Homeowners Insurance

Keep us posted!

Well I did call them today but all I got was a voice mail.That was this morning and so far no return call.

I just love voicemail. I usually get 5 unintelligible options - none of which sound useful to my situation.

Do you have a local agent that you can visit in person? You know, just sit there till you get a satisfactory answer.

We do have an agent but I never received anything from them, the letter came from the insurance company.

Your insurance agent can help you here. It's what you pay them for.

That's who I will call today, never heard back since I left the voice mail yesterday. Has to be some silly mistake, sending me the same letter two years in a row.

Insurance companies are getting worse and worse to deal with - whether it be health, home or auto.

We got this threatening letter stating they need our car's VIN number there was some issue they said and if we did not get back to them our car would become unregistered. What the f*** that was less than a year ago when we had purchased it - this happened a couple of times with repeat letters (after I had provided them this information) so it seemed after finally getting a person as the mail reply did not seem to work, it seemed settled.

Flash forward 9 months and that damn threatening letter appeared again. I did get through and low and behold got a local person (as my insurance is through work due to reduced rates - I do not have a personal agent) - and she proceeds to tell me oh they just need your confirmation of your VIN - I guess no one checked the option on the computer that yes this VIN has been confirmed - they obviously had the VIN because it was on my policy.

Lets see if that works and they stop threatening me due to their incompetence.

Don't get me started on dealing with my health insurance....

Wow, so many issues with insurance companies. We don't seem to have that problem. We had a really bad hailstorm a few years ago and our rates really went up. I called them and basically said reduce it or we'll go elsewhere. They also have our car insurance, so I talked to them about those rates, too, which had gone up due to us being near a major accident intersection. After about 15 minutes of negotiating, we got our rates back to where they were the year before, and... with a lower deductible on all of them.

It's the Loyalty Program. We've been with them over 15 years and they cover all our insurance needs. They've always been very decent to talk to.

Well I left a message for the broker to call me. I had one good experience with my car insurance. About 12 years ago I got rear-ended and the girl didn’t have insurance so my insurance paid for the repairs; all I had to pay was the 500.00 deductible.

Well about six years later I received a check from the insurance company for 500 bucks. They must have gone after this girl for their money and my deductible.

I had something like that happen with home owners - I used to live in a condo and the owners above us - their water heater broke and we got all the water in our unit. The dumb owners never replaced it even though the association sent out notifications warning that the water heaters had only so much life and they should be replaced.

So our insurance company at first said she was not liable as you cannot fault someone for an accident, but only if they are negligent. Sounded stupid to me - so I sent the copy of the notices the association sent around as to me that is not an accident as they ignored the warnings. So we got the money for the repairs but less the $500 - months later we get a notice with a check for $500 saying she was negligent.

Those jackass's still have yet to call me! I'll wait until by brother leaves to go home then I will drive to their office in Irvine and bring the two letters and the letter stating they renewed our policy and give them hell! I save everything!

Including the day.

I missed a call from the broker. She left me a voice mail that had nothing to do with the message I left about the letter. Her voice mail was every five years the insurance company would send out a subcontractor to do an inspection of the house inside and out and left me a number to call and set up the inspection.

They’re always trying to find a way not to renew our policy. Every now and then they will send this sneaky letter stating our policy will be switched over to another company unless you sign and dated the section of the letter stating you do not want to be switched.

The letter gives you the rate of the other insurance company which is about 600.00 more a year!

It's a mixture of sneakiness and incompetence.

Can't you report them to someone? That's disgraceful. I've never, ever had an insurance-based house inspection and I've owned homes for over 40 years in two provinces. I've never heard of that.

Ditto with the switch thing. Nope. I'd find a Consumer Advocacy group and report them or, better yet, get another insurance company.

I was going to talk to a friend of mine, I did some google research and I could report them to state department of insurance. A few of the insurance companies want out of CA after the last four years of wild fires.

It was worse when I first bought in Florida, you could only get homeowners insurance through one company, Citizens. Nobody else would insure you because of the hurricanes.

I've checked rates of two other insurance companies and we would pay anywhere from 600to 1200.00 more a year than what we pay now.

Well, I guess that's the problem with living in a fire hazard zone. We have flood plain issues here and after our last flood, the province said we'll buy you out so you can move, but we're not helping you anymore. One town was called High River, for Pete's sake. What's your first clue?? That flood cost billions. So much was destroyed.

And then we had a terrible hailstorm a couple of years back and a lot of homeowners didn't have hail insurance (we live in a hail zone) and wanted the province to bail them out. They didn't because there was a deluge of letters about how home insurance is the homeowner's responsibility, etc.

BC recently had a serious fire and flood event in the same year. I bet the insurance in those areas is astronomical. Price you pay for living there, I guess.

I would call the State Dept. of Insurance....you never know what's going on, maybe they've been getting complaints from other people. What a rip-off.

I can't give advice knowing naff all about the laws over there.

I am very lucky to live in a old city founded by the Anglo Saxons, we don't get flooded, the river Itchen flows through a park which is a massive flood plain but rarely needed.

It's very hilly, the hills rise up very steeply from the docks.

We get storms but anything really bad tends to hit the Isle of Wight before it gets to us which kind of softens the blow.