2004 Aug
2004 Aug Vol. 24, No. 8
Focus on...Isurance
Man's Best Friend
Whether dog people or cat people, New Yorkers love their pets - nearly a quarter of the city's inhabitants own companion animals. Read More
Holding the Purse Strings
You may not realize it, but your building may be hemorrhaging money. Not in the form of disastrous lawsuits or maintenance crises like a collapsed roof or exploded boiler, but in a steady trickle coming from your method of ordering supplies and keeping tabs on small, seemingly inconsequential bills. Read More
Directors & Officers Liability
Do you sit on the board of your condo or co-op? If you do, are you sure that you and your personal assets are adequately protected when the board of directors and the association are sued? Read More
X-Ray Vision
Time was, if a residential building was suffering heat loss, leaks, or other infrastructure problems, it was up to a team of engineers, contractors, and perhaps architects to investigate where the problem lay within the building's walls and to fix it - and that's only assuming anybody realized there was a problem in the first place. Slow leaks, mold contamination, faulty heat risers, and gaps in insulation can go undetected for years, compromising building residents' comfort and costing untold thousands in wasted energy and clean-up costs, and even developing into full-blown threats to building safety in the form of health and fire hazards. Read More
Risk Purchasing Groups
There is power in numbers, as the old saying goes - and that goes double for co-ops and condo buildings that are pooling their collective resources to reduce insurance costs under an umbrella known as a Risk Purchasing Group. Read More
The Earliest Apartments
The earliest apartments in New York City contained most of the elements of a private house, though often assembled in a manner far from functional. Service spaces in particular were seldom arranged or designed to save the time and energy of those who regularly used them. But with household help cheap and easy to obtain, and wives who spent most of their time at home, most men were blissfully ignorant of these inadequacies. Read More
Caution--Wet Floor
For building boards, management companies, shareholders, and unit owners, the issue of insurance often becomes complicated: how much insurance - and of what kind - does one's building, or even a shareholder/tenant, need? Is there such a thing as too much coverage? How does a board know if they're adequately insured? And, more importantly, what does that policy protect, or not protect? Then there's the issue of liability within the home, and whose insurance company is responsible. Read More
Creating Your Insurance Profile
A lot of factors go into determining the extent and cost of a building's insurance coverage: replacement cost, location, number of units, and claims history top of the list, but on closer inspection, there are plenty of ways to better position your building to qualify for lower premiums - and avoid some of the pitfalls of shopping for insurance. Read More
