Do we really need to educate people that they need HO insurance? I understand that there may be circumstances where this happens but I would bet the insuance goes before the extra cell phone does. It’s a mtter of priorities.
I live in extreme South Texas. We are in the middle of a severe drought. Last measurable rainfall we had was several months ago.
But I trust that SOB in Washington so much, I carry flood insurance
in addition to my homeowners policy.
I think it has a lot to do with the times we are living in. The economy is in rough shape and people are trying to figure out a way to survive. Unfortunately, insurance is not a high priority to many people. They complain about the cost of coverage, but they are sure glad they have coverage when a storm or fire happens. These people let it go and they are paying for it with no home and no hope of recovery. I am amazed that many apartment dwellers do not carry Renters insurnance for their belongings. It is so inexpensive, but they take the risk and hope for the best.
My company has multiple on site CAT claims teams in both AL & MO.
A friend of mine worked the AL site and told me of the 3000 claims his site processed – those HO’s with a storm related death… Not one had a life insurance policy with us. Very sad and unnecessary. Also many HO’s had greatly reduced contents in an effort to save rate. That is both the client & agents fault.
It won’t happen but this industry needs to take the “low cost” type carriers to task.
The perception of low cost is in reality a policy with greatly reduced coverage.
Save on insurance! Name your price! Be your own agent.
We have pertty much eliminated Darwin’s theory with medicine but now we are doing it for stupidity. Judging from one of the posts here (rocket88), he doesn’t believe there are any stupid people, just victims. I suspect he’s probably a victim for a lot of things.
Many of my competitors fudge on Replacement Cost for the dwelling and contents. The ones I see the most are Allstate and Farmers. In their quest to get the lowest price, they are often well below what normal values should be. They also have very few perks and they use a low Personal Liability limit as well. I would think their E&O would get a workout as poorly as they are writing coverage.
Society’s mentality is oh it will never happen to me. Excuse my insensitivy but those people that think that way HAVE to learn the very hard hard way. It kinda puts a smile on my face knowing that instead of having that brand new car and the latest tech gadget I have insurance. Thank you for blessing me with good head on my shoulders and not in my A$$.
you a$$ holes don’t understand….they do not have the money to spend on insurance when the rates are higher than your IRS rates. I feel very sorry for these people who are living “on the edge”. Ovbviously, no one in the Obama administration cares.
I typically find the people who complain most about their $2,000 hurricane premiums in my office are the people paying $3,000 per year to insure their Lincolns. It’s not about money, more about priorities.
You have that right, Solvent. My vehicle may not be the prettiest on the road, and there are plenty of minor issues with it, but you can bet that I keep my insurance on it.
I can’t tell you how glad I was to have a HO policy when I was broken into last year, but my neigbhors didn’t have that type of forsite evne though they easily could afford it, and they were wishing they had a policy in force.
Yes, in the article, talks about the guy who “can’t afford” homeowner’s insurance, but lives in a 5 bedroom house! Yes, couldn’t afford the insurance because he has a couple of $4 Starbuck’s a day!!! There is another place, where they talk about homes that aren’t up to code. Then they reference an electrician who lost his house? Why didn’t he bring his house up to code? Who is John Galt?
Have you heard about the Painter’s house that needed painting, the Plumbers house that needed pipes? I hear stories all the time about fires or storms that happen to people and the people didn’t have insurance so they set up a fund at the bank for them to get them back on their feet. These people lost their flat screen, computers, ipods, iphones and they didn’t have sense enough to buy insurance. In this entitlement rich environment, people think the government will bail them out of any trouble they face. The sad thing is that politicians make these promises every day in order to get votes.
interesting on all of our thoughts on this. folks don’t realize until too late the reason why. i’ve been through hurricane andrew and see her devastation. we know that our current job situation is not helping, but then again, if you have a 5 bdrm house, do you truly need that big of a house? downsize to something you can afford, if not what about all those other folks living in the house? any of them working that can contribute until? i know my kids would help if needed. old houses, 100 yr old, should be on a historic books and the state help restore them. most older homes until remodeling can keep out-of-date codes. but when they have to restore it, it will cost more, because the whole house will have to come up to code. another interesting move by mother nature! here’s something i would be looking to, were the levees that were broken to help the flooding of the mississippi, i hope that the gov’t plans to rebuild those homes that were flooded.
The guy that lost the 5 bedroom home said he intended to get coverage again, but couldn’t reach the agent in time to get coverage. He didn’t want it until he needed it. What agent in his right mind would bind coverage with a storm approaching? He would lose his contract with the company doing things like that. This is kind of like what it will be like under Obamacare. Young people in particular will not buy it until they get sick and they know they can’t be turned down for medical conditions. In the P&C business, it is best not to wait that long before you get coverage.
“Agent” above stated that two companies typically have low replacement cost and few perks on their HO policies. I typically don’t get involved in BB debates but can’t let this one go.
I rep the second company you called out. Part of my training program for new agents involves teaching them how to sell the value of our Rep. Cost being higher (typically a lot higher) than the clients current carrier.
Also how to deal with the clients objection to our typically higher RCT value with statements such as… “I can buy a house down the street for X $$ why is your number so high?”
To “agent” from above – I suggest you learn to love the opportunity of quoting under insured clients and how to sell the value of doing business with your agency/company instead of wasting your time trashing your competition.
Michael, I can only go by what I see and policies I have seen from both carriers indicate they aren’t very well written in terms of Replacement Cost, perks or Personal Liability limits. I guess it depends some on the agent writing the business and what he is requesting to be written. When we quote Homeowners, we deal with the objections of Real Estate value vs Replacement Cost all the time. Allstate puts 40% on Personal Property limits all the time and calls it Replacement Cost. It generally is far short. They are misleading the public. When there is a loss, the customer finds out they weren’t in such good hands afterall.
I see this a lot too….”company x will insure it for Y, why do you want to do it for $?”. I tell them to get it in writing that x won’t inspect and raise it to RC subsequently.
I think most companies inspect now anyway. Otherwise the agent should have his/her head examined if they do what the client insists.
As an Independent agent, we represent 5 carriers and there can be a fair amount of difference between them on what they consider Replacement Cost. It is nothing to see up to $25,000 difference between them on a typical average home. Even the lowest one is higher than Allstate’s value and to a lesser extent, Farmer’s. We scratch our head a little deciding which one to propose and do a little tweaking when we need to. Then, the selling job is to the customer about construction costs etc. Hopefully, we are competitive enough on the cost to sell it. The bottom liners are the hardest to deal with and they just want to buy price so we have to let them do that elsewhere.
Of course residents of most threatened states are less insured. Have you compared the price for coverage in these states to other states? you would see whh they can’t afford to buy the coverage. Also some of the few companies writing in the most threatened states require insurance to “replacement value”. These insurance companies found they can inflate the value to way more than replacement value to make more premium. You take their value or don’t get a policy. They have not noticed that over insurance creates a moral risk making the company the buyer of last resort.
Do we really need to educate people that they need HO insurance? I understand that there may be circumstances where this happens but I would bet the insuance goes before the extra cell phone does. It’s a mtter of priorities.
apparently so is spelling in your case.
Bill don’t you know the difference between
misspelling and a typo?
Haveing a bed day Beil?
Or capitalization in your case Bile…
I live in extreme South Texas. We are in the middle of a severe drought. Last measurable rainfall we had was several months ago.
But I trust that SOB in Washington so much, I carry flood insurance
in addition to my homeowners policy.
I think it has a lot to do with the times we are living in. The economy is in rough shape and people are trying to figure out a way to survive. Unfortunately, insurance is not a high priority to many people. They complain about the cost of coverage, but they are sure glad they have coverage when a storm or fire happens. These people let it go and they are paying for it with no home and no hope of recovery. I am amazed that many apartment dwellers do not carry Renters insurnance for their belongings. It is so inexpensive, but they take the risk and hope for the best.
Come on Bill, you’ve got to do better than that.
My company has multiple on site CAT claims teams in both AL & MO.
A friend of mine worked the AL site and told me of the 3000 claims his site processed – those HO’s with a storm related death… Not one had a life insurance policy with us. Very sad and unnecessary. Also many HO’s had greatly reduced contents in an effort to save rate. That is both the client & agents fault.
It won’t happen but this industry needs to take the “low cost” type carriers to task.
The perception of low cost is in reality a policy with greatly reduced coverage.
Right on target Michael!
Save on insurance! Name your price! Be your own agent.
We have pertty much eliminated Darwin’s theory with medicine but now we are doing it for stupidity. Judging from one of the posts here (rocket88), he doesn’t believe there are any stupid people, just victims. I suspect he’s probably a victim for a lot of things.
Many of my competitors fudge on Replacement Cost for the dwelling and contents. The ones I see the most are Allstate and Farmers. In their quest to get the lowest price, they are often well below what normal values should be. They also have very few perks and they use a low Personal Liability limit as well. I would think their E&O would get a workout as poorly as they are writing coverage.
Society’s mentality is oh it will never happen to me. Excuse my insensitivy but those people that think that way HAVE to learn the very hard hard way. It kinda puts a smile on my face knowing that instead of having that brand new car and the latest tech gadget I have insurance. Thank you for blessing me with good head on my shoulders and not in my A$$.
you a$$ holes don’t understand….they do not have the money to spend on insurance when the rates are higher than your IRS rates. I feel very sorry for these people who are living “on the edge”. Ovbviously, no one in the Obama administration cares.
I typically find the people who complain most about their $2,000 hurricane premiums in my office are the people paying $3,000 per year to insure their Lincolns. It’s not about money, more about priorities.
You have that right, Solvent. My vehicle may not be the prettiest on the road, and there are plenty of minor issues with it, but you can bet that I keep my insurance on it.
I can’t tell you how glad I was to have a HO policy when I was broken into last year, but my neigbhors didn’t have that type of forsite evne though they easily could afford it, and they were wishing they had a policy in force.
Yes, in the article, talks about the guy who “can’t afford” homeowner’s insurance, but lives in a 5 bedroom house! Yes, couldn’t afford the insurance because he has a couple of $4 Starbuck’s a day!!! There is another place, where they talk about homes that aren’t up to code. Then they reference an electrician who lost his house? Why didn’t he bring his house up to code? Who is John Galt?
Have you heard about the Painter’s house that needed painting, the Plumbers house that needed pipes? I hear stories all the time about fires or storms that happen to people and the people didn’t have insurance so they set up a fund at the bank for them to get them back on their feet. These people lost their flat screen, computers, ipods, iphones and they didn’t have sense enough to buy insurance. In this entitlement rich environment, people think the government will bail them out of any trouble they face. The sad thing is that politicians make these promises every day in order to get votes.
interesting on all of our thoughts on this. folks don’t realize until too late the reason why. i’ve been through hurricane andrew and see her devastation. we know that our current job situation is not helping, but then again, if you have a 5 bdrm house, do you truly need that big of a house? downsize to something you can afford, if not what about all those other folks living in the house? any of them working that can contribute until? i know my kids would help if needed. old houses, 100 yr old, should be on a historic books and the state help restore them. most older homes until remodeling can keep out-of-date codes. but when they have to restore it, it will cost more, because the whole house will have to come up to code. another interesting move by mother nature! here’s something i would be looking to, were the levees that were broken to help the flooding of the mississippi, i hope that the gov’t plans to rebuild those homes that were flooded.
The guy that lost the 5 bedroom home said he intended to get coverage again, but couldn’t reach the agent in time to get coverage. He didn’t want it until he needed it. What agent in his right mind would bind coverage with a storm approaching? He would lose his contract with the company doing things like that. This is kind of like what it will be like under Obamacare. Young people in particular will not buy it until they get sick and they know they can’t be turned down for medical conditions. In the P&C business, it is best not to wait that long before you get coverage.
“Agent” above stated that two companies typically have low replacement cost and few perks on their HO policies. I typically don’t get involved in BB debates but can’t let this one go.
I rep the second company you called out. Part of my training program for new agents involves teaching them how to sell the value of our Rep. Cost being higher (typically a lot higher) than the clients current carrier.
Also how to deal with the clients objection to our typically higher RCT value with statements such as… “I can buy a house down the street for X $$ why is your number so high?”
To “agent” from above – I suggest you learn to love the opportunity of quoting under insured clients and how to sell the value of doing business with your agency/company instead of wasting your time trashing your competition.
Michael, I can only go by what I see and policies I have seen from both carriers indicate they aren’t very well written in terms of Replacement Cost, perks or Personal Liability limits. I guess it depends some on the agent writing the business and what he is requesting to be written. When we quote Homeowners, we deal with the objections of Real Estate value vs Replacement Cost all the time. Allstate puts 40% on Personal Property limits all the time and calls it Replacement Cost. It generally is far short. They are misleading the public. When there is a loss, the customer finds out they weren’t in such good hands afterall.
I see this a lot too….”company x will insure it for Y, why do you want to do it for $?”. I tell them to get it in writing that x won’t inspect and raise it to RC subsequently.
I think most companies inspect now anyway. Otherwise the agent should have his/her head examined if they do what the client insists.
As an Independent agent, we represent 5 carriers and there can be a fair amount of difference between them on what they consider Replacement Cost. It is nothing to see up to $25,000 difference between them on a typical average home. Even the lowest one is higher than Allstate’s value and to a lesser extent, Farmer’s. We scratch our head a little deciding which one to propose and do a little tweaking when we need to. Then, the selling job is to the customer about construction costs etc. Hopefully, we are competitive enough on the cost to sell it. The bottom liners are the hardest to deal with and they just want to buy price so we have to let them do that elsewhere.
Of course residents of most threatened states are less insured. Have you compared the price for coverage in these states to other states? you would see whh they can’t afford to buy the coverage. Also some of the few companies writing in the most threatened states require insurance to “replacement value”. These insurance companies found they can inflate the value to way more than replacement value to make more premium. You take their value or don’t get a policy. They have not noticed that over insurance creates a moral risk making the company the buyer of last resort.