Homeowners Insurance Company recommendations

Parent Cafe
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<p>We have been with USAA for about 8 years and have not had any problems. They only hold our homeowners insurance and not our car or umbrella insurance (GEICO has those). I have had no complaints with USAA, I noticed last year our rates were raised by $300 but I think that was because I asked for reimbursement when the power was out for 4 days and we lost all the meat in our large upright freezer in 2012. They said at the time that our rates would not raise, but obviously something happened.</p>

<p>I got our renewal notice and our rates are going up again- this time $400. I’m thinking about calling and asking why but in the meantime I went and looked at Geico who now uses Homesite Home Insurance. Googling them finds a lot of negative reviews. Also negative reviews for Nationwide, Travellers, USAA, etc.</p>

<p>This brings me back round to the “maybe I’m just making a mountain out of a molehill” and should I just stay with USAA? Looking for thoughts on who you use, are they any good, and how are they on paying out?</p>

<p>We have never had a major claim for our insurance and don’t normally file for claims on things that should be maintenance…</p>

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<p>Can you get a combination policy through Geico?</p>

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<p>Thumper, I was thinking about doing that, but after reading reviews about the company they use- Homesite, I’m not sure if that would be a good idea. Normally I’m not so indecisive 8-| and that’s why I thought to ask the collective :wink: </p>

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<p>Unlike restaurants or clothing items, insurance companies rarely get positive reviews. Only dissatisfied customers voice their opinions, for most part. Can you filter out the “noise”?</p>

<p>I would have never even thought about filing a claim for spoiled food! I think that would be below out deductible. Our insurer, MetLife, raised our homeowners policy rate from $900 to $1300 over the 13 years we’ve been with them despite us having zero claims. Am I happy? No. But I’ll stay put. </p>

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<p>We switched all of our insurance to safeco this year. We got quotes from a number of sources thorough an agent. Safeco won. Our premiums are $1000 less than with our old company. Same coverage…with some areas actually better coverage. We have car, homeowners, and umbrella all through the same company.</p>

<p>We were going to look at USAA, but they got terrible reviews in terms of increasing premiums when a claim was filed.</p>

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<p>We’ve used Amick for home, auto, and umbrella for over 30 years. We’ve had homeowners claims twice, once with significant damage after a hurricane. Both times, they were wonderful. Both times they went out of their way to cover more expenses than they were required to. We’ve also had a few auto claims. I couldn’t be happier and I recommend them highly.</p>

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<p>Amica.</p>

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<p>ChuckleDoodle, promise me you’ll look into Armed Forces Insurance (AFI)! They are like USAA used to be, back in the old days. Great rates and excellent service. Let me tell you my USAA story. Sorry you have to wade through this huge post, but you might find it useful.</p>

<p>About eleven years ago, we moved from Tennessee to Seattle, and our car insurance rates with USAA went way up. When I asked why, because we had had barely any claims, good record, and it’s probably a safer driving situation where we live now. People are really polite, safe drivers…crazy in TN! The USAA agent told me, “Oh, it’s because you have eight claims, and when you move to a different state, they reevaluate you.” What, eight claims? We had a small one, where a tornado had taken out a shed, that’s it. They had included a couple times that we’d called them out and they hadn’t paid anything, a couple of windshield repairs and every time I’d called to ask them a question, as a claim!! I don’t know if they still do that, but I couldn’t believe it. Got over it, forgot about it.</p>

<p>Several years later (after having USAA for 25 years), they massively raised our homeowners insurance rate. No claims on this house, ever. When I called, I was told that they’d reevaluated the rebuilding cost of our house, and five years after we bought it, they’d decided it was going to cost an additional 700K to rebuild. What?? This is a big square, needs remodeling. The land is what is valuable, not the old house. My contractor friend said no way, labor costs were down, materials slightly up. Turns out they’d priced the rebuild as if this was the very top of the line custom house, even all the basement space. If you saw my house, you’d laugh at that. I tried to convince some young bubbly woman in Texas that raising our rates from $2400 to $3800/yr was insane, and that costs really had not gone up. “Oh yes, they have gone up in your area, SOOOO much, ma’am!”</p>

<p>Okay, now I’m really pissed off. It takes a lot, inertia is a hard thing to overcome. We’ve always been with USAA, paid them a lot of money, rarely called them. The perfect customer. A friend recommended Armed Forces. No BS, no tricks, insurance is $1450, they don’t make us overinsure. We’ve had two claims, they are awesome. So helpful and quick. Had a pipe leak, they had someone out there ASAP, giving us far more than we’d expected, for both claims. I love the straightforward, cheap, no tricks business. The best! USAA used to be like that. We also pulled our car insurance, GEICO is insuring for half the rate (they do not increase rates for young drivers). Got our USAA subscriber savings account check…the only way you get it is to cancel all insurance with them, and we’d had them for so long, it was a check for 4K.</p>

<p>I’ve talked to others and they’ve said the deal is, for higher priced houses, USAA ia starting to do this, “reevaluation”, and pricing your policies up higher to get more money, regardless of your claims. So anyways, the point of this is talk to Armed Forces Insurance, they are awesome!</p>

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<p>I have been with USAA for over 20 years. We have all of our insurance with them (homeowners, cars and boat when we had one). We have had several car and boat claims with them and they were great to work with. For example, H and another driver were both hit by an uninsured driver. USAA fixed our car immediately while the other driver had to wait more than a year for reimbursment from his insurance company while it was settled in court. And two years ago, my neighbors house burned down and severely damaged the home next door. She had USAA and she said she did not have one bit of trouble with them. They paid for her to move out, stay in temporary housing and rebuilt the house. The next door neighbor had Liberty Mutual and she had to fight them tooth and nail for everything and in the end she ended up paying for some repairs out of pocket. It’s hard to know in advance how good an insurance company might be if you actually need them. </p>

<p>I have also found USAA to be competitive. Twice in the past few years I have had friends/relatives who have opened insurance businesses and have asked me to let them give me a quote. I have given them my declarations page and they have not been able to beat USAA. But since we have all our insurance with them we get a large multi-policy discount. And then we get the rebate on top of that. </p>

<p>Maybe you could ask USAA for a quote to move your other policy’s over. It could be that you could save more money that way. Then get a quote from Geico to move your homeowners to them. That might be a better “apples to apples” comparison.</p>

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<p>When we got quotes in February, USAA was NOT competitive price wise at all. Best quotes came from safeco, and progressive.</p>

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<p>^^Forget the friends/relatives business quote, DEfour, what quote would you get from Geico for auto, and Armed Forces for homeowners? I challenge you to get those quotes, and if you still like USAA, ask if they will match. I’d lay odds, especially if you have young drivers, they will be lower. USAA told me they specifically could not compete with GEICO if you had young drivers. Their auto insurance was over double, and we were just accepting it, like loyal USAA customers.</p>

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<p>BusDriver- thanks for the info. I’ll look into Armed Forces. USAA cannot beat Geico for what we have- young drivers…</p>

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<p>We have Nationwide and since they bought us a new roof a few years back I was hesitant to change. However, they raise their prices every year (claim or no claim). I will shop around soon. </p>

<p>A guy rear-ended me a few years ago and he had Amica. They were just incredibly nice! I think they will be first call when I start shopping around.</p>

<p>I thought USAA had the lowest rates around. We aren’t eligible, but I always heard great things. Wonder if GEICO service is as good.</p>

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<p>ditto Amica. Always rated #1 or tied for #1.</p>

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<p>Don’t bother asking a Florida resident for a homeowners insurance company recommendation…Florida has the highest property insurance premiums in the nation…everyone I know in Florida hates every property insurance company. </p>

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<p>Some details on Amica - years ago the lower (finished) level of our house was flooded when a hot water heating pipe burst. The pipe was laid under the concrete floor (bad idea). The plumber had to jackhammer through the floor to get to the pipe to fix it (this was covered). Amica’s adjuster came to evaluate damage and he was quite generous about reimbursing us for damaged furniture. The plumber advised re-doing the hot water heat on the lower level so that none of it was below the floor, because we would periodically have the same problem, pipes would break. We decided to go ahead with this at a cost of $3k, and it was clearly not covered by our policy. The policy would cover the jackhammering and pipe repair and replacement of damaged posessions, but not re-routing of the heating pipes. I didn’t even ask them to cover the new plumbing, but when the adjuster found out what we were doing, he said that they would cover it. </p>

<p>More recently, we had extensive damage from a hurricane. Not only are they there when you call on a weekend during a storm, they send an adjustor right away. They paid for repairs to our garage and replacement of a slate roof (with a slate roof, at a cost of $11k). We had a huge tree come down, and the cost to remove it was $8k (this was reasonable, believe me - it was a huge job and required the biggest crane I’ve ever seen). The policy limited removal cost per tree to a certain amount. They paid triple this amount, because the tree was split into 3 major branches, so they considered it 3 trees. They even covered our deductible, I forget how they managed that, but they paid a lot more than they had to, very fast. And they were lovely to deal with, very concerned about making things as easy for us as they could.</p>

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<p>Does anyone know why GEICO is so low for young drivers? I switched to GEICO once my teen got his license. The total for three drivers and three cars was almost exactly half the amount my prior carrier wanted to charge. I can’t recall the prior carrier’s name, but I did price via USAA and they were more expensive. Will GEICO cancel our policy if we have a claim? I was hit twice in a short timeframe last year. The other driver was at fault and other carrier paid out each time, but I started worrying that GEICO was going to want to drop us.</p>

<p>We pay a huge amount to Chubb for homeowner’s and recently just decided to increase our deductible to $2500.</p>

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<p>@busdriver 11 - I’m not interested in a challenge. I’m not the one looking for insurance.
The biggest problem with insurance is you’re paying for a product that you may or may not need in the future. When you actually need it, if you find out that the product is terrible (i.e., they don’t pay your claim, or give terrible service) you can’t go back and change your company. So for me, it isn’t strictly about who is cheapest, its about who is going to give me the best value and be there when I need them. USAA has proven that to me. That was what I was trying to convey. And I still think they are competitive although perhaps not with every company. I do know when I lived in SC, I called EVERYBODY and they were the cheapest. But they might not be everywhere. I wouldn’t go with Geico if they charged me $10 a year. I’ve known several people who have had them and regretted them when they had an accident. </p>

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<p>@DEfour - I agree with you- insurance may not be something where you want the cheapest…but where you can depend on the company to pay at a time of high stress and crisis. I’ve heard both good and bad about USAA and never had to rely on them to pay for anything. Same thing for Geico- we’ve been with them for over 20 years and have had accidents, tickets, etc and they have always been helpful and very fast to get our vehicles fixed. I have no complaints with them.</p>

<p>I was just looking for people’s opinions on homeowners insurance, it still shocks me that my insurance has almost doubled in 2 years. When I called about the power outage- we were on vacation in Hawaii, so I couldn’t use the meat in the freezer before it spoiled, so we lost everything. The USAA rep reassured me at the time that our insurance would NOT increase due to this $500 payout. Yet, the next year our insurance increased.</p>

<p>Like someone said above- inertia is hard to overcome. Our policy renews in July, so I have a little time to think/look into different companies.</p>

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<p>CT1417, it’s because Geico does not change the price for young drivers, they treat them like anyone else, as far as pricing goes. I had just assumed that my insurance must double when my boys started driving.</p>

<p>And I agree with ChuckleDoodle, it depends upon the area and people have different experiences with different companies. We’ve had a few accidents with Geico, excellent service, very happy. Have had worse service with USAA, lowered our ecpectations with them. I’m sure you’ll find people very happy and very unhappy with both companies. Best possible service with two claims at Armed Forces. Overpaying does not assure the best product, but if one is happy where they are, then no reason to change.</p>