The Dreaded Homeowners Insurance Bill has Arrived

[California]

Sounds like the only difference is you guys outside of California can get coverage for a price where as many in California can only get Fair Plan through the State?

I wish my old farmhouse qualified for that. I'm out of spec, non compliant, for probably everything on their checklist.

Example: Old-School method for powering a basement light! A real electrician would run away screaming.

(I don't go under there often. A later sunporch addition caused 4 ft of headspace for a few ft, before you get in there).

 

[ultrarunner]

Based on my experience in TX on auto (and all insurance type, regardless of kind/state), send your renewal declarations every year to all the other competitors. There are no friends in the insurance industry. Only annual insurance rates.

A few close friends did that in California and urged me to do the same… all 3 of us had the auto club homeowner and auto.

The other 2 did save about 14% which on the face equates smart move.

The problem is last year they both were non renewed when their carrier left California… the old company would not take them back and now they pay way more for less coverage…

 

[TN8Man]

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.

I won't send prospective insurance or healthcare agencies info on what I currently pay or my current coverage. If they want my business they need to present their best offer and then I will do the comparison with other quotes.

I screwed up on healthcare after I retired. The day after retirement I drove to Tennessee thinking I would need to find healthcare insurance in Tennessee and it was way more than I paid as an employee before I retired. I continued to pay the high price for about a year or so when my brother (who worked at the same company) told me I could still get the same insurance I had as an employee but now as a retiree. I checked and he was correct so I made the change and got the good rates again. Lesson learned for not doing my due diligence.

 

[gsganzer]

I won't send prospective insurance or healthcare agencies info on what I currently pay or my current coverage. If they want my business they need to present their best offer and then I will do the comparison with other quotes.

I sent the other companies only the declarations pages, with my costs redacted. That was mainly to make sure I was getting apples/apples to my original coverage.

I've already started having conversations to see if there are any changes to coverage that could give additional savings or coverage we need to add.

 

[5030]

Healthcare for us in not negotiable. We have high option Fed Blue and you cannot get any better than that, but then it's unavailable to the private sector anyway.

No deductibles and 5 buck scrips and some are free and no generics either.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

We have family in the health insurance business... So we have good counsel. I don't see the point in paying and extra $5k per year to cover three $100 office visits. Most normal care and drugs are quite affordable, when the cost to insure them is thousands per year. Insuring against a catastrophic event sure, but normal preventative care is quite cheap. If something is going to run over $5k out of pocket, I'll insure that.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

A lot of people will select the high cost Cadillac plan that covers everything, without comparing to the high deductible plans that can cost less in spite of having to pay a deductible.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

A lot of people will select the high cost Cadillac plan that covers everything, without comparing to the high deductible plans that can cost less in spite of having to pay a deductible.

My employer would deposit a healthy amount in our HSA for having the HDHP plan each year. We have over $70k in that fund alone now. Not to mention the tens of thousands I saved on insurance premiums.

 

[murphy1244]

Healthcare for us in not negotiable. We have high option Fed Blue and you cannot get any better than that, but then it's unavailable to the private sector anyway.

No deductibles and 5 buck scrips and some are free and no generics either.

Only the best for you...

 

[Roric]

Surprise: Wind and hail deductible as a percentage of home value?

My son had a tree come down hitting house and deck. I went to see it and wanted to help clear it but wife and DIL said "no way is an old coot like you gonna do that". (I just cleared the patio door with a Sawzall and due to the background noise, gave up.) I told him "well, this is what we have insurance for".
The surprise came when my son called the insurance claims people:
the policy has a '2% of home value' deductible on wind and hail damage.
A quick guesstimate of damages on my part added up to about $15,000 and so if the house is worth 500k (guess), the deductible is $10,000.
This was a surprise to him as he thought, as with other losses, he had a $1000 deductible policy. This is a new thing to me also. I will be checking our policy.

I asked why he didn't know about it. He had no answer just said it wasn't made clear to him.
Why is there a simple 'closing costs declaration sheet' when buying a house and another when buying a car contains disclosure that describes what you are purchasing yet nothing exists for an insurance purchase. (It was pages in on the policy yet the $1k was prominently
shown several times).

Insurance is becoming one of the biggest home cost outlays today.
In an era when an unexpected $500 car repair bull can send a family budget into a frenzy, an unexpected home repair bill of this size is more than just a curve ball.

As home values spiral I suggest you check your homeowners policy.
Not the kind of surprises we need.

Regards to all,

R