Asking for three weeks of coverage, Chubb will only grant WBAI three days.
http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2622307
http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2622307
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Insurance Tunes Out WBAI Sandy Claim
- Thread starter DToTheJ
- Start date
DToTheJ said:
You can make all the jokes you want about WBAI, but when you are not allowed back in the building for three weeks and the insurance company is only covering you for three days, WTF!
Not being allowed back into the building was not directly due to water damage of the studios per se, right?
Anyway....three days coverage seems like a gyp.
I have owned businesses that went through Katrina and Rita. The insurance company is going to pay as little as possible. In a disaster the insurance companies want you to go all the way to court. They keep their money for several years and a certain number of the cases will lose. I have seen it over and over in MS and LA. I learned my lesson. From that point forward I have business interruption, flood, earthquake and mold. Mold is NOT covered any longer by a standard policy. It is a special rider. There is a reason that insurance agents no longer use the term "property insurance". They now refer to that policy as "wind and fire". Just know that the cost for these extra coverages is minimal.
BarryATL said:
not to get political ( I hate all that talk), but this is why I HATE insurance companies. We pay and pay and pay, and when we try to get our money back when we need it, we are held up at every turn. 4 months after sandy, no idea how much we are going to get. Unfortunately Selective, we just found out, is the worst insurance company ever based on posts by fellow users, so i am not too hopeful.. if anything needs to be over hauled, it's this..
luperm said:
Yes it's a contract that never gets honored in the case of a major loss until you drag the insurance company to court at considerable cost to yourself. And even if you do have a valid claim and hire a lawyer you're still at a huge disadvantage since there are probably a thousand lawyers at the insurance company whose only jobs are coming up with ways to deny it. It's usually not even about the letter of the contract, it's about wearing you down, dragging things out and draining your finances until you decide to settle for way less than you should.
If anyone has problems with getting claims paid, contact the State Insurance Commissioner (different states have different names, but there is some state office that regulates insurance companies). I live in GA which helps because the Insurance Commissioner is an elected office. Your state may have this an appointed office if so contact your state legislator. You have the right to file a complaint, as I did. Two weeks later the issue was settled in my favor. A state insurance commissioner has folks that know who to call at an insurance company to get results. Thankfully, the news media loves stories about big corporations messing over people,
so the folks at WBAI might have a friend at a Newspaper or one of the TV news departments. If you were a CEO would you want to have 60 Minutes do a story on you? If all else fails, find a lawyer that sues insurance companies. A good one would take the case on percentage of the penalties if you have a case.
so the folks at WBAI might have a friend at a Newspaper or one of the TV news departments. If you were a CEO would you want to have 60 Minutes do a story on you? If all else fails, find a lawyer that sues insurance companies. A good one would take the case on percentage of the penalties if you have a case.
The next to last sentence in the NY1 article: "We're really afraid we're going to have to close the doors," Katz said. - See more at: http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/fe...laims-from-radio-station#sthash.i8ZHQ7d5.dpuf
(Katz is WBAI's interim development director.)
Are there any vultures circling overhead yet?
(Katz is WBAI's interim development director.)
Are there any vultures circling overhead yet?
radiophiler said:
Isn't the threat of imminent doom to your favorite programming (or in this case to the entire station) pretty much standard operating procedure as a fundraising tactic for noncomms?
secondchoice said:
Yes, in GA the insurance commissioner does good work. However, we have not been thought a disaster in GA. When Katrina and Rita hit Louisiana, the insurance official for the state (I don't think it is commissioner), played hard ball threatening to pull the "license" for certain insurance companies if they did not treat their policy holders better. A few of them decided they did not care. For a time, Allstate could not write homeowners policies in LA and IIRC the same went for State Farm.
If there is a major disaster and there are billions (with a B) in claims, then the insurance companies do not care if the state gives them a hard time. All they care about is their bottom line and the survival of the company. I have been through this twice with one claim on Katrina and one on Rita. I would not wish it on anyone.
I understand the ownership of this station is committed to the "non-com" business model. but being above 91.9 could it legally be switched to a regular commercial station?* I know of translators that were below 92.1 that switched frequencies above 92.1 and been tied to AM's commercial AM's. If this station could be converted to a regular commercial station, then there is "collateral" for a loan from a bank.
*IIRC someone posted that there were a few FM channels above 92.1 that non-commercial stations had "preference". I thought this was odd but this is the same FCC that allowed some of the VHF TV stations to run digital on in the old analog spectrum so anything is possible.
*IIRC someone posted that there were a few FM channels above 92.1 that non-commercial stations had "preference". I thought this was odd but this is the same FCC that allowed some of the VHF TV stations to run digital on in the old analog spectrum so anything is possible.
Just as, within the last year or so, WFME 94.7 went from being a non-com to a commercial license and is now WNSH, WBAI 99.5 could do the same.
It is a commercial frequency, and it is worth tens of million of dollars, probably in the ballpark of $75-million, but only as a commercial station. And to realize that value, and to offer collateral to bankers, the non-com programming now heard on WBAI would have to be dropped, and the station sold or leased to a commercial operator.
It's no surprise that, after years of screwball management, that WBAI is on the financial ropes. It has been there before, and always seemed to be flirting with financial disaster, but this time it's worse. And, over time, the station has chased away its audience and financial backers. It's a station with the signal potential to produce an audience of four or five-million listeners a week, like Lite-FM, Z-100, or WCBS-FM, but instead it has about as many listeners a week as it would take to fill all the seats in MetLife stadium in the Meadowlands. It's endless fundraising, and whacky internal politics have resulted in a situation where listeners, and potential donors, have been discouraged from tuning in. It's in real financial trouble, and the screwballs in charge will probably still be arguing with each other if a bankruptcy court moves in and takes the federal license away in order to pay off the station's debt. The question really is: Does the station do what it can to keep its programming alive in some form, online, on HD or on a lesser AM signal, while financially restructuring, or does it wait until the bankruptcy courts force it into liquidation and it goes out of existence, when the license is auctioned off to a commercial operator?
As I have said before, WBAI should coordinate some kind of three-way deal, similar to WQXR, which would produce a major influx of cash and allow WBAI to survive in some form in New York.
Here's an idea: Trade WBAI to CBS for 1010 AM plus cash. WINS goes on FM and WBAI gets a 50,000 watt AM for programming which is mostly talk anyway. Although no longer on FM, WBAI would have a signal that would reach way out to all of Long Island, lots of Connecticut and a chunk of Rhode Island and Cape Cod and The Islands. And the night signal would cover even further.
WINS plays to the immediate metro anyway, and 99.5 from the Empire would give them building penetration and perfect coverage in the boroughs. WCBS is more oriented to the burbs.
I would presume with the emergence of internet in cars, the price of FM terrestrials will not maintain their current sales levels indefinitely, so WBAI can not expect that their 99.5 equity is going to last forever.
Here's an idea: Trade WBAI to CBS for 1010 AM plus cash. WINS goes on FM and WBAI gets a 50,000 watt AM for programming which is mostly talk anyway. Although no longer on FM, WBAI would have a signal that would reach way out to all of Long Island, lots of Connecticut and a chunk of Rhode Island and Cape Cod and The Islands. And the night signal would cover even further.
WINS plays to the immediate metro anyway, and 99.5 from the Empire would give them building penetration and perfect coverage in the boroughs. WCBS is more oriented to the burbs.
I would presume with the emergence of internet in cars, the price of FM terrestrials will not maintain their current sales levels indefinitely, so WBAI can not expect that their 99.5 equity is going to last forever.
secondchoice said:
Not just preference, but exclusive access. There are a VERY few FM channels above 92 which are reserved for use ONLY by non-commercial stations. (just as *all* frequencies below 92 are so reserved) The FCC will reserve frequencies above 92 if someone can show an area has a limited amount of non-commercial service and frequencies below 92 are unavailable for technical reasons.
However, 99.5 NYC is not one of these reserved channels. There is nothing from an FCC standpoint to prevent WBAI from converting to a commercial station.
DToTheJ said:
True, the non-commercial reservations are a FCC thing. Other countries allow commercial operation below 92, and a small number of these stations have coverage in the U.S.. (also 88.7 in Windsor, Ontario covering Detroit -- and for that matter, there are non-commercial stations on 97.5, 99.1, 103.9, and 105.5 in Windsor.
But barring a pretty dramatic band opening, nobody in NYC is going to be listening to any FM stations transmitting from outside the U.S.!
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