BREEZY POINT, N.Y. -- This private community, which has fended off previous existential threats, is now facing its “greatest historical challenge” as a result of Superstorm Sandy,  with some residents questioning whether they can afford to rebuild and others wondering if the resurrected beachside community will bear any resemblance to its bucolic former self.

A halting first step on what figures to be a long road back took place Thursday evening, when the Breezy Point Cooperative Inc. Board held its first post-Sandy shareholders meeting at a Catholic high school in Brooklyn.

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More than 1,000 residents of the community founded by Irish immigrants around the turn of the 20^th century packed the meeting, which was closed to the media and members of the general public.

According to residents who attended, the board discussed applications for emergency Small Business Administration loans, the status of efforts to restore various utilities, demolitions and a disaster recovery fund, planned infrastructure improvements and other topics.

But some of those interviewed as they left said that their biggest concerns weren’t addressed.

“In the long run, it seems like things are going to take a lot of time,” said Rob Moran, a 38-year-old construction worker who attended with his wife, Carinne Bach. “A lot of questions are still up in the air right now.”

Bob Esposito, a former police officer whose home sustained water damage, said he was pleased to hear about infrastructure improvements, but wished the board had at least touched on the bigger issues that are weighing on residents’ minds.

 “They were prepared to give a lot of information out, which we all needed to hear, but I think they are very reluctant on answering the hard-core questions,” he said.

Sandy smacked into the village on the southeastern tip of the city’s Rockaway peninsula the night of Oct. 29, unleashing floodwaters that surged through the bungalows and bigger, newer homes, tearing some of the former off their foundations. The flooding also may have sparked a fire that burned down more than 100 of the 2,800 homes in Breezy Point.

The tight-knit community, home to many generations of numerous families, is only beginning to grapple with the wide-ranging consequences. Debris is slowly being cleared and power restored, but the water system is still shut down and demolition of the roughly 200 homes that sustained the worst damage -- including what remains of those in the fire zone -- has yet to begin.

Breezy Point, which was largely self-sufficient before the storm, is receiving assistance from the city as it attempts to jump-start its recovery. But officials and residents acknowledge that they have only begun to regroup.

Cooperative board Chairman Joseph Lynch declined an interview request from NBC News to discuss the current situation, but in an online statement to shareholders posted Nov. 16 he wrote, “This storm and its destruction have presented our Cooperative its greatest historical challenge, which will take time to overcome.” 

In a later message posted just before Thanksgiving, he said that “the economic challenge for some in this regard will be a true test and hardship,” before ending on an optimistic note:

“In spite of this very serious setback I am confident that our Cooperative will also continue to grow, evolve, and prosper as it has over the past fifty-two years,” he said. “We also have no other choice.”

But other community members, including at least one co-op board member, are less sanguine about the prospects of the largely middle-class neighborhood, home to many firefighters, police officers and sanitation workers.

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid it may cause some people to leave the community,” said Marty Ingram, fire chief of the Point Breeze volunteer firefighters and a member of the co-op board, though stressing that he was speaking only for himself. “I hope it doesn’t. But it’s going to have an impact.”

Ingram said the community would pull together and he believed would offer some “quiet” financial aid to help people who can’t otherwise afford to rebuild.

Mary Elizabeth Smith, a lifelong resident and author of “A History of Breezy Point,” noted that the community, which started out as more of a summer getaway spot for working-class families and slowly morphed into a charming residential enclave with intimate sand lanes running between homes, has proven remarkably resilient over the years.

The Breezy Point Cooperative was created in 1960 when residents learned that the 800-acres on which their homes stood had been quietly sold to a developer interested in building seaside high-rises. A group of homeowners went door-to-door collecting $500 from each family to raise an initial $75,000 defense fund, she said, and the group was ultimately able to buy back 400 acres for $12 million.

The co-op has been an oasis of economic stability in the decades since, paying off its communal mortgage years ago. That prosperity was in part due to the board’s initial ban on mortgage loans -- a requirement that was eventually relaxed to allow buyers to put 50 percent down on a home and finance the remainder. As a result, Ingram said that not a single Breezy Point home was foreclosed on during the housing crisis that erupted in 2008.

Smith said the credit belongs “to our ancestors … (who) really took a major chance, put up money in a belief in something that did not occur anywhere else in the United States: a community of houses that owned the land underneath them.”

The city briefly considered making Breezy Point a public park in 1962, but protests from residents and the developer scotched that effort. Then, after the National Park Service took title to land to the west and east after the same developer ran into financial problems, the cooperative went to federal court to battle with its new neighbor over ownership of newly formed sand flats, winning the rights to the land in 1982.

“A lot of people who live there today have no idea of the battles that were fought to get this property,” said Smith, 62, who was about 9 when the fight began to save Breezy Point, “and that’s why people really don’t want to leave the place. I’m certainly one of them.”

Moran and Bach are among the residents hoping they can rebuild their bungalow, which may have to be demolished.

The home, which was built by Bach’s deceased father, was inundated by a couple of feet of raw sewage and water, has a slight tilt and apparently some problems with the foundation. Though city inspectors indicated in two initial inspections that they should be able to rebuild, the couple fears it needs more than a repair and they may have to start anew.

With a Dec. 31 deadline set to apply for a free demolition provided by the city, they had hoped to learn at Thursday’s co-op board meeting how the building codes might change as a result of Sandy’s incursion, especially whether rebuilt homes might need to be elevated to lessen the likelihood of future flooding. But they left empty-handed.

“We got a little information, but I’m sure not quite as much as everybody had hoped,” said Bach, 38, a dance and fitness instructor who is several months pregnant. “I don’t think it’s for a lack of trying. I just think there’s so much red tape and so much unknown.”

“As far as where we’re to go from here, there’s not a clear road map,” she added.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hinted on Thursday that building code changes should be expected for waterfront areas, noting that “we can’t just rebuild what was there and hope for the best.”

“As you can see, the yardstick has changed -- and so must we,” he added. “FEMA is currently in the process of updating their (flood) maps -- and those maps will guide us in setting new construction requirements.”

If new, more-stringent building requirements are put in place, many fear the expense will drive out some longtime residents, particularly the elderly and families that have kept summer or part-time homes -- about 40 percent of the residences -- there for decades.

Laurie Cerra is struggling to keep the small green bungalow that had been in her family for about 85 years. She swept the floors, filled garbage bags and struggled to hold back tears last week as volunteers used crowbars to rip down the walls. The home received a red card -- meaning it was unsafe to enter -- from inspectors, but she was doing the work in a bid to save the damaged foundation.

“I’m trying to separate myself from this, I really am. I spent every summer here … growing up. I’m really hoping I can repair the foundation,” said Cerra, 54, a dietitian from Greenfield Township, Pa.

But because she can’t get coverage from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which doesn’t provide emergency aid on second homes, and has not heard from her homeowners' insurance for wind damage coverage in three weeks, she can’t afford to rebuild in the short term.

“Maybe in, I don’t know, three or four years, if I get (the) foundation, then I can do it myself. I can try and do sheetrock myself,” she said. “At this point, no, it’s just going to be out of my savings account to rebuild.”

The co-op board is implicitly acknowledging the financial threat. In a statement posted online on Saturday, it said Breezy Point homeowners can now borrow, over the next two years, up to 80 percent of their home’s appraised value, or up to $500,000, to repair or replace their properties.

It also waived one part of the “carrying charges” -- monthly fees that include garbage collection, road and building maintenance, property tax and security services -- for the owners of about 300 homes that were destroyed or significantly damaged.

Lynch, the co-op board chairman, had upset some residents by reminding them that it is “really important” that shareholders continue to pay the fees “as our corporation will face real financial challenges and pressure in the immediate future.”

Lifelong resident Kim Dillon was among those who felt the tone was wrong so soon after the disaster.

“Our lives are in disarray and I don’t think their first contact with us should have been … ‘we’re still expecting maintenance fees’ when there’s people that don’t have houses,” said Dillon, 43, whose family is one of two that have moved back onto their block, even though there is still no running water.

But Dillon said her neighbors, who were like family, would be back, though she acknowledged her hometown would change as a result of the devastation.

“It’s going to be sad to see the bungalows gone, because that was like old Breezy Point,” she said, referring to the area known as “the wedge,” where the six-alarm fire burned so hot that stormy night. “I don’t think there’s going to be many -- if any -- left.” 

Follow this link to view the panoramic of Breezy Point full-screen.

 

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A U.S. judge ruled that AMR Corp's American Airlines and United Continental Holdings Inc must face trial over claims relating to the September 11 attacks that destroyed the landmark towers of the World Trade Center in New York almost 11 years ago, court documents showed.

In July 2001, two months before the attacks, World Trade Center Properties LLC (WTCP) bought 99-year leases to four World Trade Center buildings from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Inc for $2.805 billion.

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In its lawsuit against United Airlines and American Airlines, WTCP said that had it not been for the airlines' negligence, "the terrorists could not have boarded and hijacked the aircraft and flown them into the twin towers," on September 11, 2001, according a New York court filing.

The company claimed damages of $8.4 billion from the airlines, the estimated cost of replacing the towers.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein limited the value of WTCP's destroyed property to $2.805 billion, the price WTCP paid for the leases.

The defendants denied they were negligent, and said the case should not go to trial because WTCP has recovered $4.091 billion from insurance companies.

Judge Hellerstein said at this stage he could not reasonably determine the defendants' claim that insurance payments received by WTCP covered the damages the company is seeking from them.

"On this record, before trial, I am not able to make such findings," Judge Hellerstein said in a court filing.

The case is in re September 11 litigation, Case No. 21-MC-101, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

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Sandra Rizkallah feared that her daughter's long-term illness could prevent her from completing her freshman year at Landmark College in Putney, Vt. -- a school where tuition cost $40,000 annually, not including room and board.

"I worried about her medical history and I worried about the expense," said Rizkallah, a Boston-area mother. "She had been accepted into an expensive school, she wanted to pursue an education, and she had health issues. We wanted so much for her to be able to go to school."

Rizkallah joined a growing number of parents in the United States taking out insurance to cover loss of tuition in the event their children become sick and drop out of expensive colleges or prep schools, experts say.

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Thanks to that insurance, Rizkallah recovered a portion of her daughter's tuition last year when her daughter, now 23, returned home ill.

“It's definitely gaining traction with families," said John T. Fees, co-founder and CEO of the Next Generation Insurance Group, creators of GradGuard, a tuition insurance program. The company has 200,000 families enrolled in a tuition insurance coverage plan, he said. "Twenty years ago, college was affordable and you didn’t have to worry about how to pay (for tuition) ... Parents need to know they will be able to recover from a financial loss, if it were to occur."

But some experts say most families don't need such insurance, which can add hundreds of dollars in costs onto an already expensive education. 

"I don’t recommend it," said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, a free online resource about scholarships and financial aid. But he added that "it is a personal decision and depends on whether they need the reassurance."

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More families are being encouraged by colleges and private schools  to sign up for tuition refund or reimbursement policies touted by private insurance companies and private schools, insurance and financial experts say. Typical coverage is about $15,000 a year, Fees said. According to GradGuard, general coverage includes:

• Medical Disability: "If a student has to withdraw due to their accidental death, verified illness or an unforeseen physical disability (as defined by a physician) incurred after the policy goes into effect, the Plan will reimburse 100 percent of covered expenses up to the policy limits. If a physician indicates that the medical disability is due to emotional, nervous, or mental disorders, the Plan will also reimburse 100 percent of covered expenses.”
• Death of a tuition payer: "If a student has to completely withdraw due to the death of a tuition payer, the plan will pay 100 percent of covered fees."

But experts caution that tuition insurance typically doesn't cover costs if a student decides to just up and quit school, gets kicked out or is homesick.

'Assurance with insurance'
A.W.G. Dewar was the first tuition refund insurance company in the United States and has been providing coverage since 1930, according to the Insurance Information Institute in New York. It claims it provides up to 100 percent coverage for medically necessary withdrawals at more than 180 colleges and 1,200 private elementary and secondary schools. It is now part of One Beacon Insurance Group Ltd., institute officials say. Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student lender, also provides tuition coverage, according to the institute.

While no exact numbers are available of how many people have opted for tuition insurance, college administrators say more parents are requesting information on it.

"College is a big investment and for some parents, just knowing they can gain some assurance with insurance makes them feel more comfortable," said Teri L. Blanchard, associate vice president for finance at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where about 10 percent of the 1,600 students enrolled at the private liberal arts school purchased insurance last year. Blanchard said she even bought insurance for her son 15 years ago. "It made sense at the time."

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She said administrators at Kenyon College also offer their own tuition insurance, charging $199 per semester to cover the year's tuition. This school year, that's nearly $43,000.

Most colleges and universities have refund policies. For instance, at Fordham University, near the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, N.Y., students are able to get back their tuition, about $40,000 a year, if they withdraw by the second week of the semester, according to the university. Private schools throughout the U.S. require some form of insurance coverage, Fees said.

'A personal decision'
Skeptics urge parents to review the insurance company's refund policy before buying.

"It’s a specialized insurance, and people have to ask themselves: ‘Do I really need it?'” said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, a free online resource about scholarships and financial aid. "A typical college student is going to be relatively healthy, and tuition insurance is often not financially worthwhile. Tuition refund insurance is more likely to be of interest to parents whose children are attending more expensive colleges."

Kantrowitz said tuition refund insurance typically costs 1 percent to 5 percent of the face value of the coverage per year, ranging from $100 to $1,000 depending on the college's costs and claim history.

Margaret McBurney of Kensington, Md., said she was among the parents who needed "peace of mind." She signed up with GradGuard a year ago after her third child headed off to college on the East Coast.

“I had already spent a large of amount of tuition on my children, and I heard about it and I thought it sounded like a good idea,” said McBurney. She said she paid about $12,000 a semester in tuition for her daughter, who is now 21. For a $25,000 insurance policy, she said she paid $48 a month for a year. “I kind of wished that I had done it earlier for my peace of mind.”

“As it turned out, my student became ill in college,” McBurney said. She described the reimbursement process as “relatively simple and once the college provided the documents the tuition was reimbursed.”

Do you have an education-related story or topic you'd like to share? Contact NBC News' Sevil Omer at sevil.omer@msnbc.com.

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In the days following the deadly shootings in Aurora, Colo., two sites soliciting donations were created for Farrah Soudani, a 22-year-old whose spleen and kidney were removed after she and dozens of others were shot in a movie theater during the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.”

The first was set up on gofundme.com by a friend of Soudani’s mother who pledged that all the money would go to Soudani. By Thursday evening, the site had raised more than $143,000.

But Soudani’s family on her dad's side worried about where that money would end up. They didn’t know this woman well, her brother Jordan Soudani said. Marty Soudani, a business owner, argued that a disability trust should be set up for his younger cousin, to protect her from creditors.

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“We don’t know if that fund is going to go 100 percent to her,” Marty Soudani said. A trust would be more secure, he said; if Soudani, who does not have health insurance, went bankrupt, he said, creditors wouldn’t be able to touch the trust money, which could help to cover long-term care.

Woman survives theater shooting thanks to her boyfriend's father

The Soudani family, which has raised about $10,000 for the Farrah Soudani Fund, has asked those handling the gofundme.com site to transfer the donations to the trust. But so far, the family said, they have remained noncommittal. Those handling the gofundme.com site did not reply to a message from NBC News sent through the donation site.

Victoria Albright, who manages the site, responded to skeptics in an online post: “I will see that these funds are never manipulated, or land in the wrong hands. This is ALL about Farrah and her recovery. Promise!”

“We’re not saying they’re thieves,” Marty Soudani said, “but they’re not working with the family.”

Soudani isn’t alone in being wary of outsiders’ zeal to raise money.

Ken Berger — president and CEO of Charity Navigator, a non-profit charity watchdog group — told NBC’s Technolog that he advises caution.

"Disasters are a time when people run into a situation where they, to some degree, are flying blind because the charities they know — the ones they typically give to — may not be providing services in the area,” Berger said. “So it's a time that scammers are likely to prey on people.”

Anticipating this, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper encouraged people to give through GivingFirst.org, which raised nearly $2 million by Thursday. There, donors can choose a specific nonprofit – Aurora Mental Health Center or Denver Center for Crime Victims, for example – or ask that their money go wherever deemed necessary. The University of Colorado Hospital Foundation has also solicited donations for a 7/20 Victims Fund to help cover the care of those shot in the early hours of July 20.

Still, for those whose loved ones remain hospitalized, their bills soaring, raising money through sites such as PayPal or wepay.com has immediate appeal. A fund for Caleb Medley, who was in a medically induced coma while his wife gave birth to their son, Hugo, had $330,000 by Thursday evening. Medley does not have health insurance, according to the site.

The site says Medley and his wife “need help covering their medical bills (which will no doubt be in the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars), cost of living, baby supplies, and maybe even a college fund for Hugo! They need our help!”

But officials warn that a significant influx of cash could mean the victims are no longer eligible for certain social services, such as Medicaid, which covers long-term care for low-income people.   

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“If you give to an individual, it’s not tax deductible and it can affect the long-term security of those folks,” said Dana Rinderknecht, manager of online giving at GivingFirst.org. “They can lose some services.”

Rachel Reiter, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, emphasized that Medicaid is determined on a case-by-case basis but said income is one of the factors considered.

Reiter said state workers are helping families figure out if they qualify for aid, particularly if they have long-term needs. Medicaid helps to cover the medical care of families, children, pregnant women and people with disabilities -- particularly those with long-term care needs.  

“Giving through a nonprofit is strongly encouraged,” Reiter said in an e-mail. “For individuals who are disabled, excess funds may be placed in a Disability Trust and the funds would not be counted against the individual. We have staff working with the hospitals and families where this may be an option.”

Christine Handel, a Soudani family friend who helped to create the trust site, described raising money in the wake of such a tragedy as “navigating a minefield.”

“There’s no road map for this when these things happen,” Handel said. “It’s not that people have bad intentions – they don’t have knowledge. We don’t want Farrah to worry about tax season next year. She needs to go to her appointments and see her doctors and get better.”  

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Cary Feldman says it was unpleasant enough to be knocked off his motor scooter at an intersection in Chicago Heights, Ill., by the car behind him. But what added insult to his injuries was the $200 bill that came in the mail a few months later – for the fire truck response.

“It was astounding. I thought I was living in North Korea. I had the audacity to fall on their pavement,” said the 72-year-old retired clinical psychologist, who lives in nearby Matteson, Ill.

Feldman tried unsuccessfully to get Chicago Heights officials to rescind the fee stemming from the June 2010 accident, in which he says the other motorist was deemed at fault and there was never any need for a fire truck to respond along with police and an ambulance. When he couldn’t get the other party’s insurance company to cover the bill, Feldman wound up paying it out of pocket.

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“If you’re the victim of somebody else’s negligence, why should you have to pay? It’s crazy to me,” he says.

Citizens and insurance companies cite stories like Feldman’s in their intensifying crusade against so-called “accident response fees,” also known as “crash taxes.” Cash-strapped municipalities and cities across the U.S. started imposing such fees around 2006-07, when the U.S. economy started to falter, to raise money to help fund local police and fire departments.

Some local governments have since done an about-face and voted to rescind the fees, saying it’s given their city a black eye.

The city council in Oceanside, Calif., for example, last year voted to repeal the crash tax it charged to out-of-town drivers who get into car crashes that require emergency help from city paramedics.

"We're talking about a program that hasn't worked, that isn't successful and has hurt us," Councilman Jerry Kern said at the time. "I think for PR (public relations) alone, we should drop this program and tell people we welcome them to this city."

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According to the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, municipalities in as many as 34 states charge accident response fees or are considering ordinances to allow them. Thirteen states prohibit such fees.

Municipalities often contract with a third-party vendor to collect the fees, which vary widely but are typically a few hundred dollars. Some local governments charge for police response to car crashes, some for fire response. Some target the fees only at out-of-town drivers.

The fees are usually billed to a motorist’s insurance company. In some cases, like Feldman’s, a collection agency winds up trying to collect from the individual.

The NAMIC is among the insurance organizations that vigorously oppose such fees. Joe Thesing, assistant vice president-state affairs with NAMIC, says most auto insurance policies don’t cover non-medical accident response and thus won’t pay the fee. The result, he says, is that municipalities wind up collecting only a fraction of what they’re billing for.

“These fees are a form of double taxation applied only to responsible citizens who follow state law and carry auto insurance,” Thesing says. “It’s our belief that responding to investigative accidents is a function of police and fire departments supported by local taxes.”

Thesing contends third-party vendors have been “duping” municipalities into thinking that the insurance industry is the “cash cow” they can use to prop up their ailing budgets.

Have you ever had to pay 'crash tax' fees? Join the discussion on Facebook

One of the largest such vendors is Cost Recovery Corp. of Dayton, Ohio, a collection agency that has contracts with hundreds of municipalities in 16 states. Its president, Regina Moore Jones, disputes Thesing’s contention that “responsible” drivers are being hit with unfair bills.

“We never bill for an ‘accident.’ There has to be some sort of negligence. There’s never a victim that’s ever assessed a fee. Only a negligent party and their insurance provider receive a bill,” Moore Jones told msnbc.com.

She said negligent drivers – not taxpayers – should rightfully foot the bill for police or fire response to car crashes.

“Tax dollars should be used for core services.  Core services do not include subsidizing for negligence,” Moore Jones said. “Is it popular with insurance? Absolutely not.”

Thesing says more local governments are shying away from such fees as they learn more about  the insurance process and as a result of negative publicity.

In the past five or six years, at least 40 municipalities have rescinded or voted down accident response fee ordinances, according to Thesing. That includes New York, the nation’s most populous city, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg last year dropped plans to charge motorists involved in accidents as much as $495 for emergency-response services. The proposal was shelved following an outcry of opposition from citizens, city council members and others. 

“The Fire Department doesn't charge for its response to structural fires, and the Police Department doesn't charge for patrolling a block," City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said at the time. "Charging for responding to the scene of an accident is a slippery slope, and I don't want to see us begin to go down that road out of a desperate desire to find sources of revenue."

Carol L. Schlitt, a New York personal injury attorney, said the Bloomberg administration's idea was wrongheaded from the start.

“These are basic government functions that the government is supposed to provide to its citizenry,” she told msnbc.com. “The reason we have government is to provide services for the common good. When you impose these types of fees or taxes it is a destruction of the communal bond.”

For Feldman, the $200 bill he wound up paying hurt more than the cuts and bruises he sustained in the scooter accident. He got an insurance settlement for the damaged bike, but never got relief for the first-responder fee.

“This is not acceptable to me. You have to come up with another way (of raising revenue) without exploiting people,” he said.

“I don’t go back to Chicago Heights anymore. I’ve told everybody I know, ‘Stay away, they’re going to find some way to get money from you.’”

Chicago Heights Mayor David Gonzalez did not immediately return a call for comment.

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The Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio will drop health insurance coverage for students this fall rather than comply with a federal mandate that its plan provide free birth control.

University officials on Tuesday also cited rising insurance costs for their decision to end student health coverage.

“The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover ‘women’s health services’ including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),” according to a university statement. “Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.”

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“Additionally, the PPACA increased the mandated maximum coverage amount for student policies to $100,000 for the 2012-13 school year, which would effectively double your premium cost for the policy in fall 2012, with the expectation of further increases in the future,” the statement said.

The university will no longer require its undergraduates to carry insurance, according to the statement. "We didn't want to put them in a situation where they would have to violate their conscience," Michael Hernon, a vice president at Franciscan University, told Reuters.

Fewer than 200 students at the campus in southeast Ohio had been buying insurance from the university, Hernon told Reuters. Franciscan University has nearly 2,800 students.

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Earlier this year, the Franciscan was among 18 Catholic colleges in a letter-writing campaign, calling for President Barack Obama to change the government's mandate for religious institutions to offer preventative care services, including contraceptives. Churches and houses of worship are exempt from the rule. 

Several Catholic and evangelical Christian universities have challenged the contraceptive mandate in court. Those cases have not yet come to trial. Hernon told Reuters that the university is weighing a lawsuit.

With the new health insurance year set to start in August, however, administrators at Franciscan University chose not to wait for the court's ruling. In addition to the contraception mandate, they said they were concerned that premiums for the student plan would rise because the Affordable Care Act also mandates other specific services be covered.

So the bulletin advised students that they should begin to figure out their insurance plans.

"We encourage you to decide how you are going to provide for accidents or illnesses requiring visits to physicians, health clinics, or the hospital emergency room while you are a student here," the announcement said.

The university will maintain its health insurance plan for faculty, for now. That plan does not cover birth control. Hernon said administrators are "looking at all the options" as they decide how, or whether, to continue the plan in the future if the contraceptive mandate is upheld.

The university, which was founded 60 years ago to serve World War Two veterans, is ranked as one of the top-tier private colleges in the Midwest. It boasts on its website that its academics and culture are "grounded in a passionately Catholic faith tradition."

Msnbc.com's Sevil Omer and Reuters' Stephanie Simon contributed to this report.

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An insurance company said it should not have to pay claims or lawsuits stemming from a Christmas morning fire that killed five people in Connecticut because a contractor renovating the house misrepresented the type and scope of work he did.

Utica First Insurance Co. argues in a lawsuit filed this week in New York that Michael Borcina misrepresented the number of employees with his company, Tiberias Construction, its sales and payroll, and size and type of work performed. The company says if it knew the facts, it would not have issued coverage.

The fire in Stamford, Conn., blamed on discarded fireplace ashes, killed 9-year-old Lily and 7-year-old twins Sarah and Grace Badger, and their grandparents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson.

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The lawsuit says those who could be affected include the girls' parents, Madonna and Matthew Badger; Madonna's brother, Wade Johnson, and the estates of the victims. The Badgers are divorced.

Read the latest on NBCNewYork.com's coverage of the fatal fire

"We are very disappointed that Tiberias Construction's insurance company is trying to get out from under its legal obligations," said David Grudberg, Borcina's attorney.

Authorities have said Borcina, who escaped the blaze, is believed to have placed the ashes in or outside an entryway, near the trash. Borcina and Madonna Badger are friends.

Richard Emery, Matthew Badger's attorney, said he has to examine the insurer's claim.

"But at first blush it certainly seems that the insurance company is trying to wiggle out of their responsibility to compensate Borcina's victims," Emery said.

Emery said he was considering a lawsuit against Borcina "and a lot of other people that we believe are responsible for what occurred."

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Stan Twardy, attorney for Madonna Badger, declined to comment, saying he hadn't seen the lawsuit. A message was left with an attorney for the insurance company.

The insurer says its rules for acceptable types of businesses and risks for which it provides insurance specifies limits on the number of employees, sales, payroll and type of work.

Matthew Badger has started a project that supports underfunded elementary school arts programs in memory of his daughters.

"Nothing is going to bring them back, but perhaps their memory can be perpetuated effectively if the foundation that Matthew Badger has started is properly supported," Emery said.

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Since the death of Canadian skier Sarah Burke in January, fans and supporters from around the world have donated over $300,000 – more than enough to cover the massive U.S. medical bill generated by efforts to save her.

The outpouring of grief for Burke and the influx of funds are a tribute to a young woman who was a pioneer and legend in her sport. The need for a fundraiser — to help her grieving family avert bankruptcy — was viewed by some Canadians and U.S. observers as a condemnation of the U.S. health care system.

"The irony is that had the accident occurred in Canada… her care would have been covered because, unlike the U.S., Canada has a system of universal coverage," wrote Wendell Potter, an insurance executive-turned-whistleblower who writes for iWatch at the Center for Public Integrity. "No one in Canada finds themselves in that predicament, nor do they face losing their homes as many Americans do when they become critically ill or suffer an injury..."

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Burke, who died at 29, was on skis by age five, and pursuing a professional skiing career before she left high school. She pioneered women’s halfpipe skiing and was instrumental in getting the event included in the X-Games, according to a profile in Sportsnet magazine of Canada.

 
UPDATE: Why are fans paying medical bills for a world-class skier?

"She was to freeskiing what Wayne Gretzky was to hockey or Michael Jordan was to basketball — the iconic face of a sport,” wrote Sportsnet reporter Dan Robson. "She built her world by conquering limits, both on the hill and off it."

After Burke’s crash while training on the Eagle Superpipe at Park City Mountain Resort in Utah on Jan. 10, doctors fought to save her for nine days. She died Jan. 19, from a torn vertebral artery in her neck that caused bleeding in her brain.

Burke’s contribution to sport — not to mention her youth, beauty, charisma and fame — has no doubt helped the effort to generate donations to cover an operation, countless tests, care and hospitalization. The fundraising page on GiveForward.com late Monday showed that $302,535 had been raised. Burke’s publicist said that medical costs were expected to be about $200,000.

The fundraising page said that future contributions would go to a foundation “to honor Sarah's legacy and promote the ideals she valued and embodied."

The loss of Sarah Burke is no less painful for her loved ones, but with medical care covered through donations, the aftermath will not bring them additional hardship.

For many Americans, the hardship persists.

On Monday, Potter pointed to the plight of a 13-year-old Caroline Richmond on life support in Alabama after collapsing from a stroke, which turned out to be caused by leukemia. Her self-employed parents do not have health coverage.

“As it turns out, Caroline is one of more than 50 million men, women and children who do not have health insurance in the United States, which is why her family is in the same predicament as Sarah Burke’s,” Potter wrote.

The community has launched a multi-pronged effort to raise money to cover mounting medical costs for Carolyn — car washes, a bake sale, a fish fry and so on — but like most people who have life threatening medical conditions, she is not famous.

An estimated 700,000 American families file for bankruptcy every year because of medical debt, Potter said.

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Remember the guy who drove that million-dollar car into a Texas swamp a couple of years ago? A jury will have to decide whether he was trying to scam an insurance company to double his money on it.

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This video of the incident on YouTube has drawn more than 2.6 million people eager to watch Andy House, an auto dealer in Lufkin, Texas, drive the $1 million French-built Bugatti Veyron — one of only 300 ever made — into a lagoon in LaMarque, near Galveston, in November 2009:

Since then, the insurance company, Philadelphia Indemnity of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., has sued, claiming insurance fraud, and the federal magistrate's judge hearing the suit has decided he's not qualified to sort out the "quizzical factual circumstances" in the bizarre case.

The insurance company claims House borrowed $1 million from a friend to buy the car and then bought insurance on it as a collector's vehicle, valuing it at more than $2 million. It says he drove it into the swamp to collect the insurance, which was supposed to go to the friend who lent him the purchase money.

(That man, Lloyd Gillespie, is also a defendant in the suit, which you can read here in .pdf form.) 

House says he swerved off the road to avoid hitting a pelican, but the insurance company says there's no pelican in the video. Plus, it says it went to the scene and found no skid marks, and it further alleges that House "left the vehicle running for over fifteen minutes while it was submerged until it died on its own causing unnecessary damage to the vehicle's engine."

Both sides asked Judge John R. Froeschner to dismiss the case in their favor on Nov. 10, but he refused in an order filed last week (.pdf).

"In the humble opinion of this court, this case involves quizzical factual circumstances that compel credibility determinations which this court may not make at the summary judgment stage," he wrote.

No date was set for the trial.