Homeowners Insurance - Are They Nuts?

Originally Posted by Griz

Sorry, but your thought on this is incorrect. You insure your home for replacement cost value. If your dwelling amount is set at $200,000 then this is the value they place on your home and not the land. The land has nothing to do with it. You also NEVER insure your home for what you paid for it. That is nothing short of foolishness. Nobody cares what you paid. What matter is, what would it cost to rebuild your home should it burn down. Whatever that amount is, is what you should be insuring it for.


Griz

Very good point Griz.
Right now I live in South Jersey, where home prices are VERY highly inflated. When e were shopping around for insurance a couple of companies we dealt with wanted us to insure for the full 225,000 rather than the 95,000 it would take to rebuild the home.
We ended going with a company that would take 30% off our car insurance if we spent the 650 for home owners insurance. This was with the insurance lady visiting our house, interacting with all of the dogs, cats, ducks, birds, frogs and snakes. She said that my snakes were all cosidered exotic-non threatening.
And if anyone else lives in Jersey they know how expensive car insurance is here....

I don't have much to add to this conversation...Luckily I have an insurance agent the my family has been dealing with for years (Nationwide), and I get a ton of discounts. My homeowners insurance costs me $585/year. My car insurance is more then that a year on two cars! Sue never asked me anything on my animals, simply sent someone out to take a look at the house and it's insured currently for $155,000 (I purchased it last June for $123,000).

Originally Posted by TripleMoonsExotic

I don't have much to add to this conversation...Luckily I have an insurance agent the my family has been dealing with for years (Nationwide), and I get a ton of discounts. My homeowners insurance costs me $585/year. My car insurance is more then that a year on two cars! Sue never asked me anything on my animals, simply sent someone out to take a look at the house and it's insured currently for $155,000 (I purchased it last June for $123,000).

Stephanie, just as an fyi, if your agent has not requoted your insurance for a few years you might want to have her do that. Nationwide, which is one of my premier carriers, has gone through several rate reductions on home and auto. A lot of agents have not informed their clients of this due to the fact that if your premium is lowered then so is their commission. You might want to ask as Nationwide's rates are truly smoking right now. Good luck.

Griz

When my fiance and I get married we'll be getting requoted for car insurance. Due to my fiance's accidents/tickets and my age (I think), our car insurance is pretty high.

Well, here's an update on my insurance situation.

The other Allstate agent that contacted me was full of it. After spending nearly 45 minutes talking to him, I was told sorry but we cannot insure you. Gee, I thought it was a bit odd that the same company that just dropped me would insure me again thru a different agent. Waste of time.

I was finally able to get insurance thru the Hartford. Is is going to cost me almost a $1000 a year but they were the only reasonable ones I could find willing to take me on.

If it's any comfort, I pay more than that for a miniscule old house, and have to pay flood insurance on top of that...

I tried to get renter's insurance through USAA, which is supposed to be all about helping the military community, and they denied me coverage based on the fact that I owned two "dangerous" snakes: A red-tail boa and..... a ball python. (I supose it was my fault for asking for a hobby rider for all our cages, etc.) I told them that all our animals are in LOCKED cages in a SEPARATE room that we would also lock if they wished, and that NO ONE comes to our house to visit, and that they could come and inspect if they liked. No dice.

They told us it was too great a liability and someone might get injured by our vicious snakes. They told us to go get JUST liability coverage somewhere else, and that then they would insure us. What a joke!