I know this has been talked about here before but just bears repeating. So had some shingle roof damage after a significant wind storm. Thought to myself. I am going to talk to state farm. The local office is closed about as often as it is open.
She says let me look up your policy. Ok. Your deductible is $4500. Gee thanks. What a joke.

Not sure why the deductible that you agreed to and that is factored into the premiums you are paying makes homeowner's insurance a ripoff?

Yeah, you bought the policy. You knew what all the charges were, before you accepted and signed. The time to bitch is before, not after the fact. And, don’t take that as my support for insurance companies. I despise them.

Oh, the other homeowner's tax...

I accept the criticism. But, I am guessing 90% here would feel the same way if tomorrow they had a situation and went to their agent and discussed filing a claim. It is a racquet and a scam. Ymmv

You want to talk about a scam. About a year ago we had to get a new homeowner's policy on a second home we own in Savannah, GA. Two companies denied writing a policy because we had filed a claim on our primary residency in Wisconsin within the previous 3 years, despite never having filed any claim on the GA property. That is basically saying, since you are the kind of person who expects to actually use the policy we sold you, we're not interested in doing business with you.

Does your insurance agent drive a better car than you?

bigwagon that happened with me as well. I had a claim in our main house when a water line under the kitchen sink failed flooding the floor while we were at work, requiring the hardwood flooring to be replaced just in that room.

3 years later, after that house had been sold, I was shopping different insurance companies to quote on the house I live in now. But they refused to quote since I had that prior claim even though it was in a different house. It was the only homeowners claim I ever made in 45 years of owning homes.

I've had the same policy with State Farm for 31 years. I finally used it once two years ago to reshingle the roof. I didn't pay one penny, I did pay for the new gutters and down spouts.
I'm with the third agent I've never met, she calls me a couple times a year and wants to talk.
Premiums keep going up, I thought what if I canceled it and took the risk, but with my luck my house would burn down the next week.

In Florida I believe we have a 2% hurricane deductible. So my house is worth $750,000, I have to cover the first $15,000 in damages before they give me a penny.

So basically, the story is don't use insurance unless the house is gone? Otherwise your premiums go up and/or you can't get new insurance?

If so, what a scam.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
It is a racquet and a scam. Ymmv

Well, the ball's in your court.

We used to have a really excellent State Farm agent, but he retired almost 10 years ago now. Now we have to deal with some unknown persons on the internet.

When we had water damage from a faulty filter that failed while we were away, they nickel and dimed every single thing. Their hired forensic engineer clearly showed the fault in the filter, and had seen several others by the same brand with the same failure, shortly after installation.

Somehow, State Farm was unable to get the manufacturer to cover our deductible, which was sizable. Their lawyers, however, did get paid.

I've been a homeowner in US for 24 of last 26 years. I've had my current insurance company at 5 homes in 4 US states as well as 1 rental in Canada. Zero homeowner claims the entire time.

I have always had multiple policies with my insurer (e.g. home, auto, and motorcycle). When I moved back to US from Canada:

Current insurance company and insurer for 20+ of those years treated me like I had been uninsured for 2 years for auto, and tried to gouge me. The agent understood what I was telling him, but insurer's policies would not allow consideration for having them in Canada for the two years. I had to insure with someone else for 2 years before they'd give me a reasonable rate.

I have a mortgage so I'm obligated by contract with lender to have homeowner's insurance.

My home has their version of the standard Texas Dept. of Insurance HO-B (i.e. all peril coverage for dwelling and named peril for personal belongings. It's 100% replacement cost minus deductible) with amendments (e.g. water back-up).

Last spring, I filed my first ever homeowner's claim for hail damage on entire roof. I'm the one who bought the policy with a deductible at 2% of home's value so I knew I'd pay a large portion of the replacement roof for what was a 7.9 year old roof at time of damage. I've done the standard dance with the adjuster, hired a public adjuster {i.e. where the thread ended}, invoked appraisal, and have had to resort to hiring an attorney.

In other words, the 20+ years of paying them a premium has been a rip-off:

In the base case - whenever a consumer is obligated by gov't or 3rd party (e.g. mortgage lender) to have insurance, the consumer is going to get screwed on premium prices

In my specific case - They're in the deny, defer, defend mode.

---

Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity

DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
I accept the criticism. But, I am guessing 90% here would feel the same way if tomorrow they had a situation and went to their agent and discussed filing a claim. It is a racquet and a scam. Ymmv

Yes, and no.
In one way, I agree... it's a scam. The insurance company always comes out ahead because if they don't, they raise the premium enough in the future to make up for it. And they keep raising premiums on good customers until they leave for another company.

But on the other hand, insurance should only be for large losses, like when your house burns down. That keeps it affordable. If every roof is paid for by an insurance company that only raises premiums and increases the cost of roofing.

I, like many here, can relate with many horror stories about insurance companies but I’d be preaching to the choir, I’m sure.

A few years before Rush died he did an episode on the horrendous insurance quotes he was given on his waterfront estate in Florida ( I think the house sold for well over $100 million after his passing.
He did an analysis and concluded that if he just put that money aside in 10 years he would have saved enough to cover any damage that he was likely to encounter…
Granted he was wealthier than any of us here but it does give one pause and perhaps if you don’t have a mortgage and are not adverse to risk it might be worth it…

quote:

A few years before Rush died he did an episode on the horrendous insurance quotes he was given on his waterfront estate in Florida ( I think the house sold for well over $100 million after his passing.
He did an analysis and concluded that if he just put that money aside in 10 years he would have saved enough to cover any damage that he was likely to encounter…
Granted he was wealthier than any of us here but it does give one pause and perhaps if you don’t have a mortgage and are not adverse to risk it might be worth it…

For Rush this probably would have been the way to go. Being beach front he's likely to suffer a hurricane, but as long as it's not more than once every 10 years he comes out ahead.

I've thought about doing the same...
I've lived in the same house since 1996 and I've never filed a homeowners claim. I bought my own roof...

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:

Well, the ball's in your court.

Well played, sir.

In my neighborhood, several homeowners are ripping off the insurance company. They are getting all new roofing and siding for some hail storm we supposedly had. The same contractor is doing the work and when he wanted me to let him inspect my house for damage, I told him to take a hike.

You don’t have to be Rush. 2005 or so the flood and wind on my $300k waterfront home was $10k a year. Most of the $300k value was not the 1974 built home. Paid off my HELOC and haven’t paid insurance since. Lost a 4’ piece of PVC fence and a 12’ piece of aluminum fascia cover to Ian in 2022. That’s the extent of the damage I’ve since 2005. 2024’s Heleen and Milton came close to putting water in the house which could have been $100k in damage at which point we would have torn it down and built new.