Any other insurance agents here?

[Clarktar]

Interesting to read. We have a claim with USAA homeowners. Filed it in Jan 23 for water damage in the kitchen. Quotes and repairs don’t even come close to what USAA has paid out, and that’s with us hiring an independent to help our case. Not sure what to do next. Never had a claim with them before this and have been using them for years.

Same here! USAA homeowners. The coverage was so minimal I just ate the cost and did the work myself. Deductible was slightly greater than 1/3 of what they would cover. Pretty eye opening. I'm selling the house and living in this government shack until they bury me!

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[SWOHTR]

Same here! USAA homeowners. The coverage was so minimal I just ate the cost and did the work myself. Deductible was slightly greater than 1/3 of what they would cover. Pretty eye opening. I'm selling the house and living in this government shack until they bury me!

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Sad, isn’t it?

 

[Happy Antelope]

You won't find many people who are sympathetic to insurers or those in the insurance business. I have never encountered a person who hasn't had a negative experience when they needed an insurer to hold up their end of the deal. If the insured engages in dishonesty or deceit to maximize a claim, that's insurance fraud. If an insurer engages in dishonesty or deceit to maximize their profit, well that's just part of the business.

Take SWOHTRs case for example. If in the end, the insurer performs on the policy, they stood NOTHING to lose by stalling, delaying and stringing him out in hopes that he'd eventually just let it go. It's time consuming and mentally exhausting dealing with an insurer that does that, and the insurer suffers no consequences.

I have hundreds of stories, seen businesses ripped apart by a total fire only to come out ahead, more competitive than their competition. Seen insurance companies pay claims they flat said are excluded, but we are going it cover it anyway. In all honesty if an insurance company breaks what's in writing it can become a bad faith claim and the insured is entitled to 3x what the claim is. I have seen that happen as well. The real issue is most insured 1. Don't know their rights, 2. Have not read a policy so they honestly have no clue what they bought or are really entitled to, 3. Most folks try to pad an insurance claim, fraud is up to about 100 billion a year now from claims, 4. Don't have a good agent or ask the right questions. 5. How can someone know for a fact if they don't even know what the ins laws in the state are, have never read the policy etc? I have seen maybe 12 claims were not adjusted correctly according to the policy wording over the last 30 years, most of those resulted in the ins company taking a pounding, an adjustor getting fired etc. Bottom line have an agent who has your back, knows what he is doing and be reasonable.

The biggest issue with insurance companies is some bad adjustors, or ones that are over whelmed with claims and can't get back to everyone. Thats is the ins company not having enough adjustors. A carrier can NOT just stop responding without consequences. There are very strict laws in every states about response times. Keep in mind most adjustors could care less what the check says, all they care about is their claim file having the proper documentation. If you hire an attorney to help with a claim, they will send dozens of letters and are hoping for no response, that's the best case scenario for an insured, that leads to bad faith and a large paycheck. I am 100% on the insureds side every time, but I deal with way more unreasonable insureds than I do adjustors, but I do get frustrated how long it takes to get a call back also. Keep in mind some claims take multiple adjustments, multiple checks and can go one for a while. I have had 10 mil plus claims last years because of both sides.

Not all policies or carriers are created equal, stop shopping on only price. Buy what you want and need, massive differences between them all.

 

[Happy Antelope]

Same here! USAA homeowners. The coverage was so minimal I just ate the cost and did the work myself. Deductible was slightly greater than 1/3 of what they would cover. Pretty eye opening. I'm selling the house and living in this government shack until they bury me!

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Did they cover what was in the policy or no? If not they have a problem! You can complain to the DOI, but do your homework and make sure you are in the right, not just a want and hope. If it's a bad policy, find a good agent and find a better one. Keep in mind an insurance policy is a contract you both agreed upon, both sides have to keep up their end of the contract. Consequences for both sides, the laws in your state are very very much in your favor. Any Vague wording can be pushed in your favor for sure. Ins companies have lost hundreds of billions on stuff they did not intend to ever cover, but their wording in the contract was a bit vague because of maybe 1-2 words and bam. State Farm covering flood in New Orleans when everyone in the country knows flood is covered by FEMA and the US Govt not ins companies. The people who all got paid were to cheap to buy flood insurance, knew better and then got paid anyway, you and I pay for that in premiums.

 

[180ls1]

It is a shame that it is that way sometimes. However, where there are people there are problems. No way around it. You can look at it as a negative or an opportunity to help. Both would be correct, but, I prefer the latter.

Also, every industry struggles with this condition, even the "non-greedy" ones. Medical Malpractice is the 3rd biggest killer in the US for example.

 

[Happy Antelope]

It is a shame that it is that way sometimes. However, where there are people there are problems. No way around it. You can look at it as a negative or an opportunity to help. Both would be correct, but, I prefer the latter.

Also, every industry struggles with this condition, even the "non-greedy" ones. Medical Malpractice is the 3rd biggest killer in the US for example.

I did not know that, but I believe it! Crazy

 

[Dos XX]

I've been with Farmers for 31 years. The few times I have needed to file a claim, hail damage to roof and cars, they were handled with no BS. The guy that was fixing my roof found there were mulitple layers of shingles that needed to come off before the new shingles could be put on. He said it was going to cost more than the adjuster had allowed . I asked him what I needed to do. He said "nothing" and that he would work it out with Farmer's, which he did.

I had hail damage on a car. The body shop fixed it and painted it. It had a life time warranty on the paint job. Several years later, after we moved to a different city 60 miles away, the paint started peeling on some of it. Called Farmers. They set me up with a body shop that was about 2 miles from my house. They repainted it and it looked brand new. Again, no hassle, no BS.

Guess who has my life insurance.

 

[5MilesBack]

USAA has always done right by us. In 2012 we had a hail storm with baseball size stones that required a new roof. After our $1000 deductible they paid us over $19k just for the roof and new gutters. The adjuster walked around the property and noted every little detail of hail damage......stuff I never would have expected to get compensated for like trees and flowers etc. Every little ding on top of a split rail fence, a small mark on the side of my shed, plastic planters that may have even been broken before the storm (and I told him that), etc. I told him we didn't need all that, but he put it all in.

Then my daughter's car got pummeled by hail a couple years ago, and we had a check within a week. Lots of windshield repairs over the years too. Probably at least one every other year at no charge. But we've also had to replace a couple of them ourselves because of the deductible.

 

[Hnthrdr]

I know I received a notice of cancellation for my cabin, they said wildfire risk and are dropping coverage. This of course is after 22 years of no claims and on time paymments. Maybe the share holders should take less of a cut.

That seems almost outright criminal, are they going to pay back all payments? I know the answer to that. But that is some BS…

 

[Stache Attack]

Wife is a water mitigation specialist working towards underwriting, should be done in a year or so… She says they are pulling out of some states aswell. I think we will always need insurance as a society. I would think it’s a decently safe market to be in. Selling insurance on the other hand sounds awful. I have been doing some crop adjusting on the side which is pretty nice and certainly needed.

 

[Brendan]

Not an agent, but I work for the largest agency network in the country based here in the Northeast (let's leave names out of it so I don't have Google finding me here ), have spent the last 12 years or so of my career in the business both on the carrier and network / agency side. Personal Lines is tough right now. Where we're seeing the biggest success is with agents that are focusing on small CL and getting their E&S / non-admitted game in order.

Basically what's happening is inflation is driving costs for the insurers up faster than they can add rate to the end customer (i.e. charge more) , which means they're losing money on every new policy they write, so they're electing to pull back, exit states, not write more policies until rate catches up. States like California are a clusterf**k because the DOI won't let the insurers charge more, so they non-renew, exit, stop writing more which ends up just hurting the customers.. Florida is just as big an issue for different reasons.

And for all of you dogging on the insurance industry. Make sure you're doing business through a local independent agent. At least then you're working with a small business owner from your local community who has the option of placing business with a multitude of companies and working to get you the right coverage. Good agents and brokers can be a godsend.

 

[Happy Antelope]

Not an agent, but I work for the largest agency network in the country based here in the Northeast (let's leave names out of it so I don't have Google finding me here ), have spent the last 12 years or so of my career in the business both on the carrier and network / agency side. Personal Lines is tough right now. Where we're seeing the biggest success is with agents that are focusing on small CL and getting their E&S / non-admitted game in order.

Basically what's happening is inflation is driving costs for the insurers up faster than they can add rate to the end customer (i.e. charge more) , which means they're losing money on every new policy they write, so they're electing to pull back, exit states, not write more policies until rate catches up. States like California are a clusterf**k because the DOI won't let the insurers charge more, so they non-renew, exit, stop writing more which ends up just hurting the customers.. Florida is just as big an issue for different reasons.

And for all of you dogging on the insurance industry. Make sure you're doing business through a local independent agent. At least then you're working with a small business owner from your local community who has the option of placing business with a multitude of companies and working to get you the right coverage. Good agents and brokers can be a godsend.

Bingo!!!

 

[Weldor]

We ended up with national chain insurer. My local guy was a no go. Seems all the prices were about a third higher with less coverage. National chain had better coverage , better dectuctible, and lower premium. Not beating up our local agent the offerings just weren't there. We tried several and some national chains won't even offer insurance policies in so-called wildfire areas. So it's a crap shoot.

 

[Happy Antelope]

We ended up with national chain insurer. My local guy was a no go. Seems all the prices were about a third higher with less coverage. National chain had better coverage , better dectuctible, and lower premium. Not beating up our local agent the offerings just weren't there. We tried several and some national chains won't even offer insurance policies in so-called wildfire areas. So it's a crap shoot.

Brush has become a really big deal. A lot of places are becoming completely uninsurable.

 

[Weldor]

True, I can only speak for my area. The USFS has macerated the entire area and brushed back a 1/4 mile for all the forrest homes in the area. These sit about dead center of 3 million acres of usfs lands. We sent photo's , fire suppression plans etc. to no avail. I am just happy we found a insurer.