We finally sold our old house and the closing is next week. I called the insurance company to cancel our homeowner’s policy, effective on the date of closing. They refused to do so, telling me that they can’t leave me without insurance unless I can prove that the house is insured elsewhere. Uh, it isn’t going to be my house any longer, so why would I continue to insure it? And, since the house is paid off and there is no mortgage holder, why is it any of their business if I choose to be uninsured and assume the risk myself? I am betting you that they won’t be so concerned about leaving me without insurance if I don’t pay the premium.
Doing the math, we have owned that house for a total of 15 years and we never filed a single claim against our insurance. It was paid off and mortgage free as of six years ago. My insurance is about $2000 per year. If I had chosen to assume the risk myself as soon as we paid it off, I would have (counting my normal investment returns of about 8 percent) an additional $15,000 in my bank account with which to take care of any problems.
Speaking of homeowner’s insurance scams- I wanted to insure my solar installation. I was kindly informed by my insurance company that it would cost $2500 per year just to insure my solar panels against hurricanes, but there would be a deductible of $10,000 for hurricane damage. They are otherwise covered under the rest of my homeowner’s policy with a deductible of $1,000. Uh, the solar panels themselves cost $20,000. So in the event of a hurricane (remember my panels are engineered for winds up to 140 mph) I would actually be losing money to insure them if they can make it at least 3 years without being damaged (The cost to insure them for 4 years is $10,000, plus the $10,000 deductible). Needless to say, I elected not to cover them. I think my risk of a 140 mph hurricane in the next 4 years is pretty low.
I also recently bought a new truck and traded in my old one. I tried to log into my insurance company to take care of things, and the system wants to send a 2FA text to my wife’s phone. She isn’t home. There is no option to select my phone number to log in. So now I have to call them and get stuck in phone tree hell.
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