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| A Clue for Trivia Quiz #10 |
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It wasn’t always that way with insurance
companies. The big ones originally only insured lives and traditionally were
thought of as being in the same corner as their policyholders, even as
over the years they developed uses for life insurance far more sophisticated
than their original purpose as ‘burial’ insurance. Policyholders knew their insurer was dependable
(Metropolitan Life claimed to be ‘the light that never failed,’ and the
Prudential compared its strength to the Rock of Gibraltar) and would be there
for them when a heart stopped beating, which was all that mattered to the
company so long as the premiums were paid. (These were the kinds of companies
by which I was employed throughout most of my career in the insurance
industry.)
But that kind of insurance company is part of
history now. Even the Metropolitan and
the Prudential now insure more than just lives.
Nowadays, old-fashioned life insurance is usually viewed merely as part
of overall financial planning, and insuring one’s home, automobile, boat, or
other possessions against a variety of ‘hazards’ has become the business of
many companies, often whose names are not household words, and that require a
bit more than the absence of a heartbeat to pay a claim. It is in this
environment that an adversarial relationship developed between insureds and
insurance companies.
The consumers of insurance, known as
policyholders, now recognizing that the insurance companies are not always in
the same corner as they are, look to the referee in the middle of the ring to
make sure that the adversaries fight fairly.
In today’s world, that referee is the State’s insurance regulatory
agency and the State legislation that governs its operation.
Often, in doing this, the policyholder might
need the services of an attorney because of the complexity of both a state’s
insurance legislation and their own policy’s language. At this stage of the game, the agent who sold
the policy is of no help in this task, their job ending when they sold the
policy, and their objectivity perhaps being affected by the source of their
income, commissions from insurance companies.
Aware that homeowners and automobile insurance
costs in Florida are among, if not, the highest in the nation, in addition to recognizing
the adversarial relationship mentioned above, Florida’s legislature has addressed
this issue on several occasions. It
appears to me that the legislation they passed has been primarily aimed at
supporting the insurance companies so that they might remain in business to
serve the public but does not offer relief to that public in its search for
reasonably priced homeowners and automobile insurance, and their treatment by
insurance companies.
Possible solutions that have occurred to me include (1) excluding any roof coverage whatsoever from homeowners’ insurance policies, leaving it entirely a homeowner’s responsibility, possibly fundable by a home equity loan if necessary, or (2) even shifting such insurance coverage from the private sector to a government-subsidized public utility.
Regardless, it remains a challenging problem, not only in Florida, but also elsewhere.
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Without going into details, the ‘transfer portal’ is reshaping college football and basketball. Like un-homogenized milk (are you old enough to remember that), the cream rises to the top, with the most talented athletes in lower-ranked schools switching to higher-ranked teams, as soon as possible. Few move in the opposite direction, where despite their talents, they will be less visible to NFL and NBA scouts.
We must
face up to the fact that college athletics, for at least the top teams, are the
equivalent of minor league baseball, where stars get their first chance to
shine. And really, does anyone really believe such athletes are held to the
same academic standards as the rest of a school’s student body, despite what a
school’s PR people might say?
Below that top level, an example
of which are the teams in football’s ‘Power Five’ conferences, college football
and basketball will still manage to survive, but with their lesser teams ultimately being unmentioned in all but local media and dependent entirely on students, alumni, and local
fans for support. This will be a problem
for the Furmans and the Delawares of the nation.
JL
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Climate Change and the Jewish High
Holidays - 'By Water or by Fire'
Without getting into the
religious aspect of this prayer, it is very significant in what it puts at the
top of the list of the causes of someone dying before their time. In that spot, you will find ‘by water and by
fire.’
When we look at the deaths caused
by flooding, bursting dams, storm surge, rising seas, and disastrous fires
resulting from tinder-dry forests appearing in the news almost daily, we
realize that what today is usually attributable to climate change, was present
and recognized centuries ago and is not anything new.
Strong evidence of this is the fact that ten
centuries ago, these two causes of untimely deaths were listed ahead of other causes of death in this prayer,
including war, starvation, famine, and epidemics.
Everyone, regardless of their
religion, should recognize the continuing dangers presented by changes in our
weather and climate, some of which are caused by mankind, and work to combat
and control them.
(Note: I do not intend to make a habit
of including religious articles like this one in Jackspotpourri, even though I
am pleased by the comments I have received from some of you regarding my recent
efforts concerning Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and the Hebrew Scriptures. But this
piece is basically about climate change.)
JL
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Covid Booster Shots Will be Available in a Few Days! Check out where you can get yours. I believe that those who don't get them can be a source of infection for others so it is something you owe to your friends, family, and neighbors. This is not a political issue, as some attempt to make it.
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Ticked Off by Politicians in Washington or Elsewhere? Here's a Voter Registration Reminder!!
If you live in Palm Beach County, and are not yet registered to vote here, or want to continue to receive ‘vote-by-mail’ ballots (something that no longer happens automatically), just contact the Election Supervisor at https://www.votepalmbeach.gov/.
At a minimum, you can verify your status as a voter at that site. Don’t wait. Do it now… while you are on your computer, tablet, or phone!
And if you live elsewhere, contact your local Supervisor of Elections. (In neighboring Broward County, access them at https://www.browardvotes.gov/.)
JL
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Trivia Quiz #10 - Movie Actresses
See if you can name the movie actresses famous for these attributes:
1. Hair combed down almost covering one eye
2. Skirt blown up by breeze from air vent below her
3. Also was an inventor in real life
4. Brought film sex to the fore in Howard Hughes' 'The Outlaw'
5. Played the discoverer of radium
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Answers to Trivia Quiz #9 - Actors with Moustaches
Admittedly, while some were not always 'mustached,' there are many that come to mind. You might have answered with at least Clark Gable, Burt Reynolds, Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, Tom Selleck, Eddie Murphy, Cesar Romero, Errol Flynn, or David Niven.
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.
If you want to send someone the
blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells
and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or
by providing a link to that address in your email to them. I
think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you. Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.
Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.
Again, I urge you to forward
this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
JL
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