determined to fight an economic war would try to mobilize broad support from the public and from Congress. He would seek allies in Congress, and not only from his own party. He might, for example, compromise on some of his other goals. If he also wanted to tighten immigration at the same time as waging a global trade war, or to roll back DEI programs, or to cut taxes for the wealthy, or to relax anti-corruption measures, or to pardon the crimes of his violent supporters, or to plan any other ambitious but divisive project, he might think twice about pursuing them. You can't ask your opponents to pay more and do without if you won't forgo even a scrap of your partisan agenda. You can ask anyway, but don't be shocked when they answer with a Bronx cheer. That president would also lead from the front. A president seeking to inspire Americans to endure hardship for the greater good would certainly not throw himself a multimillion-dollar birthday parade at public expense. He would not accept lavish gifts from foreign governments, would not operate a pay-for-access business that collected billions of dollars for himself and his family from undisclosed favor-seekers. While asking other Americans to accept less, he would not brazenly help himself to more. He certainly would not troll, insult, and demean those who may not have voted for him, but whose cooperation he needs now. This president has, of course, done the most egregious version of every item above. His economic war is adjunct to his partisan culture war. He did not seek broad support. He gleefully offends and alienates everyone outside his base. Which works for him as long as times are prosperous, as they were in the first three years of his first administration. Allow things to get tough, though, and it's a different story. Trump cannot ask for patience and trust, because at least half the country has unalterably judged him as untrustworthy and out only for himself. [David Frum: The ultimate bait and switch of Trump's tariffs] Trump bet his presidency on the theory that trade wars are 'good and easy to win,' as he posted during his first term. His second-term trade war, however, is proving not so easy, and not so good, either. He is fighting it alone, without global allies or domestic consent, because that's his nature. It's now also his problem. In the 1983 movie WarGames, a computer thinks its way through dozens of terrifying nuclear scenarios and concludes: 'The only winning move is not to play.' In other words, the only safe way to conduct a nuclear exchange is never to have one. The same could be said of trade wars, at least when fought by one nation, however big and rich, against all the others, all at once. Trump decided he did not care about Americans' support for his economic war. He did not ask for their backing. He did not make any effort to win it. He willfully alienated at least half of the public. Now that he's losing, his supporters want to scold the country because it rejects the whole misbegotten project as stupid and doomed. Don't listen to their reproaches. This is Trump's war, and his alone. The only way to win now is to end Trump's trade war as rapidly as possible. And then end the excessive, unilateral trade powers of a corrupt president who blundered into a pointless and doomed conflict without justification, plan, or consent. Article originally published at The Atlantic