Seems that some insurance companies are trying their best to find ways to drop customers in presumably risky or overconcentrated areas.
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I feel fortunate we have USAA insurance. Not the dumping of clients as other insurance companies, but have to be able to have the military ties to be insured/be a member. Had our house built in 1992 with 30-year roofing material; 2009 widespread hail damage in our area had our roof replaced when we were insured with State Farm. State Farm in 2016 did not allow us to renew auto, homeowner and umbrella policies despite not significant claims (two auto claims in a few prior years - one was about $8,000 and one was about $7,000, and a small house water claim that affected one room’s flooring). We had State Farm insurance on our home for over 30 years.
Have had hail again and will have IBHS Fortified roof put on because we paid the extra endorsement for this coverage (all insurance companies in our state were required to offer this kind of roof coverage in 2022) - the endorsement costs us an extra $90/year.
When D recently bought her house, USAA informed her they are no longer writing homeowners in our area. She’s not in a fire or flood risk area. (She went with Amica.) H and I have USAA for all our insurance and have been happy with their service.
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I hear a lot of good about Amica but they are very pricy (where I live) and every month it seems like they send an ad to my wife - and every month for years and years they spell our last name wrong.
We are closing on our very first house next Friday. I need to choose some home owners insurance.
How do you decide what you need and how much? And how do you know what endorsements/add ons you need?
Does anyone have American Family?
Look up reviews for local insurance brokers and talk to at least three. They will give you advice. You’ll probably find that the advice is pretty much the same. One thing that can help reduce costs is having a higher deductible for claims … ask for quotes with various deductible amounts that are within your ability to pay if you have a claim.
Here is a guide to homeowners insurance that might be helpful: https://www.michigan.gov/difs/-/media/Project/Websites/difs/Publication/Home/Homeowners_Insurance_Guide.pdf?rev=70827813a2484b3eb9dc601b37f0217e&hash=79C4F4C46B59FAB37EA6A09550DFF06A.
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The amount needed is based on estimated rebuilding costs of the house if the house is destroyed. Insurance companies will have their own methods of estimating this when giving premium quotes.
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American Family is a regional insurance - we are originally from WI and I know my parents had American Family insurance for at least our auto insurance when I was in college - and my friend’s dad was an agent. He actually started in Madison WI and had his own agency in our home town (and now one of his sons is the American Family agent). Certainly get a quote from them and you might also get a quote for ‘bundled’ insurance with auto. Many companies provide that kind of multipolicy discounts. Check with other homeowner family/friends on what they have. Get familiar with reading through the policy once you decide on it.
Congrats on your first house! Exciting.
Have the agent detail important things - our policy has this kind of detail: Section I Coverages and Amounts of Insurance
Section II Coverages and Limits of Liability
Deductibles (we have two categories):
Wind and Hail $2,000
All Other Perils $1,000
Policy Premium
Credits and Discounts
Other Coverages and Endorsements
State Surcharges and Taxes (we have none in this category)
Total Policy Premium
Looking at policy detail, I didn’t realize a small part of our policy is for hurricane coverage (we are in N AL, so there is a slight chance for hurricane type of damage). The majority of premium by peril is almost all split between all other wind/hail, and all other perils. Hurricane is under $60 and rated endorsements is under $20. Those are the four line items under our ‘coverage type’ detail.
We actually also have a breakdown of “Minimum Estimated Rebuid Cost” as of 2-6-2024, and the estimated rebuilt cost is just under what our line item dwelling protection amount is.
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If you have State Farm for your homeowners insurance, be aware that they are really cracking down on roof issues. I took title to my Mom’s house earlier this week and needed a new policy. Evidently SF is using drones to photograph your roof and if it needs repair/replacement, they are sending 15 day notices to remedy or lose your policy. I’m really glad the roofers are starting tomorrow.
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But what caused the issue - perhaps it was weather related?
This is for ALL SF policies. It is not exclusive to this property. They are having drones photograph SF insured properties. If they think you need a new roof, you will be getting one…or a new insurer. If you had weather related damage to your roof, one would think you’d have filed a claim already.
Looks like many insurers are scrambling about roofs. Just got a notice from our insurance (Safeco) to provide info about our metal roof to be able to get a metal roof discount. Really? They have not given us any discounts in the two years we had the roof. Now I need to find the original contract and print the finaled permit info and send that to them.
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Well - we need a new roof and erred.
My wife filed a claim - but when we found out they’ll cover only $400, we withdrew.
Now - she can’t get a quote because it shows we filed a claim even though it cost them $0.
And our current sent a note saying we could be cut next year - need to provide proof of a new roof.
We erred in that sense.
Maybe a windstorm will take out the full house b4 the policy lapses 
It’s going to be an expensive year - this and some other large expenses - not a good year.
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Nteresting about SF. My daughter and her husband have State Farm and they are looking at replacing their roof. My daughter wants to put it off another year but maybe it’s best to just get it done.
My husband is having trouble getting insurance on a rental and the company said they wouldn’t renew due to no upgrades since it was built. It does have a newer clay roof so he is having to do some documentation and hopes they renew. He figures he is going to have that problem on many properties as they come up for renewal. (He is in PM business)
It would not be surprising if any insurance company that sees itself as being over concentrated in your area will try to cancel policies due to what it sees as problematic roof condition or similar.
During the Great Recession, which almost ended our business, DH worked on a contract basis with a forensics engineering firm. He inspected many, many houses damaged by Hurricane Sandy for insurance claims. He always gave the benefit of the doubt to the homeowner. But he was shocked at how many people tried to get things passed off as damage due to the storm when he could tell it had occurred previously. So I can see why companies are cracking down. There are more than a few unscrupulous people out there.
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I absolutely believe it! Mom wasn’t unscrupulous, she was just always worried about running out of money. Any time I’d try to talk to her about something, she’d comment that I could fix it when she was dead. It seems that time has arrived.
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Including the vendors themselves…who come out in droves. I never knew there was “that many” roofing companies. One vendor told us - legally, they cannot talk to the insurer or maybe it’s they cannot be the primary (there for you as support) and he told us to stop letting people on our roof, that a real company today uses a drone (and boy, the clarity is amazing). He showed us shingles and said - you can tell, a person pushed this in and made this impression. The last several estimates we got - if they don’t drone, they can ladder up but we don’t let them on the roof anymore.
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We saw an entire presentation by an engineer showing the tricks people try to pull off! It’s kind of funny that they don’t realize inspectors have seen just about every scam in the book and will catch on quickly.
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Re: roofs. Even IF your warranty is for say 30 years, it’s very likely the whole roof will need a redo before 30 years is up. This isn’t an insurance issue, it is a home maintenance issue.
We had to replace our 35 year guarantee roof at 25 years. We felt like 25 years was pretty good service. Our roofer went dealt with our warranty which was very prorated, but he did get some money back from the manufacturer of the shingles.
And yes, it was a costly home maintenance item…sort of like our driveway, or getting our house restained. No insurance pays for these things as what they view as regular home maintenance.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but we have a capital improvement account that we put money into for these very anticipated repairs.
Now…back to insurance. We have replacement value on our home, and a $2000 deductible if we ever DO have something to file a claim for with our insurance. Our two cars and our house are about $5500 a year…including our umbrella policy.
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