HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE - Page 2

Annabellethecat66 · ‎03-12-2010

@Kachina624 I know what you mean. Our deductible was $500. Lighning had hit our house (or tree) 2 other times.

The fire marshall came out and I said, "The insurance company suggested I put some lightning things on it". He laughed and said, "They need to come out and see that it would take a lot and how many trees are around your house."

They did ask that we raise the deductible to $1,000, I said, "We can do that". Ha!

You'd be surprised though it does get old eating out 3 meals every day. When I wanted a peanut butter/jelly sandwich I'd go to my daughter's house. We had our own room at the hotel.

My husband was bored so we decided to go to Houston, Texas because he'd never been there. We took our daughter. When we got back the hotel had changed rooms and moved our stuff to another room, placed everything just like before. Every day the bed was made, it was cleaned, etc.

Here's something funny. I collected material (I sewed). I had boxes and boxes of just pieces of material. Every piece was taken and cleaned. Can you imagine? I had over 90 pairs of shoes then, all had to be cleaned. Now I have way over 90, I can't imagine if it happened again.

My late husband was meticulous about record keeping. He kept every stub from eating out and about every 2 weeks submitted it for payment from the insurance company. At night the hotel always made milk and cookies for people there. They delivered them to our door. You can get used to it.

He traveled every 2 weeks down to Florida to property were were developing. I liked my alone time and I think he did too. We'd been married 38 wonderful years when he died suddenly. He was a wonderful man.

It seems the good do die young....

esmeraldagooch · ‎03-10-2010

We had a policy with a big named insurance company you see with agents in every town. When I moved to CA my car insurance skyrocketed. My friend said why not call her Internet based company which I did. They chopped the old company's rate in half and that was with no other policies with them, policies were identical. I recently purchased a home and got identical home insurance. I checked with my old 40 years with them company and the story was the same. HIGH. Got huge price cut with the internet company for exactly the same insurance policy. I guess I was paying for the old company's guy in the chair and his fancy office.

Kachina624 · ‎03-10-2010

@Annabellethecat66 What a wonderful husband your sweetie must have been. I'm sure living without him has been a difficult adjustment. There's so much you must learn to do for yourself that you never gave a though when he was alive.

I had a friend whose house was ruined by a broken pipe while they were away on vacation. They too were moved into a hotel by their insurance company. My friend got so bored she took over their kitchen and was making birthday cakes for the staff. She was a wonderful baker. I'm sure they were sad when she left.

New Mexico☀️Land Of Enchantment

Melania · ‎06-12-2013

@Annabellethecat66 wrote:
@Kachina624 I know what you mean. Our deductible was $500. Lighning had hit our house (or tree) 2 other times.

The fire marshall came out and I said, "The insurance company suggested I put some lightning things on it". He laughed and said, "They need to come out and see that it would take a lot and how many trees are around your house."

They did ask that we raise the deductible to $1,000, I said, "We can do that". Ha!

You'd be surprised though it does get old eating out 3 meals every day. When I wanted a peanut butter/jelly sandwich I'd go to my daughter's house. We had our own room at the hotel.

My husband was bored so we decided to go to Houston, Texas because he'd never been there. We took our daughter. When we got back the hotel had changed rooms and moved our stuff to another room, placed everything just like before. Every day the bed was made, it was cleaned, etc.

Here's something funny. I collected material (I sewed). I had boxes and boxes of just pieces of material. Every piece was taken and cleaned. Can you imagine? I had over 90 pairs of shoes then, all had to be cleaned. Now I have way over 90, I can't imagine if it happened again.

My late husband was meticulous about record keeping. He kept every stub from eating out and about every 2 weeks submitted it for payment from the insurance company. At night the hotel always made milk and cookies for people there. They delivered them to our door. You can get used to it.

He traveled every 2 weeks down to Florida to property were were developing. I liked my alone time and I think he did too. We'd been married 38 wonderful years when he died suddenly. He was a wonderful man.

It seems the good do die young....

The fire chief was wrong...we had many lightning strikes with severe damage. The last one with fire too. Once we finally installed lightning rods we have not had a problem.

We had electrical involvement every time as well.

I'm sorry you went through that. Lightning is scary.

Mistreatedbycs · ‎03-10-2010

You google homeowners insurance with your city, find agents that handle various companies, put your "purchasing cap" on and call, and call and call.

Go shopping, compare apples to apples, don't ever tell any of these people what you are currently paying, find a good deal and change. Are you sure you are not paying for extra coverage that might have changed through the years? Do you have 100% replacement value on your policy.

Women need to be independent and even if your spouse is still living, sitting back and letting him handle everything was "the way it was done years ago".

Think of it like shopping for a pair a shoes, a handbag or any other item us women like to shop for, here you are shopping for a policy that fits what you need.

To give you some incentive, I switched business and building insurance companies from one agent to another and saved $900 a year. Yes, the agent that I was dealing with has about 20-30 companies he represents but kept telling me year after year, costs are going up, I got quotes from other companies etc. Same ole same ole. Then I used a reference from another business, the guy called me, came to look and quoted me half of what I was paying, he asked how he did, I said we can write it, he asked what the difference was and I never said. I sure don't want him coming back to me next year throwing in my face that he saved me $900 last year.

Hope that helps. Actually, we become complacent and just renew, we need to go out and shop all policies.

Annabellethecat66 · ‎03-12-2010

@Kachina624 That was a wonderful story. Your friend should write about it and submit it to a magazine. Really, I'd like to read a story like that...she must be wonderful!

I do have 3 daughters. One lives in Florida so I don't see her that much. The Denver daughter wants me to visit her but it's too hard to travel now with my back and knees. Maybe in the Spring. The Fairfax daughter helps me a lot with all of our business stuff. There's that college education kicking in...Ha! Her Dad's kid.

I just need to move to downsize. It's just so overwhelming. I'm not complaining, I know I'm lucky though...

Big Sister · ‎05-15-2010

If you will be shopping by phone, have in front of you your current policy to see what the other ins. companies would charge you for the same coverage.

As someone else told you, you can probably lower your rate by raising the deductible.

It is also cost efficient to have your homeowners ins. and your auto ins. with the same company. You should then be offered a "multi-policy" discount.

patbz · ‎03-10-2010

I had my home flood (go figure, I lived in the desert) from a frozen pipe which meant we were in a hotel for 3 months. Everything was moved into and out of storage by USAA(can't say enough about how great they are). House needed new drywall, paint, carpeting etc. They even paid us $15 hrs each to do some of the pack up. I also had 2 additional floods (broken pipe in a rental we owned and a flood in an RV park totalled our fifth wheel) which USAA covered without raising my rates. As far as I know, USAA isn't sold by agents; I've always contacted them either online or by phone. They sell to military and their family members. My Dad was a Vet and that connection provided me, my husband, both my sons, wives and kids the ability to get this insurance. It's worth a call to them when you are comparing companies.

RedTop · ‎09-01-2010

@goldensrbest,

I urge you to call your current insurance agent and arrange a face to face meeting to discuss your policy, coverage, and options before you seek other quotes. Please deal with your current agent, before trusting another agent and another company. It would be especially beneficial if your agent came to your home and did a visual tour to make sure your coverage matches your needs.

I would not be so quick to leave your current insurance company, especially for a cheaper option. I assure you, you will find cheaper policies available, but to get cheaper, you will give up coverage on something that may be extremely important later on.

Shortly after my dad died, my mother decided to cut her monthly expenses. Instead of asking my brothers and I to help her, she went at it alone, and changed her land line phone, her satellite TV service, her vehicle insurance, and her house insurance. Her only goal was cheaper, and she achieved that, but she did not fully understand what she gave up to get a cheaper bill. It took many hours for my brothers and I to straighten out her impulsive actions.

I was furious to learn mom dropped her vehicle insurance with the company she and dad had been with for nearly 50 years, for a cheaper quote. She had no accidents and no tickets against her; perfect driving record. She just wanted to pay less money for coverage. Yes, she initially saved money, but then the new company started their rate increases, for coverage that was less than what she had with the old company. Mom tried to go back to the old insurance company, but they wouldn't accept her. So in order to have insurance coverage on her vehicle, she put my brothers name on the title, and he added it under his policy. Mom has since stopped driving altogether, and my brother and SIL use that SUV in winter months.

Please don't make any changes to what you have unless you absolutely understand what you are doing.

CelticCrafter · ‎03-09-2010

I had gotten lazy about our insurances but this year decided to get other quotes and saved $1200 a year by bundling and making the switch. I went with a local State Farm agent.

I knew the car insurance was high but I would justify it by telling myself they have great claim service.

Our homeowners insurance was high. For a long time we had no other option because live in a bayshore area and no one would insure anyone in this area, so we had to keep what we had.