Friendly letter from State Farm Insurance today- Snowbirds beware!

Apparently State Farm isn't making enough money.

Received a letter today listing more exceptions to our homeowners insurance policy.

For those of you who travel for the winter or any other time of the year for more than a month- BEWARE

Any damage caused by setting your thermostat below 55 degrees is not covered

Any ice or snow weight damage to decks, pools, exterior features such as docks, retaining walls is NOT covered.

ANY DAMAGE THAT OCCURS TO A VACANT DWELLING! a Vacant dwelling is define as a house that has not been occupied for 30 consecutive days.

This means that you must come home every month to check on your house or risk no coverage .

The list of new restrictions to coverage is 10 pages long, I just hit a couple of them.

I've had State Farm Insurance for 37 years.

Not one claim on our current home.

Shopping for new homeowners insurance today.

OH BTW, State Farm also sent their invoice today, in addition to eliminating lots of coverage, they are raising their rates

Attachment 324312

Well they also require all vehicles you own to be kept at your residence. Meaning that if you own a second home in a different state, you cant keep one parked there even if it's in a garage.

Thanks for the heads up.


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Are any of the other companies any better?

Always let an independent agent shop your rates. After they give a quote, take that State Farm in and compare.


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Somebody is going to pay for all the claims from the widespread hurricane damages, tornados, wildfires and the multitude of extreme weather damages that the insurance companies paid out claims for.

This is just the beginning I would be willing to bet.

Vfourmax - what have the insurance companies been doing with premiums that they have been receiving? In over 20 years of paying home insurance, we've had one claim. The amount of premiums we've paid have more than paid off that claim, many times over.
I've been paying vehicle insurance for over 25 years, one claim. Where has all that premium money gone?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skunked again

Vfourmax - what have the insurance companies been doing with premiums that they have been receiving? In over 20 years of paying home insurance, we've had one claim. The amount of premiums we've paid have more than paid off that claim, many times over.
I've been paying vehicle insurance for over 25 years, one claim. Where has all that premium money gone?

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Insurance is not figured on an individual basis in that respect, yes if you are considered a high risk account you will pay a higher premium but overall the insurance company takes all premiums collected and pays out all of its claims and business expenses and the money left over is the profit the company made.

When they are hit with big disasters the payouts of course can be tremendous and they have reserve funds to help offset those big payout times but those reserve funds once paid out need to be replaced along with still making a profit so they charge everybody a little higher rates.

Just like many other things once they have regained those funds they do not go usually go back and drop the rates back down just add in the extra to higher profits down the road.

Simple thing to remember they are not really there for your best interest but they are running a business to make money and put it into their pockets through collecting more from their customers than they pay out.

I had a truck pass us on I 22 . A rock or rocks hit the windshield and lens cover on the Buick . Farm Bureau notified me that "TWO" deductibles would be required since both got broken . Their evaluation revealed two separate rocks had done the damage . I blew a gasket since my original policy was opened in 1970 . I asked how their evaluation could not see that the rock that hit the cover broke and then half of it flew up and hit windshield breaking it ?(thus being one accident not two separate ones ) I was asked if I thought that was what happened and I responded that they would receive it in writing from my attorney . They asked if I saw that happen ? I said yes! and only one deductible was needed . The Companies seem to do as they want and if you are not known (moved here several years ago) you do not get the good ole boy treatment . Looked for a better policy but nobody came close. Checking rates with a policy that is 48 yrs. old is tough to beat . My wife says I am a mixture of "Archie Bunker" and" Jeff Durhams "puppet "Walter ".My policy has been on automatic draft for over 30 years. Was told they will drop you if payment was late after removing my house from the policy when we moved to New Albany to care for aging in-laws. Bundle not big enough I guess . PS I do like "WALTER "

I found out early on about State Farm, had a single vehicle accident that amounted to a little over $2,000.00 in damages. I was a teenager then an on my mother's policy, they dropped her insurance after 17 years and this was the first claim. And to boot, when they finally agreed to fix the truck they put used parts on it from a salvage yard!

It pays to check out rates every so often. I have a good friend who is a Nationwide agent. I had my homeowners and 2 cars with him. They draft a monthly payment for my auto coverage and after several years of no or modest increases it jumped about $80/month or almost a $1000/Yr.
I called him and told him I would have to check other rates. He understood and said he would also check for better rates. Up until that point, I thought all he could sell was Nationwide policies.
I had found coverage that was about $10 more than I was currently paying, but he called me and said he could change my homeowners and auto to Travelers. The homeowners was about $75 more per year but he auto was $30 less per month than what I was currently paying and $110 less than the new Nationwide rate.
Well, that was a no brainer and ended up actually reducing my premiums. The coverage was identical to my existing coverage, he made sure of that.
So it pays to check this stuff every so often.

I can relate to the having the same homeowners policy for years. Same here and actually mine is through Allstate and they do not even offer the policy terms I have on their new policies and they have been tryng for close to ten years to get me to switch to a newer policy but the newer policies are less coverage for the same or higher rates so I politely decline.

They have been steadily increasing my rates each year now for about the last 5 years and my rates are now just about double what they were 5 years ago for the same policy but it is still better rate/coverage wise than what the new policies are offering.

I have changed auto and motorcycle policies several times for rate increases over the years and I have not had any sort of claim on any policy of any type in over 30 years.

As far as insurance is concerned as a customer you are nothing more than a potential liability, that company is just keeping its fingers crossed that they take your money that they do not need to pay out a nickle to you.

You may have a super nice agent but that agent can do no more than what the company allows regardless of what he tells you.

That is why the company has an underwriting department is to review and approve or reject every application that comes in for a new policy. They weigh the risk in every application and if it looks to be skewered against the companies acceptable risk/reward criteria that is used for evaluation the application will be rejected and it could happen as long as a month after the initial application is submitted.

I had that happen one time, the letter I received stated That due to the high performance nature of your Yamaha R1 motorcycle this policy has been cancelled by the underwriting department effective immediately. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.Thank You.
Funny part was I had the agent run the application with the vin to get the rates to be sure there was no confusion on the model before I bought the new bike because it was such a good rate and they accepted it and the bike had my insurance in force on it 3 days before I actually bought it and picked it up.

Never take ANYTHING for granted concerning an insurance policy or claim.