Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial insight, gathered from around the web:
Carvana CEO's very, very rich dad
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Extreme insurance premiums
Extreme weather is contributing to rising home-insurance costs, said Paul Sullivan at The New York Times. Across the country, insurers are raising premiums, in some cases "two to five times a year." Traditional insurers are also denying coverage in riskier ZIP codes, including some of the country's priciest, such as Beverly Hills, which is increasingly vulnerable to fire. In some cases, insurance costs have quintupled. "We just charged someone $1.9 million for insurance in California with a $1 million deductible," said Charles Williamson, the CEO of insurance company Vault. Wealth management firms are advising clients that investing in "loss-mitigation strategies," such as foam-spraying fire-protection systems, may be a better deal than paying for insurance.
Job candidates and social media
"Stop screening job candidates' social media," said the Harvard Business Review. Three recent studies found that hiring managers often are digging up information "they are ethically discouraged or legally prohibited from taking into account when evaluating candidates — and little of it is predictive of performance." The University of Iowa's Chad Van Iddekinge, one of the researchers, says "one of the hallmarks of legal hiring practices is that they focus on behaviors within the work context." But recruiters are frequently "swayed by factors that are supposedly off-limits," such as gambling or alcohol use, that are revealed only on personal Facebook pages. If the company wants to screen social media for "red flags," such as overt racism or misogyny, it's best to have someone other than the hiring manager do it.
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