housing insurance

[quasi]

well i just got through a with a visit from my ALFA insurance agent. Due to the tornados in north alabama and the hard winter there also, they took a hard hit in payouts.All rental property is going to be dropped in coverage. Home owner policies are going to get jacked. I have 11 property's that i have managed to aquire and keep ( divorce, job loss). I have good people in my rental's. Just hope they stay with the rate increase in the rent.( well at least they are helping with some under writers) They have a team going out an inspecting home owners houses, really disgusted right now. Getting tired of trying to have something for my later years and some B.S. keeps popping up. Any fellow alabama members on here getting any crap from there insurance company. Well i could rant and rave all day but its hard to type this much (LOL) later curt (quasi)

 

[Mike]

I'm sorry to say it, but this is likely just the tip of the iceburg. Insurance companies exist for one purpose - to take in money. The prospect of ever having to pay any of it out cuts against the grain for them. 9/11 gave them a hint of just how much they would have to pay out in times of real need and that's when rates started rising. Add in a couple of monster hurricanes and last year's violent tornadoes and there's not an insurance agent in the country with a smile and a kind word for anyone.

And Heaven forbid you might actually want to file a claim.

Eighteen months or so before I left my previous job, we lost our employer-funded health insurance. Without even thinking of catastrophic issues, the idea of having to pay for my quarterly doctor's visits and medications scared me to death. After meeting the deductibles each new year, an office call was a $35 co-pay and my prescriptions cost me $45/month co-pay. On my next visit to the doctor, I explained my situation and he managed to come up with generic replacements for all of my prescriptions. And now, without insurance, I pay him $75 for an office call and I get 90-day supplies of my medications for a total of $20.

$170/quarter with insurance and $95/quarter without it.

And people wonder what is wrong with this country? And atop that, they want the government to get involved in healthcare?!? Thanks, but no thanks. People gripe about the money the oil companies are making, but what of the medical industry?

 

[butch27]

Hey: Here in Michigan (the only state to do so) we have to pay $170.00 per year per car to a scam called " Catastropic claims - in case the ins . companies ever have to pay out too much. Great state for them and they own the politicians .

 

[Keeper]

I know in NC a few years ago my rates tripled on a rental I has down there. The folks were renting to own, had their own insurance, yet mine tripled anyway. Just glad I sold the damn thing before the market crashed.

One thing to consider with any company is to make sure they will cover what you have. We just renewed our policy last year, in the process of shopping around I was actually turned down for owning to many tools....I mean really WTF. They were at the part about covering jewelry and other crap when I asked about tools.

Me: I see you will cover $5000 in jewelry with out question, but what about $5000 in tools?
Agent: You own $5000 in tools?
Me: Yeah pretty close, between the garage and the wood shop I am close if not over.
Agent: I will have to check but I am sure we will not cover home shops.
Me: I am not a home shop, I just like to build and fix my own stuff.
Agent: We cannot cover you, since you have a shop.
Me: Are you ********* kidding me? You will cover a $5000 ring, but if I want to fix my own stuff you will not cover me?
Agent: Sorry Sir we cannot help you.

Needless to say we went with another company. You know damn well if we had a claim they would have denied on on some technicality.

Make sure your policy will cover things if needed!

 

[40ford]

I live in Georgia and so does my mother. My mother's house insurance premiums almost doubled this year. The value had been the same for the last 7 years and this year they increased it's replacement value by almost double. The value of her interior contents is now valued at $10,000.00 more than the house was last year. By the way, she lives 20 miles from the Alabama line and tornadoes come through there every few years.

Ron A.

 

[TubT]

Let me recommend a book by one of the smartest financial writers in the country. A warning: It's extremely unpopular with insurance companies.

"The Invisible Bankers," by Andrew Tobias. Find out why 100 people can give a bank $1 each and every one of them can expect to get $1.02 back next year, but when 100 people give an insurance company $1 each, only 50 of them will get $1 back, and the other fifty will get nothing. Find out why the insurance industry is one of the least efficient businesses in the USA. And on and on.