
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994                   TAG: 9402220083
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ARE YOU COVERED, OR LEFT OUT IN COLD?

When the last ice storm left parts of Southwest Virginia without electricity for days, thousands of people were freezer-burned, losing hundreds of dollars of once-frozen food to spoilage.

While not necessarily preventable, many of those losses may have been made less painful by food-protection coverage that is part of many homeowners' insurance policies.

Such coverage may be included automatically in a policy or may be added for an additional fee.

Depending on the insurance company, there may or may not be a deductible.

Food-protection clauses typically cover spoilage that occur as a result of loss of electricity to a freezer. The damage that caused the outage - a fallen tree, downed power lines - does not have to be on the policyholder's property.

Bill Barham, a Farm Bureau agent in Roanoke, said two of his company's homeowners' policies offer automatic food-protection coverage. For $5, it may be added to Farm Bureau's most basic home policy, which does not otherwise include it.

Farm Bureau's food-protection coverage requires no deductible and covers up to $500 damage, Barham said.

"We've been adding it to a lot of people's policies," Barham said. "I've only had one person who turned it down."

Liberty Mutual Insurance also offers food coverage in the form of an endorsement that may be attached to homeowners' policies, said Shirley Giles, a service representative. To purchase the endorsement, policyholders must meet criteria that deal with the home's age, value and protective devices, Giles said.

The endorsements, which cost a minimum of $35, depending on the base premium of the house, cover up to $500 food damage and include a deductible, typically $250, she said.

Although the company didn't see a big increase in the number of freezer claims after the last storm, Giles said people often call after the fact to request such coverage.

Although food-protection coverage may be a valuable policy addition for people who keep several freezers stocked with expensive meat, people who don't have quite as much invested in frozen food may not see the same benefits, said Denise Bailey of Roanoke's Bailey Insurance Agency.

Although two of the homeowners' policies offered by the Bailey agency include food coverage, they require deductibles of typically $250, Bailey said.

This hurts the many policyholders whose freezer contents are worth less than that, she said.

by CNB