The Dreaded Homeowners Insurance Bill has Arrived

[TN8Man]

There are so many variables that dictate rates.

Given that what insurance company are you using?

TFB Tennessee Farm Bureau
Its just me and the wife and only the truck is full coverage. I also have my homeowners coverage with them. I also have a wood burning stove that's included.

 

[lsgreg]

We also heat with wood, and State Farm doesn't seem to have a problem with that in the house, though they got a bit testy about the woodstove in my workshop. Not a fire-prone area...especially not as soggy as this summer has been. No hydrants anywhere nearby, but there are a couple rivers they could refill a tanker from.

State Farm will not insure us. It is not that we heat with wood, but rather that we have no other source of heat (the woodstove is "primary.")

I think the fear is frozen pipes and water damage more than fire.

 

[scootr]

Not homeowners but car insurance woes
The Golden State saw a two-year rate hike of 54% with the typical cost of a 2024 auto insurance policy for a driver with a clean record and a $1,000 deductible reaching $2,681

 

[gsganzer]

So, my combined auto insurance is $13,400/yr, versus you paying $6,600/yr, also for 4 vehicles with 2 under 21 drivers. I'm trying to dig in and find out what's driving it. Is it Farmers vs. TFB? Our vehicle types (ours are all classified as trucks or SUV's)? Our coverage?

I sent all my declarations for auto and homeowners to multiple insurance providers.

I got a quote back from Statefarm and they're comparable on the homeowners (slightly higher than Farmers). But they're 1/2 the cost for the auto policies! Putting me in line with the $6K tradosaurus is paying for 4 vehicles with 2 underage drivers.

I'm still waiting to hear from my guy at Farmers, as I got a reply that he's in meetings most of the day. I really think they fat fingered something.

 

[Dftodd]

We also heat with wood, and State Farm doesn't seem to have a problem with that in the house, though they got a bit testy about the woodstove in my workshop. Not a fire-prone area...especially not as soggy as this summer has been. No hydrants anywhere nearby, but there are a couple rivers they could refill a tanker from.

The insurance can't complain about a hydrant not being close by to me. There is one on the corner of the property about 200ft from where we are planning to build.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

We don't have hydrants where I live

 

[Dftodd]

We don't have hydrants where I live

Next road due south of us doesn't have any either. I just happened to find land on the last street south of town that the city water main was on.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Mine just increased 33%

 

[DarkBlack]

State Farm will not insure us. It is not that we heat with wood, but rather that we have no other source of heat (the woodstove is "primary.")

Zackly. That’s my experience too. You need any other source of heat that you can call your primary heat source. It’s not just State Farm. That’s been my experience with other companies.

Some years ago I was looking to pick up a bargain priced HUD house, primary inside wood stove heated, on 80 nice acres. A few of us started out offering each other. The house was sad. Stunk of years of wood smoke.
We all wanted it for the land. Older timber.
I got a call back from the realtor, that being a HUD , that it wouldn’t be allowed to sell with wood heating as a primary.
Not sure why that issue wasn’t up front.
I moved on

 

[gsganzer]

I sent all my declarations for auto and homeowners to multiple insurance providers.

I got a quote back from Statefarm and they're comparable on the homeowners (slightly higher than Farmers). But they're 1/2 the cost for the auto policies! Putting me in line with the $6K tradosaurus is paying for 4 vehicles with 2 underage drivers.

I'm still waiting to hear from my guy at Farmers, as I got a reply that he's in meetings most of the day. I really think they fat fingered something.

Well, I just got off the phone with my insurance guy and learned that the Farmers rate is correct for the auto insurance. Needless to say, I'm changing agents and insurance. It also goes without saying that I'm more than a little miffed at the agent we've used for 20+ years for letting it get to this point. He was letting us take a $6K/yr overcharge and it was only my own due diligence that saved us. Over the past few years, I've occasionally questioned him about how high our bill was getting and if we were missing some opportunities to save or if we were over-insured. Unfortunately, the "blind trust" of thinking you have an equitable business arrangement, is pitted against the old adage of needing to be your own advocate and an educated consumer.

What brought this to light is that my wife and I have recently started looking into whether we can take an early retirement (I'm 58, she's 55). Part of that involves pulling together some info for our CFP to see if we're there with our various investments, IRA's, 401K's etc. With my traveling for work, I leave much of the bill paying to my wife, so not all of this was visible to me or easy for me to follow up on.

Anyway, I just got back from a month trip to Taiwan, and I got up this morning at 3:30am due to the jetlag. Trying to take advantage of the solitude, I started pulling together our insurance info and about fell over when I saw the latest renewals. I thought, "Surely we can't be paying that much for insurance." With a little research and checking, pandora's box opened. That led me to the other item, health insurance. I'm now fully down that rabbit hole too!

It started at 3:30 this morning and it's now 5:00pm and I've been non-stop on this stuff. I've sent our auto and homeowners insurance declarations to multiple agents and have started getting replies that will get us huge savings. I've also set up a meeting for my wife to meet with a .gov healthcare marketplace guru for next week, to get us some pricing on healthcare plans, while I'm on the road again.