It is not what people think - it is how many insurance companies are dictating certain things.
Thankfully we qualified to get USAA insurance when we needed to find homeowner’s insurance and have done well with them.
We had homeowner’s insurance with State Farm for over 30 years, later bundled in car insurance. Also had umbrella policy and jewelry/valuables policy. State Farm decided to not renew anything except the valuables policy some years ago. At one time we had Geico car insurance, and when I called Geico for car and homeowner insurance - they would not quote me on homeowner insurance because any interior water damage in the last 5 years excluded us from getting a quote/getting insurance. Thankfully we found a way to get with USAA.
As others have said - in certain states, with requiring roof replacement as a condition of insurance (when the roof is fine), etc. etc. If a roof is over a certain age and you are purchasing the home, they require the roof to be replaced - family selling a home in GA and they want to have the roof repaired not replaced before selling. A home down the street from me had a roof replaced before new homeowner’s purchase - and I can bet they were told before closing that to insure the home with XYZ company, the roof needed to be replaced.
Due to natural disasters, insurance companies have lost money and have required high premiums or high deductibles. FL and CA, and other states.
With USAA I can discuss the flexibility of the homeowner insurance with underwriting and learn what can be done to fit our circumstances. Due to our state having coastal/gulf area and sometimes hurricane conditions, all homeowner policies needed to include an option for an extra rider for a better roof if damaged by weather – this was extremely helpful for us. I called USAA and added the rider, and it was extremely low-cost addition (I believe $90/year). We had hail damage/roof replacement in 2009 with State Farm, and a few years ago we had hail damage/roof replacement with USAA - and we now have an upgraded roof with a 10-year certificate. When our new gutters were put on our home, the workers left exposed wood, and the fascia had to be replaced around the entire home at a cost of $8,000. Because of the mounting of the new roof, it was included with the roof replacement - thank you USAA. Undamaged fascia was key with this new roof and USAA did the thing our policy was written for. Our new roof will withstand high winds if that happens. I asked our contractor roughly about how much we should insure our home for, and adjusted up with USAA.
The location of our home has us safe from most tornadoes that have hit our area due to some safety with topography – however a tornado has followed over a hill and continued damage on the other side when prior to it happening in our city area SE of us about 15 miles, had not happened in a populated area. Within 12 miles of our home, there are houses that have been hit with 3 tornadoes in a 5-year period - one was during the super outbreak of tornadoes April 27, 2011. On that day, a tornado was in the air over our subdivision at noon but did not touch down - it went over our daughter’s middle school, and they were loading buses for early school release (after having a late start at 9 am; early release at 11 am) and had to get back in the building. I was on a road that went in front of the school with my older daughter, who needed a book from a bookstore (her private HS which was regional, administrators realized the weather would not break so instead of late start they canceled the entire day), and we drove through torrential rain/wind, then the quiet, then torrential rain/wind. I realized then how foolish we were for trying to go get that book (a car is not a safe place when a tornado hits!) The tornadoes that hit our area hard were about 3:20 pm - just before we lost power there were 3 tornado cells close to us (which we saw on the TV weather) - we have trees in our back yard which gives us immediate indication for us to go to our tornado safe spot if needed. Tornadoes took out all power lines going into our city, and our home regained power just hours before being w/o power for 7 days. It was the worst weather day I have been through - tornado warnings started at 6 am (I had DD2 come to the first-floor couch from her 2nd floor BR so if we needed to go to our tornado spot). The tornadoe hits to our area happened in that 3:20 pm timeframe. “Over 175 tornadoes struck Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, which were the most severely damaged states. In Alabama alone, 238 tornado-related deaths were confirmed by the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) and the state’s Emergency Management Agency.” At the time, my husband was in Malasia for business (and I was worried about him!); he got word about tornadoes and called us the next morning at 8:30 am (he was able to get through to my cell phone - I couldn’t get out to anyone – days before I could make any phone calls due either to volume of calls or maybe cell towers damaged). In Malasia, the customer asked DH what a tornado was, and he explained a hurricane w/o as much water but a lot of wind damage. I had never heard of a Derecho storm until that happened in recent years in Iowa where my sister lives. The area airport was one of the first things re-opened, and DH was home with his business concluded but no manufacturing plant to go to w/o the power. Power then restored to main city buildings/fire stations etc. The public library encouraged people to charge their phones/laptops, and our family was there when our neighbor called us when our home got power again. DH was then able to return to work the next day. While we were out of power, grocery stores got semi-trailers of ice – our freezer items were all lost but between keeping the refrigerator door closed, and later using a cooler with ice, we had milk and other food items. Neighbor with gas grill cooked up meat and we all had a potluck by candlelight.
There are details in our homeowner’s policy which protect us if total loss of the building. A clause in our USAA policy which has an additional $120,000 coverage.