Understand The Insurance You Are Buying

Good words of advice for any person buying insurance anywhere is: Know what you are buying. At the least, get it explained to you when purchasing some sort of insurance or warranty. This applies to the good people in the Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie, and Weatherford areas of Texas.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette recently published a news story where-in people were buying a pipe warranty. The title of the story is “Lawsuit Filed Over Opt-Out Waterline Insurance”. The charge for this warranty was only five dollars a month, but it was worthless to the people to whom it was being sold.
The pipe warranty was sold by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. The warranty provider is Utility Line Security, or ULS, a new, Wilkinsburg-based business that shares most of their officers with Resource Development and Management. RDM is a politically connected firm that worked closely with the water authority Executive Director.
This warranty was automatically billed to accounts. Rather than being an opt-in warranty, it was an opt-out warranty. In other words you had to pay for it unless you took the actions necessary to “opt-out”.
But here is the real problem with this warranty. It’s coverage was limited to such a degree that it did not provide coverage to most people who might have a problem. The warranty only applys to pipes of a certain small size, when most pipes are larger. If a person had a problem, it was only then that they would discover that the warranty did not really help them.
The lawuit was filed for violation of the “Deceptive Trade Practices Act”. Apartment and building owners were finding out too late that the coverage was insufficient.
The Apartment Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh is involved in the lawsuit.