I did my first real estate transaction when I was 19 years old – the year must have been 1982 when 20% down payment was required and prime interest rates hovered around 15%. There was more money put on the table and less paper work to sign.
Twenty years later there was a shift, bankers figured out ways to securitize the real estate investment; less down payment was required and more disclosures were needed. It just took another 10 years into the future and the real estate fell off the wall and cracked like humpty dumpty.
Back then I didn’t understand this whole thing about insurance. My mom and dad never formally discussed finances or real estate investing. As I ventured into the world fumbling forward as many of us do… the more you expose yourself, the more you learn. (and sometimes its’ quite painful)
America can thank Benjamin Franklin who popularized and made standard the practice of insurance, in 1752, he founded the Philadelphia Contribution-ship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire.
Fast forward now to 2012, in a recent real estate transaction I was given a disclosure to sign: Terrorism Insurance.
Could this be a suggestion that the United Sates government can not guarantee our safety? Sometimes it seems that each one is left to fend for themselves.
DISCLOSURE NOTICE OF TERRORISM INSURANCE – COVERAGE (here is and excerpt)
You are hereby notified that under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (“the Act”), effective December 26th, 2007, you now have a right to purchase insurance coverage for losses arising out of acts of terrorism, as defined in Section 102(1) of the Act: The term “act of terrorism” means any act that is certified by the Secretary of the Treasury, in concurrence with the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General of the United States, to be an act of terrorism; to be a violent act or an act that is dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; to have resulted in damage within the United States, or outside the United States in the case of an air carrier or vessel or the premises of a United States mission; and to have been committed by an individual or individuals, as part of an effort to coerce the civilian population of the United States or to influence the policy or affect the conduct of the United States Government by coercion. (end of excerpt)
I’m not sure if all the kings men and all the kings horses (politicians and big corporations) can put humpty dumpty (United States) together again.
I think the prospect of American government and policies of today make Benjamin Franklin turn in his grave.
Daisy Says: How you live your life is the only insurance you have.
