<p>ChuckleDoodle, I wonder what they would say if you asked why your insurance increased. It shouldn’t for such a minor claim. I think they would match a lower quote, so worth considering. They know AFI is big competition for them.</p>
<p>Insurance companies are regulated by states, so the same national insurance company can be better in one state than another state. If an insurance company can’t get rates they want because state regulators won’t allow a rate increase, the insurance company will start dropping everyone they legally can. Even if you call an insurance company and tell them you may be submitting a claim and then you don’t, they might cancel you or non-renew you because they’ll say they suffered claim expenses setting up a file even though you ended up not even filing claim. </p>
<p>" Even if you call an insurance company and tell them you may be submitting a claim and then you don’t, they might cancel you or non-renew you because they’ll say they suffered claim expenses setting up a file even though you ended up not even filing claim."</p>
<p>I had the opposite experience with Armed Forces. I called about a condo we had, where the tenants just moved out, and it was a mess. I told them I thought the condo might have black mold, and that I might file a claim. It really looked like mold to me.They told me to wait to file, and they’d send an inspector out there to take a look. The next day I got a little closer look at what I thought was mold, and realized it was just dirt, and cleaned it all up. They assured me that no claim had been filed, and even sent me a letter saying the matter was resolved, no claim filed.</p>
<p>Last December, we had a water leak in our house that caused a fair amount of damage. I had called them and mentioned that my husband might fix it himself. A couple of hours later, the lady who was going to pay out the claim, called me up in a panic. She told me, “No, you can’t say that you are going to do the work, or I can’t give you contractor reimbursement rates!” She was very upset, and I was amazed that she cared so much. So of course I said, “Okay, don’t worry, we’ll get a contractor to do it.” I guess it doesn’t really matter who actually does the work, but who you intend to do the work when you make the claim.</p>
<p>My husband did a great job…</p>
<p>OP what don’t you see if you can increase the deductible with your current company and just be prepared to cover damage on your own in the amount you had before. I don’t know how much that will change things, but a $500 claim is on the low side. I think we have a $1500 deductible.</p>
<p>All I know is that Florida’s property insurance market is a mess. I’d have a hard time recommending any of them. I don’t trust any of them, and to top things off, they own the state legislature getting laws tuned up their way and they have the insurance commissioner’s office in their back pocket too. If the insurance companies don’t get what they want in Florida, they just leave, or cherry pick their existing customers and dump lots of their insurance customers.</p>
<p><a href=“'Insane' insurance market roils before storm season - Insurance News | InsuranceNewsNet”>'Insane' insurance market roils before storm season - Insurance News | InsuranceNewsNet;
<p>We had a small amount of damage due to Storm Sandy. I actually called my agent. I wanted to know about getting an estimate from the insurance company so I could,decide if I should submit a claim. She told me that if the come out and appraise the damage, it COUNTS as a claim even IF I don’t ever submit a request for payment. This was my old insurance. When I got my new insurance, I was told this is SOP for insurance companies.</p>
<p>We’ve had State Farm for our whole married life - 35 years. We have both homeowners and car insurance with them. We’ve filed claims for theft from an auto (which I think was homeowners for some reason) and house damage due to hurricane Sandy. With the Sandy claim they reimbursed us for lost (freezer melted) food from the long power outage as well as giving us a generous amount to replace our 25 year old roof. We’ve always thought our premiums were pretty reasonable when the kids were teens and like how they took the college kids off the plan when they attended college hundreds of miles away. </p>
<p>We’ve had AAA for 27 years for both auto and home and have been pleased. Even if I knew my rates could be a little lower (no idea if that’s the case), I wouldn’t switch because the times we’ve had claims over the years (both auto and homeowners), the process has been easy and the people we dealt with pleasant; the insurance company reduced our stress rather than added to it. (I do have to say that the reviews about Amica have piqued my curiosity but I’m not going to act on it!)</p>
<p>We have Auto owners. We had them for over 25 years. We have had claims before including a couple years ago when hail damaged the roof and we had to have it and all the gutters replaced. It was very interesting at the time because we had no problems it all and the cost of replacement was about $20,000. We only had to pay our deductible.However there were some neighbors whose insurance companies would not pay for replacement or dragged their feet as long as possible. Our rate did not go up afterwards. We are very satisfied with them.</p>
<p>Need to know which state you are in to know which insurance you can even consider. </p>
<p>As above- Florida home owner’s insurance is a real mess. Many nationwide insurers won’t touch Florida. Unlike in some other states I would be leery of some of the smaller, regional firms as they seem to run into financial problems and become worthless in paying claims. Different choices available in Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Switched to a regional/local area firm a few decades ago in WI when American Family (located in WI!) dropped me. The tipping point was when I was rear ended by a teen while stopped for a school bus and THEIR American Family insurance had the claim after I had had my share of also weather related minor bumps over 5 or more years and their insurance for many decades. Got lucky with replacement company (Secura for those who can use them)but they don’t do business outside that region. </p>
<p>Currently with AAA in FL- combined car and home. Since they are national a weather disaster here won’t overwhelm the company. We’ll see what happens. Anyone with good ideas for FL can PM me- and no, not Citizens- we dropped them ASAP when we made the actual physical move.</p>
<p>The cost of insurance has to include what is covered or an apples/oranges problem. Wind or sinkhole coverage- never seemed to be both…</p>
<p>wis75, i’m in florida. amica is national.</p>
<p>Florida’s state owned Citizens Insurance Co. might be one of Florida’s soundest financially homeowners ins. companies right now…it is an A+ rated insurance company with over $7 billion in reserves. Citizens is down to under a million Florida policies now after peaking a few years ago at about 1.5 homeowners policies. Many Citizens policies were spun off to small start-up private carriers that are shaky financially. Too, many national property insurance companies that stayed in the Florida market set up ‘pup’ subsidiary companies in Florida so if ‘the big one’ (hurricane) hits Florida, they just file for bankruptcy with their ‘pup’ companies in Florida to protect their assets outside Florida.</p>
<p>I’m in Florida. I called Amica and they won’t write a homeowners policy for me because I’m located too close to the coast. They will write auto but their quote was much higher than USAA (who I use for both homeowners and auto so get a discount). I have Citizens for windstorm coverage because USAA won’t write windstorm where I live. They are very expensive.</p>
<p>OP here. We live in Northern Virginia for those that were asking. I looked at our policy and it has increased 25% every year since 2011; except this year it increased 31%. I called the office and they are closed today due to the holiday so I will be calling them tomorrow.</p>
<p>I got an answer/quote from AFI, they will insure me through American Strategic Insurance (ASI) and Allied as long as we move our car insurance over to them; which is something I’m not interested in doing at this time as I have a young driver still on our policy. Plus I like Geico, they have always been prompt on payouts and helpful for accidents that are not our fault. I asked the AFI guy why AFI can’t insure us, still waiting for a response.</p>
<p>Amica can also insure us but it will cost more than USAA. Guess I’ll keep looking into this until I get an answer I want to hear. </p>
<p>thanks everyone for your opinions, it has helped. </p>
<p>Happy memorial day and thank you to all the veterans who have served and died for our great country- you are in our heart and prayers.</p>
<p>“I got an answer/quote from AFI, they will insure me through American Strategic Insurance (ASI) and Allied as long as we move our car insurance over to them; which is something I’m not interested in doing at this time as I have a young driver still on our policy. Plus I like Geico, they have always been prompt on payouts and helpful for accidents that are not our fault. I asked the AFI guy why AFI can’t insure us, still waiting for a response.”</p>
<p>The only way that makes sense is if they do not insure homeowners in VA directly. They should be able to insure you directly, not through ASI or anyone else, unless there’s a specific reason why they can’t. And that doesn’t make sense to me, as I’m sure there are tons of military/former military in VA. And they shouldn’t say you have to be insured with their preferred car insurance company, unless you were trying to get them to give you an umbrella policy, which some insurers require. I would be really interested to hear the answer to why they can’t insure you directly! If they’re going through some sort of intermediary, I don’t know that you’d get the same service.</p>
<p>@busdriver11- I was thinking the same thing. I’ll post when I get an answer from the AFI agent.</p>
<p>Ok, I talked with USAA today and the reason why my rates have increased this year to 31% over last years policy is for two reasons: my dwelling coverage was increased from 361K to 366K and there have been several claims by Virginians this year for water and hail damage. I haven’t claimed anything, but apparently enough of my fellow Virginians have in order to raise rates.</p>
<p>To put this into perspective:
USAA wants $1372 for my renewal policy
AFI wants $878</p>
<p>I used the same information for the AFI quote so I’m comparing apples to apples and somehow I just can’t see paying $494 more per year for the same coverage. Amica wanted $1378 for the same coverage as USAA.</p>
<p>I think I’ll see what he hubby has to say to these numbers and then make a decision…any new opinions from anyone out there?</p>