Insurance cos. headaches

[dryheat]

My friends dad was an insurance agent. He said it's business that never goes out of business. But it's not all peaches and cream. Three big cos. have pulled out of California and a few including Farmers are leaving Florida.

My agent is a doll but you have to call when you get outside the door. She said, people are getting crazier and the police suggested a security system. People aren't happy sometimes with how their settlement went. And they like to sue.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/insurance/farmers-insurance-pulls-out-of-florida-affecting-100000-policyholders/ar-AA1dLu62

It's a short article.

[Allen]

Farmers wasn't very strong in Florida. The news said about 100,000 families would be affected so they were a very small %. However, more will follow soon, perhaps right after this upcoming hurricane season.

[barretcreek]

Called awhile ago and asked my insurance co why my rates have more than doubled.

Legalized pot.

[Allen]

Insurance companies only like to receive money. They dislike and fight having to pay claims. More often than not they only pay a portion of what repairs cost.

[dryheat]

A big wind storm blew my roof off. It was the only section of the house that we hadn't repainted. So the kitchen got fixed up, the roof was repaired and my deductible was $50. Then I painted the kitchen. The lady told me, you are the last person that will ever have a $50 deductible. This was in the 70's and of course everything was changing.

Legalized Pot? Do they assume ever one is getting stoned?

[barretcreek]

Do they assume ever one is getting stoned?[/QUOTE]

Yes. Gang of Four set out to flip CO blue and legal pot was step one. Accidents are sky rocketing.

[JohnMOhio]

For Arguments sake, I am going to take the middle ground and ask some questions for you all to answer to yourselves. First of all, when you purchased your policy, were you looking to save premium dollars or were you looking for better coverage. About the later, do you know what your homeowners covers, do you have the basic, middle or the best policy. When someone says the insurance company only pays a portion of the loss, that kind of tells me the insured did not have full replacement cost coverage on their policy. An example, you might be paying over $1,000 a year with a $500 deductible. You get an offer in the mail, that states they will insure you home for $360 a year. Don't you think that just doesn't sound right to you way of thinking. As a side note, when was the last time you asked for an appointment with your insurance agent to review your coverages?

That offer I mentioned above was one I received. After further investigation, the policy was a basic homeowners, with a $1,000 deductible. Did not provide certain coverages that were added to my top of the line policy etc etc. If you don't ask, all your thinking is your saving $700 a year or so. A claim comes along, you pay the $1,000 deductible along with the fact that your policy did not have replacement cost coverage. So there you have a $10,000 claim, minus $1,000 Ded. and lets say a $2,000 depreciation. You get a check for $7,000. That is provided your damage has happened in a manner that is listed on the policy as being a covered peril. Covered perils? For instance, a wind storm is listed, including a tornado. However a Hurricane could be excluded. Water damage could be included in a policy, shingles blown off, rain seeps in and damages the walls and possibly furniture. However, a flood is excluded. You have to purchase flood insurance. Know your policy. Read it, ask questions of your agent before you purchase it. Also every year or so as you see fit to do so, ask if there are anything new that the company came out with in coverage that can be added to your policy.

As for an insurance company not wanting to pay a claim. In reality, the insurance policy when you really think about it is a contract between you and the company. You pay a premium for what the insurance company is legally liable to pay for as stated in the policy. The insurance company is in business to sell coverage and pay for covered damages.

[Allen]

Some Ins co's do offer different grades of policies. Our ins policy mostly deals with deductibles. Ours is either $500 or $1000 which is pretty low.

The problem is: when a natural disaster hits like a hurricane EVERYBODY has roof damage. The ins co's send out an adjuster that looks at the sq footage and so forth. Then they give you an allowance to get the repairs done based upon everyday rates that roofing companies charge. During times like this the roofing contractors double or triple their labor and supplies have to be shipped in from many states away due to the demand of EVERYBODY having damage at once so a typical roofing job that may normally run $10k may now be $20-$30k---take it or leave it. If your roof is leaking and you get an opportunity to get it sealed you jump on it even though you are paying more for supplies and labor. The ins co's do NOT allow for this.

When I presented this situation to my ins co they gave me a list of contractors they recommended who would do the work within the $ they were allowing. This turned out to be friends, neighbors and relatives of my ins agent. When they came out they looked at the roof and wood damage and never responded back (none of them). During times of storm damage when so many homes are damaged they "pick and choose" the easy work. They only want to nail shingles.

I've considered getting an additional policy with a different co in order to at least get a reasonable settlement but figured it would end up being a "Mexican stand off" as to how much cost each one would try to get out of claiming it was up to the other co to pay up.

I could go on and on.

[JohnMOhio]

Allen, check your private messages.
John

[Allen]

Allen, check your private messages.
John

No new messages yet. Mailbox is not full.

[Johnny P]

Good when you are buying it, bad when you have to use it.

[Mark in Ottawa]

One thing to remember when buying insurance is that you have to buy enough to cover the full value of the building. If you don't, then you are considered to be a co-insurer. To explain: Consider a home worth $120,000 of which the land value is $20,000 and the building is valued at $100,000. If you buy $50,000 worth of insurance and end up having fire damage of $10,000, the insurance company will only give you $5,000. This is based on the premise that the insurance company insured 50% of the value of the building and you, as the owner, insured 50% of the value of the building, so each party is responsible for 50% of the damage or $5,000 each. The point here is that even if you have $50,000 worth of insurance you are not entitled to be reimbursed for 100% of the damage or $10,000