I do think it’s an insurance issue when an insurer is putting property under surveillance and threatening cancellation when there have been no claims unless one does xyz within a very short time period.
We all have different circumstances that may prevent the establishment of a capital home maintenance account. Life can be full of curve balls.
I agree with this!
And yes, having money put aside for general expected maintenance is something not everyone can do…but with home ownership…you know there will be general maintenance that is not insurance covered.
It’s simply business - different locations have different risk factors.
All those kids doing a data science major or actuary major ?
They’re likely the ones creating these conclusions.
Data drives decisions.
If you can’t profit from increased revenue, you do so from savings.
There is a lot that a drone can miss - if your roof is complex. Works well for simple roofs.
ETA: I’m not talking about some random drive by “roofers.” I’m talking about companies the owner contacted to get bids.
Agree about having enough of ‘emergency fund’ or capital improvement fund/car fund etc. (or pull money to be liquid as needed) to handle work that needs to be done as homeowners on maintenance/upgrades.
Many people have to pay a lot more for homeowner’s insurance (I am assuming you have two vehicles and two drivers). We will assess if we have enough homeowner’s insurance on our home after we finish with the current two insurance claims. We have umbrella along with homeowner and two vehicles/2 drivers with one insurance company, and homeowner is $4K - and we count ourselves fortunate based on size/cost of home. We also do things like have a small savings account to also get more insurance discounts.
Agree that a 30-year roof most likely will not last 30 years. We are on our 3rd one with home built in 1992 (all due to hail damage).
Wish I had listened to my dad (a builder in another state) who talked about maintenance free exterior. We should have designed less exterior wood/more exterior brick, and had all the soffits and trim vinyl clad (we did that later). Since we used oil-based stain on the exterior wood, never had to scrape paint and the natural color has lasted longer as the wood absorbs the oil. The last time we stained the house it was because the sun had faded some of the wood color. Looks like we will be good for years to come on the exterior staining.
We had a lot of landscaping done initially - so proper draining away from the house for example, and add items in recent years to add ‘curb appeal’.
With insurance over long term, it is a factor in deciding where to live in retirement - but typically high insurance costs will dovetail with high living costs as well.
It may be hard to stay with the current and to get new offers.
We had one claim we withdrew and several insurers told my wife that bcuz we filed it, even though we won’t get a cent as we withdrew it, they cannot give us a quote for several years.
No we are happy with USAA and do not plan to switch. We are just looking to see what the value of our home should be for replacement and any additional policy riders. One of the claims was due to a plumber error in April - punching a hole in our sink drain pipe way above where the actual clog was. This was discovered after a roof leak (May 18th) that had water that went through the master bath wall and damaged first floor formal dining room (hail punched a hole so water went down a venting pipe on the roof). Waited to tear out master bath with a leak detector finding the plumbing leak behind our master vanity, so insurance split off for 2 claims at tear out and replacement costs. We plan to get our $1,000 deductible back when USAA gets the damage from plumber’s insurance; if they don’t we will take them to small claims court to recoup our deductible.
I’m saying USAA may not renew you.
It seems the # of claims is as impactful as the amount, if not moreso.
I don’t know USAA. Perhaps they don’t drop clients but others certainly would.
No - USAA does not cancel people like other insurance companies. I specifically discussed this with our Major Claims Adjuster – working with USAA for 10 years, he said he has seen people with 20 claims and not canceled.
I personally know a retired Colonel who totaled two new cars within 18 months, and they didn’t cancel him. Of course he was insured with them for many years.
State Farm didn’t drop us after our 2009 roof claim, but we had two smallish car claims and a not very big homeowner’s claim and they would not renew us in 2016 for auto, home and umbrella, but they still would insure me on my jewelry policy – and we got on USAA with the rest. I decided to only insure certain pieces of jewelry and wear a lot less of it because the insurance cost kind of grew on it. We had homeowner’s with State Farm for over 30 years. Thankfully we had a ‘way in’ with USAA - purchased a small jewelry claim for DH’s dad who was a Veteran, and then DH, our DDs and I all got USAA numbers to be able to be insured by them and use their various financial services.
Allstate to raise California home insurance rates by 34% on average. Map details hikes up to 650%
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/allstate-home-insurance-rate-hike-19728352.php
I am with USAA currently, but I have not always been. While they did not “drop” me from auto per se, they did switch me to one of their high risk driver subsidiary companies with a much higher cost, after we had two claims in a year. Went to GEICO for a while until I was able to get my homeowners with USAA and so bundled auto as well. I am satisfied with USAA as far as costs go, but I did think GEICO handled claims quicker and fairer.
Rates are definitely increasing and honestly when we shopped around there wasn’t much variance in rates for homeowners. Being in NJ, a lot of the cost increase isn’t so much the storm risk (at least where I live, away from the coast), it is more likely the cost of rebuild if a storm hits. My homeowners is up to like 1800 a year now, and they have changed things like deductibles if it is a hurricane that causes damage. Car insurance we have liability on one, full on the other (it is getting close to the point where full coverage doesn’t matter) and with two adult drives, no accidents, it is like 2500 I think (I haven’t looked recently, my wife is much better with that). Flood insurance, even though we live in an area that has no major flood risks (technically the 1 in a 100 year rating), has soared, it used to be like 450 not all that many years ago, now it is getting close to 900 (and expected to rise again when it renews). I don’t know if that represents local risk for floods, or if they are still subsidizing high flood risk areas by raising rates elsewhere (supposedly flood insurance stopped doing that a while ago).
We have had no insurance claims against any of our insurance literally since we moved here 30 years ago.
One positive experience with insurance, our kid is a professional musician and he had an instrument on loan from a collector, one that was worth quite a bit of money. We have a policy that covered the instrument fully. The instrument due to an accident sustained severe damage, the bill for the repairs and the loss of value (which is typical with a collectors level instrument) was into 6 figures, and the insurer paid it promptly once there was a valuation for those items. They didn’t cancel the policy either (the instrument will go back to the owner), it still covers his regular instruments and the like.
When State Farm did not renew our Homeowner’s, Auto, and Umbrella policies, they did allow our valuables policy to remain. Over the years I did have two claims on it, but that is a policy class that they seem to make money on even with claims. I keep that valuables policy but have very limited things on it. We did have our children’s musical instruments on that policy - due to loss/theft - they played wind instruments with higher end instruments, and there was risk for needing to replace for lost/stolen and slighter chance for damage.
USAA has paid out everything on our two claims - and I might see about raising a limitation on one aspect of our homeowner’s policy. One claim was due to hail hitting our roof near the bathroom vent pipe causing rain water to funnel down the wall and damage our formal dining room wall/floor - so big claim for all of roof replacement (we had an endorsement for a better roof so we got that IBHS Fortified Roof), continuous flooring through living and dining room after dining room floor repair (so those rooms packed up and stored, not a tiny bill), all of living/dining repainted after wall repair, etc. (there was some small areas of water damage on living room walls so all was repaired before painted). The master bath also had to be emptied under the second insurance claim - that only was 3 small boxes and the area rugs – we had to take the items we use day-to-day by bins into our hallway outside of our smaller second full bath on the second floor of our home. Since one claim was due to the plumbing company knocking a hole in our master sink drain (a quarter size hole in the wall way above where there was a clog - operator error with the very long motorized snake) - and didn’t know he did so – our deductible and out of pocket I am going to approach the plumbing company to decide to pay/file a claim with their insurer or take them to small claims court. In our policy there is a $10,000 limitation on a bit of coverage which actually is for mold/water damage – and that is what I might want to have raised - but will see how it changes our policy premium. The master bath is above the formal dining room (share the same wall above, on the damaged dining room wall). The plumber was here in April (but that one sink is not used much and it took time for the water spilling into the wall and back of the cabinet - the hole was on the back side of the pipe) and the roof problem was discovered with the water in the formal dining room mid-May. With only two of us living in the house, we do not step into the formal dining room often but I saw mold along the ceiling/wall from the wide open area into the formal living room - and went to investigate.
A few payments from USAA went directly to support vendors (the pack/storage company and the people that tore out damage) but all other payments on the house itself (by law in our state) have to come through the homeowner.
I do have a small personal property item that USAA will pay for the repair (a piece of furniture was against that dining room wall, and we realized when it came back from storage had water and mold damage) - furniture repair person did the repair, and USAA said they will pay on that (my husband forgot to get an invoice from the repair guy, so will be getting that).
Our master bath has some tiles missing (after the tear out) that is not under the vanity - and our original tile business people have a ‘design solution’ - we are getting a porcelain border around our vanity - and they will tile in a bit under where the vanity will be, so the cabinet people can do measurements and get our vanity modified so it will fit perfectly. Our vanity was custom built, and it is being restored with upgrades - we are paying for the extras. Two bowl under counter sinks, quartz countertop, new Delta faucets, new pulls on the cabinet. So the hope is that the tile border accentuating the upgraded vanity, it all looks like that was meant to be. Best option because the master bath is large, and the 12" X 12" tile runs up the large Jacuzzi and surrounds the large shower - it would IMHO look weird to have new/different flooring butt up against this other tile. Original tile cannot be matched (1992 installation).
The roof was not done until September/early Oct - hold up for a lot of reasons and then found damage around the fascia that also needed to have estimated and run through insurance claim (and USAA did pay, $8225, I believe because of the upgrade roof endorsement which needs a solid fascia). Interior could not be ‘restored’ until roof was completed.
We upgraded for wood floor from carpet in living/dining. The carpet was high end, but wood floor installation is a bit more. We also wanted the solid strip wood flooring to go the same direction as our other rooms - and if it is laid parallel to the floor joists, you have 2 solutions – one is a layer of 1/2" underlayment to the existing subfloor (unacceptable for us as we don’t want the uneven-ness to the entry or going into the kitchen/swinging door.) The other is bracing the truss/joist system - which is what we did at a cost of $2,400 (which also included replacing the insulation there in our crawl space subflooring area).
I just found out what my monthly Anthem premium will be in 2026. A 12% increase to $999.34. The deductible is $8,000. I pay for my meds online WITHOUT insurance, because it’s cheaper. 33 more months of this highway robbery (until I turn 65).
Yikes! Is it higher because of claims filed last year? Any other options?
No and no. I didn’t see a single specialist this year. And I’ve looked everywhere. This is THE cheapest option. I would get catastrophic insurance if I could. Of course, with this deductible, it’s almost catastrophic at this point.
Just reminds me how fortunate I am to be employed in automotive - the industry is known for great and low cost insurance coverage.
DH could not emotionally hang in with his job - he saw we had enough money in retirement funds, and retired from his job at age 64 1/2. We had planned for us both working until I turned 65, 4 months after DH. Fortunately I worked enough hours to pick up insurance from my employer, which saved us $1,000 a month from COBRA costs.
We kept paying for COBRA dental, which was a helpful plan, and DH kept vision plan. We later have been paying for vision for DH with VSP with reasonable monthly premiums. Our dentist has a dental payment plan that works out well for us, we pay his an annual cost which covers cleaning, X-rays and checks twice a year, and discounts on other dental services. DH had cataract surgery and has 20-20 vision now for distance, but he is so use to wearing glasses all the time, and DD2 says dad has to keep wearing glasses. People don’t recognize him w/o glasses. So instead of ‘cheaters’ he continues to wear fairly expensive glasses - which is OK. Once he has about 3 pairs of complete glasses, we will stop the VSP. I had Lasix surgery years ago and use cheater glasses; I believe my cataracts will get bad enough for surgery after next vision check. We both see the MD retina specialist yearly (DH had ‘floaters’ and since I am on Medicare I also see this specialist - we do back-to-back appointments).
We both see dermatologist yearly with back-to-back skin checks, and have both had stuff removed pre-cancer.
Many people hang in with work due to health insurance premiums pre-Medicare. Some working for military, other government, other employers and have enough service years, teachers, etc. have options to retire from that career.
In retirement, people can consider insurance costs where they live along with other factors and decide if living where they are (not tied to employment anymore). Many want to live near their kids/grandkids, but some live where they can travel in to visit kids/grandkids during their go-go years and even slow-go years.
We had our insurance premiums go up on us by quite a lot. No accidents for 10 years. After shopping around, we found that the prices were the same everywhere. I opted to change to Allstate. They’re not the cheapest, but they seem to be the most upfront with their rates. Good news is that my policy just renewed and my rate went down by about $10 a month. Knock on wood.
That is tough. If per chance you retire earlier than age 65, maybe you could qualify for ACA subsidies?