Home Insurance

[salmonchaser]

No question about listening in. Last year Catherine and I were dragging the airstream through the south west. Ended up in Texas. Having presented the first active shooter protocol in the Seattle area following Columbine and spending most of my career teaching active shooter response, I have taken the failure at Uvalde personal. Catherine plugged the memorial into her phone, I said something about seeing the school as well. Computer took us off the highway through a series of narrow residential streets and we ended up at the back of the school.
I tend to say a lot of stuff about politics when Im driving. I’ m pretty certain the Secret Service will not let me close enough to Biden or Trump to piss on either one of them if they were on fire.

 

[TackDriver284]

TBH, insurance companies are all frauds, whether home, auto, life, health, etc. I had the best health insurance which was BlueCross Blue Shield, we had the PPO SelectSaver plan which is the best out there for 23 years, they sent me a letter in November 2024 and that they are cutting my PPO, not only mine, but others as well who are self employed. On top of that, I was paying premiums of 962 a month just for my wife and I. It's freaking absurd and i need to meet a 5k deductible each before BCBS kicks in their 75% coverage. When I first had it 23 years ago, i was paying 200 something a month if I could remember, but each year the last 6 years, it went up 100 bucks or so a month. I had to find other insurance for my wife and I at a lower cost before the end of the year, we did not want to be left without health insurance. My previous doctor I had only takes PPO, and I lost him as a result, had to find a new doctor who takes HMO and the new doctor does not know all my medical history. BCBS only offers PPO to big employers who have employees and must be LLC, compared to small self employed people like us.
2nd of all, auto insurance is a bunch of BS, we had Farmer's Insurance, full coverage for two vehicles which was brand new, an Expedition Eddie Bower and a fully loaded Duramax 4x4 crew cab,,,shortly after we had a severe hailstorm, that pounded our area very bad with baseball sized hail which shattered windows, my boat windshield, and both vehicles as well, destroyed every single panel on the SUV and truck with bad hail dents including the hood and tops, including shattered side windows and leather interior and carpet was soaking wet . We made a claim, and the insurance adjuster came to make an inventory of damages,,,taking pictures and notes. He told me that he will have all the repairs done to the panels and hoods of both vehicles, and I said " hold up, what repairs"? He says " oh, we will patch them all up". I am like BS, I paid high premiums for full coverage for both cars, my boat, my house and you tell me you gonna slap some !@#$ Bondo on those dings? I said that he was so full of shit, and I said I do NOT want you to patch nothing up, I paid for full coverage, and those vehicles are brand new and patching them up will affect our resale value, because the dealers will check the body density with meters and say, Oh, you won't get much value for this vehicle, etc during trade ins in the future. I had to argue with the top in commands at Farmer's Insurance, finally they gave in to my demands and sent us checks in the mail to send the SUV and truck to the dealers to have all panels, tops, hoods removed and "replaced" , not slapped with Bondo. All carpets, mats, leather interior, upholstery, door panels, switches was replaced as well. 3rd of all, make sure what coverage your insurance companies will do before you take them in. I could understand why the CEO of United Healthcare was gunned down by a United Healthcare client,,,,he probably was so frustrated with the insurance giant not honoring the coverage for that person / family, I don't know the whole story, but I hope Trump puts all those insurance companies on a leash and set them straight and help the American people instead of lining up their pockets with client's hard earned money.
By the way, the insurance companies we previously had lost me as reliable customer who was never late for payments and I'm better off with our new insurance companies, but that don't mean I'm happy with them until they straighten their shit out.

P.S. Sorry guys for the rants, but it hit us hard and anyone in my shoes will do the same.

 

[Dr. Vette]

This was the second kick in the teeth that was included. The renewal has 2 separate deductibles $1000 and a $2500 for wind/hail damage.

I wish we could get those!

Several years ago State Farm silently changed from a $ deductible to making it 10% of the value of your house. That means the first many of thousands are out of pocket, no matter what. We didn't find out until we had an issue on our former house. Thankfully it wasn't a big cost in the end.

 

[salmonchaser]

You can't expect Trump to do anything about insurance, my guess is it will go the other way.

 

[Bruce Mc]

Insurance is regulated by state government and the insurance biz has a powerful lobby. I think federal regulation of insurance would create an additional bureaucratic monster.

 

[bkordon]

I wish we could get those!

Several years ago State Farm silently changed from a $ deductible to making it 10% of the value of your house. That means the first many of thousands are out of pocket, no matter what. We didn't find out until we had an issue on our former house. Thankfully it wasn't a big cost in the end.

10% is outrageous. They should have written you a check back for the years of premiums. But hey, "you might need fire insurance", says the guy off the street scoping out your place.

 

[RL338]

I can't get on-X to work properly

I know a few people that have it , either they swear by it or swear at it.

 

[clearwater]

I was taught in grade school that insurance was started by farmers who had to float their crops down river to market and there was a good chance a boat might flip. So they banded together and shared the risk. If one boat went over, the crops on the other boats were shared with that person.

Now there are several layers of people who get paid to sell, examine risk, advertise. Then share holders that have to get a profit.

And they don't have the same kind of skin in the game as the insured. Not sure how to do it better.

 

[gerryaz]

Last summer Oregon burned off 2million acres of mostly rural farm, ranch and timber land. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but as I recall there were not too many homes destroyed. For those who lost homes it was of course catastrophic. There were plenty of examples of burcratic nightmares that boiled down to “I’m well educated in fire fighting” you’re just a farmer and we saved your house kind of thing. Most of the folks we know would have been better served if those educated fire bosses would have saved the machine sheds and hay stacks. The state responded by publishing a wildfire risk map and codifying into law, ORS 477.490 what you as a home owner must do to protect your property from wildfire if you’re in the higher risk areas. Kinda makes sense other than it was a gimme to the insurance companies.
There are three hazard levels, Low, Moderate and High. Our property is in the moderate area, the boundary to a low risk area is our south property line and our west property line. Our first call to the state did provide some useful information regarding how the boundaries were set. Google earth shows lots of trees I was told. No, no boots on the ground, no we didn’t consider you have two streams, no we didn’t take into account your property has been actively managed to reduce wild fire hazard, “ but you don’t have to manage because you’re not in the higher risk areas with wild land interface”. No we didn’t take into account you have a city fire hydrant, “you’re in the county how did you get a City fire hydrant?” City needed an easement for a water line to serve part of their growth boundary, a win-win kind of thing. I even tried calling around, including checking the National General Insurance phone number, but still got no answers. “So how do I challenge this arbitrary boundary setting?” “I don’t know, but don’t worry, the insurance companies are not to use this map for rate setting.”
Our insurance guy is honest. We dropped by his office and found him with a list on his desk of folks like us who are on the edges of these boundaries. He had already been advised by the insurance underwriters they were aware of “the map” . He is working with the state and the underwriters to find ways to improve his clients position with underwriting.
Can’t wait for renewal time.

The state wildfire map was made without on-the-ground verification and it ignores real conditions like your streams, fire hydrant, and active land management. You’ve been placed in a higher risk zone based on satellite imagery and assumptions, not facts. There’s currently no clear way to challenge the designation and even though the state says insurers won’t use the map, your agent has already seen otherwise. It’s a bureaucratic mess that shifts the burden to responsible landowners like you while giving insurance companies a tool they were supposedly not going to use.