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@larryB OMG on me !!! Yes, The Peter Principle. I was writing an email to another about the world of business management in the way back days and had a copy/paste set that found its way into my post. Thank you for your keen eye. I've adjusted my post.
I get ads/mail from Duke energy monthly to get insurance to cover from the house to the street. I ignore them, house is 23yrs old. I never heard of many problems. How common is it to have problems from the house to the street. Crap, I have a river birch right above my water meter but the lines (water/sewer) run pretty deep in the ground. 5-10' deep.
@Derf- yes, one plumber sent a video snake through the under the house and we could clearly see the ragged edge of the defective pipe casting. I can't remember exactly, but it might have been in a cast iron fitting in the line rather that the pipe itself.
Had a similar problem in our old house in Novato that is no older than I am.. Local practices, local suppliers, I guess.
For a number of years now, my home and auto insurance are with separate companies. I could not get them to be cheaper with the same company and with multi-policy discount. In any case, at renewal time of my home owners' I tried to get an umbrella from the home owners' company and I was told that car insurance and not home insurance is used as a base for writing umbrella because car is the biggest source of additional (unanticipated) liability, and as such I should ask the car insurance company to underwrite the umbrella or I can just buy a separate umbrella policy without any connection to the car or home insurance. I have not independently verified the accuracy of the above.
I just ended up increasing the liability in the home insurance to the max allowed in there.
The "usual suspects" in insurance do seem to require you to have an auto policy with them before they will sell you an umbrella policy. Try working with an independent agent. They are familiar with a variety of lesser known but still solid companies.
I used our building's insurance agent to find a better homeowner's policy. They also priced out an umbrella policy (coupled with the homeowner's policy). They got a good price for each, and I've been using them for about 3 years. They couldn't beat the price I was getting on auto, so I stayed where I was for that policy.
Since my agent's company handles east coast policies, I can't recommend them to you. I'm sure you can find good agents where you are.
We can add property tax to this list of auto/home insurance costs. With home prices skyrocketing the last couple years assessments are also going up quite a bit. I might get a 10%+ property tax increase this year. Not looking forward to the coming tax bill.
"Several major insurers have limited or stopped writing new homeowners policies in California due to wildfire risk and rising costs. This includes State Farm, Allstate, Farmers, USAA, Travelers, Nationwide, and Chubb."
This probably limits policy churn severely. P&C insurance agency is probably a highly appreciated business in CA. Limited work with limited policy churn and static or semi-static income? I think we have an ex-insurance industry professional in the forum who perhaps can comment.
Former insurance agency owner here. Limited churn works both ways. We worked really hard at retention and caught business that left agents who didn’t take care of their clients. The independent agent who handles our insurance is not thrilled with the current situation. And the trend may be to eliminate agents all together. Or at least lower commission structures. Glad to be done with all that.
Thanks, @larryB. I had not considered the possibility that the insurance companies may eliminate the agents if all the companies are doing is renew existing policies and not write new policies.
Another current situation my agent told me about. I asked her to write a homeowner policy for my daughter who had a policy with a company leaving California. She was able to wire it with a top company but was only able to write one new business policy each week. So we had to wait three weeks before she could write it. Hardly a great situation for her agency.
So the original story line was that insurance companies had to jack up all their rates across the board in order to pay for their coverage of catastrophic losses due to wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and so forth. Now that they will no longer be writing policies in those areas most prone to these types of events can we expect the rates will go down in areas they still think it's okay to provide coverage (steal from/gouge)?
Ouch, just got my insurance policies auto +5% home +28% umbrella +3%
28%!!!! WTH!!! I did have a roofing claim a couple years ago. I had a local broker research all my policies about 5 years ago. Saved me about 1k/yr. I think next year it's time to review all policies again.
I waited too long and I'm a bit lazy. I like the companies I'm with now so I'll let it ride until next year. I've read most claims stay on your record for 5 years so I'll wait until I'm out of the 5 year window. I have no problems changing to a good company. I stayed with one company for many many years until I realized we're just numbers to them.
same here. longtime insurance company 'forgot' to lower premiums for roof (that they paid for!) and a surprise lowered home value (2024 vs 2023) assessment. that being said, amica treated us well for ~3 decades because we had a family friend that (used to) manage our coverage.
Good to see insurance premiums is getting a lot of attention. Hopefully, we as a country will find soon a solution to this chaos.
On a different thread we discussed how insurance companies charge higher home insurance premiums if they perceive the homeowner may have personal risky behavior. Many forum members own their homes outright or have very little LTV, which I would consider a very low risk pool. Not sure why these forum members had yearly increases in premium of 20-55%. Only the insurance companies seem to know what they are doing.
All. Just below the first large map is a 'comments' box with the number '600'. Very interesting comments and the article writer replies; providing a lot of background into his methods and discoveries when contacting folks for more information.
My auto/home insurance is up for renewal in a few days/weeks respectively. Premiums increased significantly over the past two years. I decided to obtain insurance quotes since I haven't shopped for coverage in several years.
I discovered several highly-rated firms don't sell insurance in my state of residence (Washington): 1) NJM 2) Erie 3) Auto-Owners 4) Farm Bureau Property & Casualty
I can not obtain auto insurance from the following carriers since two claims were filed to repair windshield "rock chips." The windshield was not replaced and this cost only $50 - $100 per occurrence.
1) American Family 2) Pemco
State Farm is my current insurance carrier. I contacted Amica and received a bundled quote which was ~$115 more. Home insurance only from American Family was ~$60 more with slightly decreased coverage.
An independent insurance agent was also engaged. The agent provided a bundled quote from Travelers which was ~$465 more. Their quote for home insurance only (from Allstate) was ~$975 more! Auto insurance combined with umbrella insurance from Progressive was ~$50 less.
Although my premiums increased significantly over the past two years, I didn't find any highly-rated insurers with lower total costs in the current marketplace. I may engage another independent insurance agent to seek better deals.
Was the Amica quote for a dividend-paying or non-dividend policy?
We have dividend-paying policies with Amica - the cost is higher upfront but after our 20% dividend for auto/umbrella and 25% for homeowners, our bottom line is lower than any other company.
I engaged a second independent insurance agent yesterday but their options were unappealing. The Amica quote referenced above includes dividends. State Farm had the lowest total cost followed by Amica. I decided to remain with State Farm.
Comments
Thank you for your keen eye. I've adjusted my post.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/opinion/inflation-data-economy.html
For a number of years now, my home and auto insurance are with separate companies. I could not get them to be cheaper with the same company and with multi-policy discount. In any case, at renewal time of my home owners' I tried to get an umbrella from the home owners' company and I was told that car insurance and not home insurance is used as a base for writing umbrella because car is the biggest source of additional (unanticipated) liability, and as such I should ask the car insurance company to underwrite the umbrella or I can just buy a separate umbrella policy without any connection to the car or home insurance. I have not independently verified the accuracy of the above.
I just ended up increasing the liability in the home insurance to the max allowed in there.
I used our building's insurance agent to find a better homeowner's policy. They also priced out an umbrella policy (coupled with the homeowner's policy). They got a good price for each, and I've been using them for about 3 years. They couldn't beat the price I was getting on auto, so I stayed where I was for that policy.
Since my agent's company handles east coast policies, I can't recommend them to you. I'm sure you can find good agents where you are.
This probably limits policy churn severely. P&C insurance agency is probably a highly appreciated business in CA. Limited work with limited policy churn and static or semi-static income? I think we have an ex-insurance industry professional in the forum who perhaps can comment.
Yeah sure. You betcha!
auto +5%
home +28%
umbrella +3%
28%!!!! WTH!!! I did have a roofing claim a couple years ago. I had a local broker research all my policies about 5 years ago. Saved me about 1k/yr. I think next year it's time to review all policies again.
longtime insurance company 'forgot' to lower premiums for roof (that they paid for!) and a surprise lowered home value (2024 vs 2023) assessment. that being said, amica treated us well for ~3 decades because we had a family friend that (used to) manage our coverage.
Home Insurance Rates in America Are Wildly Distorted. Here’s Why.
Good to see insurance premiums is getting a lot of attention. Hopefully, we as a country will find soon a solution to this chaos.
On a different thread we discussed how insurance companies charge higher home insurance premiums if they perceive the homeowner may have personal risky behavior. Many forum members own their homes outright or have very little LTV, which I would consider a very low risk pool. Not sure why these forum members had yearly increases in premium of 20-55%. Only the insurance companies seem to know what they are doing.
Just below the first large map is a 'comments' box with the number '600'. Very interesting comments and the article writer replies; providing a lot of background into his methods and discoveries when contacting folks for more information.
Premiums increased significantly over the past two years.
I decided to obtain insurance quotes since I haven't shopped for coverage in several years.
I discovered several highly-rated firms don't sell insurance in my state of residence (Washington):
1) NJM
2) Erie
3) Auto-Owners
4) Farm Bureau Property & Casualty
I can not obtain auto insurance from the following carriers since two claims were filed to repair
windshield "rock chips." The windshield was not replaced and this cost only $50 - $100 per occurrence.
1) American Family
2) Pemco
State Farm is my current insurance carrier.
I contacted Amica and received a bundled quote which was ~$115 more.
Home insurance only from American Family was ~$60 more with slightly decreased coverage.
An independent insurance agent was also engaged.
The agent provided a bundled quote from Travelers which was ~$465 more.
Their quote for home insurance only (from Allstate) was ~$975 more!
Auto insurance combined with umbrella insurance from Progressive was ~$50 less.
Although my premiums increased significantly over the past two years,
I didn't find any highly-rated insurers with lower total costs in the current marketplace.
I may engage another independent insurance agent to seek better deals.
Was the Amica quote for a dividend-paying or non-dividend policy?
We have dividend-paying policies with Amica - the cost is higher upfront but after our 20% dividend for auto/umbrella and 25% for homeowners, our bottom line is lower than any other company.
I engaged a second independent insurance agent yesterday but their options were unappealing.
The Amica quote referenced above includes dividends.
State Farm had the lowest total cost followed by Amica.
I decided to remain with State Farm.