New to the desk
Eight documented insurance stories, every claim traced to court records, regulator filings, and federal data, with the source ledger printed at the bottom of each page. Each file ends where the next one picks up. Begin with File 001.
FILE 001
The biggest home insurer in America closed its window in May 2023. The plan nobody chooses grew to 684,388 policies, and its rates jump October 15.
FILE 002
Insured households averaged $118,000 per claim. The uninsured averaged $4,400. A 30-day clock drew the line before the storm had a name.
FILE 003
The museum floor dropped into a hidden cave on camera. The insurance question was stranger than the hole.
FILE 004
A 21-word clause decided 65,380 slabbed houses. The whistleblowers who fought it got the only false-claims verdict of the storm.
FILE 005
He vanished in a canoe in 2002. For five years the dead man lived behind a wardrobe in his widow's house.
FILE 006
DNA cleared the suspect and revealed the real burglar: a mother of three, now retired to Colorado.
FILE 007
The state map runs from 1 in 40 to 1 in 966. Three months carry 41 percent of the claims.
FILE 008
13,200 houses, 87 churches, not one policy to claim on. Your homeowner policy was written in that ash.