Schwarcz

For his study, Mr. Schwarcz collected policies from the top-10-selling insurance groups in six states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California and Nevada.

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

He added that he doesn't "see the same kind of deliberate attempt to weaken consumer protection" that Mr. Schwarcz does.

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

"You have a core provision of a policy and these really important adjectives being added," Mr. Schwarcz says, noting that they "could easily be used to justify expansive claims denials."

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

Mr. Schwarcz has been pushing state insurance departments to post policies online, so consumer groups and others comfortable with the dense language of contracts can work up comparisons to aid buyers.

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

But Daniel Schwarcz , a University of Minnesota Law School associate professor and the study's author, says he found instances where policies now differ "radically with respect to numerous important coverage provisions."

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

In an example of how such wording can hurt consumers, Mr. Schwarcz points to a 2007 ruling by a federal judge in Minneapolis in favor of a unit of Allstate .

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

That is an important provision, says Mr. Schwarcz, because many losses could be tied to alleged negligence.

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

The suit, filed by the Human Rights Law Foundation and the law firm Schwarcz, Rimberg, Boyd & Rader, alleges that Cisco was closely involved in the design and maintenance of a surveillance system in China called "Golden Shield" that was used to track and target Falun Gong followers and dissident groups.

Falun Gong Practitioners Sue Cisco Don Clark 2011

Some of the biggest insurers "employ policy language that is systematically less generous than that provided" in the standard ISO policy, Mr. Schwarcz writes.

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011

Mr. Schwarcz is wrong to interpret such wording differences as efforts to reduce coverage, when some changes are efforts to clarify what the insurers have priced the policies to cover, says Alex Hageli , an official with the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a trade group with more than 1,000 member companies.

A Home-Insurance Trap? Leslie Scism 2011