Is your home insurance skyrocketing?

[Momo]

Despite re-evaluating coverages at least every year it is just getting harder and harder for me to keep the premiums reasonable. Has anyone here found any good ideas to help cut costs on their home insurance?

 

My deductible is already pretty high so I can' t do that again. We haven't ever had a claim either. Grrr....

[WormGuy]

Mine goes up every six months. When I talk to my agent he tells me it's due to having to pay out claims that are hit with tornado's, floods, etc. I talked with a friend of mine's daughter who is pretty high up with Grange insurance company. She told me that I live in the second highest part of the country that gets tornado's now and she spouted out numbers that I couldn't follow.

 

When I told her what I pay now she siad she would underwrite me for twenty five percent less that I pay now simply because of how long I have been with my present company. I'm looking in to changing over.

 

 

 

John

[themartianchick]

Our insurance premiums in NY seem to stay pretty steady. Historically, we don't get weather that is sever enough to cause a lot of claims. A few years ago, we had a lot of snow and my parents lost their big old barn due to the weight on the roof. The insurance adjuster told them that lots of people were having the same issue across the state. Downstate NY saw a lot of damage from Hurrican Sandy, so who knows? Our premiums could start going up if we continue to have odd weather.

[blestmomof4]

Ours has steadily gone up over the last couple of years but we live in a house that's almost 100 years old. We're going to start building a new house in the next couple of months and my insurance agent has told me that our premium should be cut in half. WOOHOO!!

[Jeepers]

Mine has stayed pretty steady so far. When I get it fixed up, it will probably go up though. I haven't had it adjusted since I've been here and that is 23 years! Hopefully by this time next year I'll have new appliances and flooring etc. I've bought some new furniture since I moved here too. If everything burned/blew down I'd be screwed as far as insurance recoup goes.

[HazelStone]

Mine has stayed pretty steady so far. When I get it fixed up, it will probably go up though. I haven't had it adjusted since I've been here and that is 23 years! Hopefully by this time next year I'll have new appliances and flooring etc. I've bought some new furniture since I moved here too. If everything burned/blew down I'd be screwed as far as insurance recoup goes.

 

Guys, you want to think twice about neglecting updates on your homeowners and similar policies. A provision called coinsurance (very different than what it means in health insurance!) penalizes you further for under-insuring a building. Many policies have a requirement that you keep your coverage limit within 20% of your actual building cost. If you don't, the amount of money the insurance company gives you is reduced proportionally to the amount you've under-insured your property. This is in addition to the amount If, for whatever reason, you only insured your home for, say, $50K, the insurance company will only pay you five-eighths of that on a claim amount for a total loss! ($50K being 5/8 of the $80K minimum 'required' on that provision for this hypothetical $100K home).

 

Wikipedia's explanation:

In property insurance

Coinsurance is a penalty imposed on the insured by the insurance carrier for under reporting/declaring/insuring the value of tangible property or business income. The penalty is based on a percentage stated within the policy and the amount under reported. As an example:

A building actually valued at $1,000,000 has an 80% coinsurance clause but is insured for only $750,000. Since its insured value is less than 80% of its actual value, when it suffers a loss, the insurance payout will be subject to the underreporting penalty. For example: It suffers a $200,000 loss. The insured would recover $750,000 ÷ (.80 × 1,000,000) × 200,000 = $187,500 (less any deductible).

In this example the underreporting penalty would be $12,500.

The most commonly issued coinsurance percentage would be 80% but can be as high as 100%. The latter[100%] would impose the greatest penalty for under reporting. For this reason, it is vital that values of property are accurately reported and updated annually to reflect inflation and other increases in cost.

 

...this isn't very widely known, and while any decent insurance agent will warn their clients on this, the client has to actually listen (or read the explanation in a letter requesting you to set up a policy review).

[Jeepers]

Thanks Hazelstone! I've never heard of that.

[Homesteader]

We bought a fixer-upper this past year. Our insurance agent added it to our vehicle insurance family. After they inspected the outside, they dropped us due to the siding condition. We told them it would be resided in several months. They wouldn't budge. We said we would find other homeowner insurance and move all our vehicle coverages too (never had a claim). They explained that they're not making money on homeowner insurance due to all the disasters. We moved ALL our coverages to another company and saved some money. Then we did what we said and resided the house several months later when our contractor was available.

[Momo]

I got the annual home insurance bill. I had prepared myself for a large increase like the last two years. I couldn't believe my eyes when it had stayed the same!!! I am relieved..at least until next year.