Insurance: New Scourge

3/12/05
Guest Commentary by Sandra Ghiardelli

Hardly a day goes by, it seems, that creative trial lawyers are not finding new ways to get into your pocket. One new device is to fill the courts with claims based on the attack of the killer mold.

It sounds like a bad, 1950’s science-fiction movie, but it is not fiction and the science is not junk science. This is just a clever marketing tactic designed to avoid liability and deceive the public against the permanent neurological, immunological, psychological, and pathological damage that mold can cause. When you start thinking about it, the plan was pretty clever, but even the insurance industry is begging to admit that their house of cards is beginning to fall as the public is beginning to become more educated and sick.

Mold is every- where there is dampness and heat, and that means Florida — a wet, semi-tropical state surrounded on three sides by water. But water damage to homes, especially drywall, carpeting, floorboards, etc. is another matter.

People with illnesses from mold can be compensated through the tort system. But claims are no good unless there are deep pockets to be picked as the housing and insurance industry has learned how to put up a costly fight. Out of thousands of excellent peer-reviewed medical papers that demonstrate the serious hazards of mold, the defense almost always rely on two very ambiguous that were difficult to discredit, until now.

Many homeowners pay their insurance as part of their mortgage payment, along with property taxes, and may not notice the monthly payments being ratcheted up steadily as insurance premiums soar until it is too late. The insurance industry blames the rising costs on mold. What they don’t tell you is that in most cases the insurance industry lawyers up and fights rather than pays claims.

The term mold hysteria was invented by the industries who stand to lose because they don’t want to pay for the damages that it causes. It makes one wonder what insurance is for if they don’t pay when you file a claim.

Author: Contributor