Insurance Visits for Home Owners

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

The flip side is....

A couple of years ago my sister got the same letter. She lives in a very affluent area, had the same company for years, no inspection clause and no claims in the twenty plus years she's been with the company.

She called to complain and was told that they just wanted to make sure they were covering her correctly. A call to the state insurance board, that had received many complaints, confirmed that the company was looking for a way to raise her premiums. She's now with a new company.

It could be to raise rates, and in that case sounds like it was an unscrupulous insurance carrier, but carriers do have a need to confirm what they're insuring and, as a client, it also makes sense to confirm that everything you have IS covered. We added a large addition to our home, and truly forgot to mention it to the insurer. If our house had burnt down, the addition would not have been included in our coverage.

My personal opinion is between the fact we haven't had a claim and where I live (somewhat considered "inner city") they are looking for a reason to drop me. Anyone ever had this happen to them, just curious. In the mean time I had already gotten a quote from another company that was lower anyway, so I think I will pursue that.

Insurers don't typically look to drop those who don't make claims. I'm not saying it's not possible (I'm not in the insurance industry), but it's a bit counter-intuitive.

why does a homeowner's insurance company care what the condition of the paint on your house is in the first place? it's not a new paint job will protect them in the event of a claim

Maintenance is likely an underwriting variable, just as credit scores have been linked to claims in other cases. People who don't maintain their home's exterior may be less likely to maintain the interior. I'm not saying it's true, but if that's what their actuaries have built into their models, then it needs to be assessed. Also, as somebody said earlier, poor maintenance can lead to claims down the road when things start to fail.

Never heard of an inspection by the insurance company before. I wouldn't let them in my house, that's for sure. Obviously I couldn't keep them from looking at the outside (thought I don't necessarily need to let anyone on my property).

If they have a clause allowing them to inspect your house, if you refuse they will likely drop you. Your choice, but a dangerous game of chicken to play if you need coverage.

Interior - condition of wiring. Many fires are caused by bad electrical

Condition of plumbing - claims caused by broken pipes

Door locks/deadbolts = less chance of break-in. Same with windows. Many companies give a credit for alarms.

Smoke Detectors - if they go off, less chance a fire will spread before calling the fire co.

These are all underwriting points for insurance companies. I work for an insurance company in Commercial Accounts. I don't know about homeowners, but most likely there is an inspection clause in the policy. We need to know what we are covering.

Exactly.

That would be all of them if you don't want them coming out to inspect your place randomly. They ALL do this, they walk around the exterior and take pictures. Go in and ask your current agent, s/he will be able to pull up the pictures they take.

As to why they care about the condition of the exterior of your house, that leads to more claims. If your house isn't painted properly-having a lot of exposed wood, etc. water can seep in and damage your siding, insulation, etc. TV Guy, just what does your neighbor do for Traveler's? They are relatively new into the residential insurance market so I don't know that he is an expert on the subject especially since he is wrong.

People get letters all the time for things like this-missing railings on stairways, exposed wood or rotted wood on the siding of houses, roofs in bad shape, etc. This is also how they find out if you have a dog on their naughty dog list.

In your insurance contract there is a clause that you have to take care of your property and if you don't they can and will drop you. We just yesterday had the insurance adjuster out to our rental property after the roof leaked because of a VERY heavy rainfall. We don't go up on the roof (we should but we don't). We had some issues with the roofing material that were not related to weather and were related to age-our fault, won't be covered by insurance-lesson learned.

Exactly.

 

[golfgal]

The flip side is....

A couple of years ago my sister got the same letter. She lives in a very affluent area, had the same company for years, no inspection clause and no claims in the twenty plus years she's been with the company.

She called to complain and was told that they just wanted to make sure they were covering her correctly. A call to the state insurance board, that had received many complaints, confirmed that the company was looking for a way to raise her premiums. She's now with a new company.

Not possible--this is STANDARD in ALL insurance policies as set by the ISO (the national insurance organization made up of all of the commissioners of insurance from all 50 state). There had to be more to this story.

 

[SpecialK]

Not possible--this is STANDARD in ALL insurance policies as set by the ISO (the national insurance organization made up of all of the commissioners of insurance from all 50 state). There had to be more to this story.

If there's more to the story it's that I was mistaken about the inspection clause.

ISO is a company that provides actuarial and inspection data to insurance companies to aid in standardization of premiums, risk etc. (According to my other sister who is a CPCU.) Perhaps your info is from another source?

 

[golfgal]

If there's more to the story it's that I was mistaken about the inspection clause.

ISO is a company that provides actuarial and inspection data to insurance companies to aid in standardization of premiums, risk etc. (According to my other sister who is a CPCU.) Perhaps your info is from another source?

There is also a standard ISO insurance contract for homeowners insurance and auto insurance. Each insurance company can made additions to the policy to make it better but they can't take things away. NO insurance company is going to give up the right to inspect a property. My source is many, many years of working in the insurance industry in various capacities.

 

[Mimi1965]

I had an inspection from Allstate a few years ago.

My agent took a pic of my house when we built-I THOUGHT, but asked me if I considered it mostly brick or mostly siding. To me it was 50-50%-so I said Brick

The inspector claims its mostly siding -so my rate changed-but it was a very small $$$

 

[DebbieB]

If there's more to the story it's that I was mistaken about the inspection clause.

ISO is a company that provides actuarial and inspection data to insurance companies to aid in standardization of premiums, risk etc. (According to my other sister who is a CPCU.) Perhaps your info is from another source?

For the company I work for, most of our policy forms are from ISO.