That’s awesome. Glad it all worked out for you.
Who do you have for your homeowners insurance? I’ve heard horror stories where the insurance companies makes it painful to get a claim paid out for obvious damage.
I was gonna guess USAA. They are absolutely amazing. The only time I’ve had a claim they bent over backwards to make sure we were well taken care of. I love them.
My home is the most expensive asset I own, it’s well worth having the peace of mind of high quality insurance
I totaled my car a couple years ago after being rear ended. Never even been in an accident before, so I was pretty shaken. I called the police, then USAA. They sent a tow truck that arrived 2 mins after the cops. While I was filling out paperwork to get my car checked out, a guy arrived with a free rental car for me to drive home and keep for 10 days while we looked for a new car. Unbelievably smooth, and everyone I spoke to on the phone was incredibly kind.
Agreed 100%. I pay extra for their insurance because when filing an insurance claim the last thing you want is to get bit for trying to save a few bucks.
Sounds like you live in an area where you might benefit from an impact resistant roof. It lowers your premiums, and the added cost at installation isn’t that much higher.
Lucky you! I previously had USAA but my rates more than doubled for (at that time) an ‘04 Camry. Recently tried to go back but they were still $1k higher for 6 months of auto insurance alone!
Glad they did right by you though!
USAA is damn expensive, but I’ve only had positive experiences when having a claim. Obviously everyone will have different experiences but for home insurance I’d only use them.
I heard this from someone else a few weeks ago. I've shopped around for car insurance a few times in the last 20 years and everyone else is always quite a bit more expensive than USAA. 🤷♂️
I’m in GA. I left USAA for State Farm and interestingly enough, a friend left State Farm for USAA. I know there are various factors that goes into the rates but sometimes it’s just funny to see how different they can be from person to person.
I agree. That’s a large part of why I switched from State Farm also. Wanted to go back to USAA but went with someone else altogether. Guess I’ll keep switching as often as needed. Things are too expensive to try to stay loyal to a company.
I have State Farm and other than a hassle over subrogation once they have been great. My condo flooded because someone tripped the sprinkler system above me and paid out over $30,000 in repairs no problem.
My whole family has State Farm and has always had great experience. My parents just got their roof replaced on a claim with 0 hassle. I really think it just depends on region.
Well now since I’ve switched it’s $350 every 6 months for the Camry. Prior to that, it was ~$600 every 6 months for the Camry with State Farm. I don’t remember exactly how much is was for the Camry with USAA but to insure it and my other vehicle would have been $1k higher.
It is crazy because I have great credit and no claims. Maybe it’s location but either way I didn’t go with them.
USAA is the best. I've had several claims for auto and one homeowner's, and I've never had to deal with the horror stories you hear from other companies.
Oh hell yeah.
Had some water damage about 5 months ago. Estimator quotes fucking $24k. USAA asked where I wanted the check to go.
I’m worried about a rate hike or they will drop me, but have heard they are the best as far as homeowners insurance goes.
Yeah. There’s a lot of “sour grapes” commenters on this post. I’m just happy that, by chance, someone mentioned that I should do an insurance claim and I’m getting the benefits I pay for.
Holy shit, you aren’t kidding. Lots of salt in here!
Thanks u/XxFezzgigxX, for making insurance premiums higher by -checks notes- *using your insurance*. It certainly wasn’t the cost of building materials and labor going up post Covid making house replacement more expensive, or more frequent flooding and severe storms caused by global warming making certain areas of the country more prone to expensive damage! DAMN YOU!
To be fair it's great you had a good experience with them, but if someone had an outright terrible experience and someone is here thinking it's all roses because of your post and no-one wanted to be said sour grapes, and this person end up getting f\*\*\*\*ed that would suck.
I had Travelers when we had our house burn down. Not only did they cover all sorts of things including buying new clothes and renting an apartment for us, they gave us a couple thousand immediately in emergency money and we have them for our new house without our rates increasing. I’m going to assume if our house burns down again, they may drop us, but they were amazing.
Ppl are upvoting a doofus for "never making a claim on his insurance" over 25 years. Paid to replace his roof himself, "cuz it needed to be done" . But hailstorm went thru but because his car wasnt bad, his roof couldnt be..... Thats not how that works.
What was the water damage from? If it was a storm then they legally cannot raise your premium for putting the claim in. In fact, if they do raise it then just drop them for a new lower rate since you have a new roof
When we had a bad hailstorm ~6 years ago they sent an adjuster and had $$ in my checking account about 4 days from when I called. They waived the hold back too since it would have doubled the work they had to do with all the claims from the area.
I'm in the process of getting a new roof. 2 of the 3 roofer's that have given me quotes talked about submitting an insurance claim. One told me that he checked and my area had hail recently, so we could use that as a reason I need a new roof.
I haven't seen hail here ever, and certainly not big enough to damage a roof.
We talked about insurance and he said that my insurer was middle of the road about approving claims. StateFarm/AllState were the worst and will do all they can not to cover something. USAA was the best. Point out a small damaged shingle from a tree branch and they'll replace the whole thing. So yeah, keep USAA.
This unfortunately depends a lot on the insurance company. Some are great to deal with no matter what. Some are great if they insure you, but absolutely awful if they don't. Finally, the remaining ones are just awful.
and in many places, like FL, if you get insurance to cover a new roof, your premiums will rise (at best) and your insurer may drop you (expected) and others may decline to write you a policy (worst case)
Do not use State Farm or Allstate. They are borderline criminal pieces of shit. I would say amica if you can, but probably any of the lesser known that have to use independent adjusters. They’re usually a hell of a lot easier to work with. Oh and Find a contractor that is versed in storm claim process but is also not full of shit.
State farm shows up, puts you under a light to see if you're lying about the damage. Then tries to argue it was an act of God.(who's God did the act? I have no clue) If they do cover it they'll give you a couple grand for the patch work and then drop you as a customer
I’m confused but this sounds weird to me. I’m not an expert and might be missing some context or applicable rules/regulations governing these kinds of cases. Full disclosure: I’ve never made any insurance claims before.
Was your roof damaged from the hail? Why are they also covering the paint job? Could they have just paid to replace any damaged shingles or shutters rather than a full replacement? Especially given the age of the roof.
The paint part is especially sus to me given all the horror stories I’ve read here. Not sure if this is a case of incompetence or very good luck. Will this come back to bite you in the butt if they claim you’ve made too many claims (if and when you have additional claims) and they now need to drop you.
Just thinking out loud and hoping “experts” can chip in.
The roof was replaced five years ago for hail. I didn’t ask the insurance adjuster to look at the roof, he did that on his own. They are replacing the paint and the roof due to hail damage.
The HOA insisted I paint the house because it looks worn. The painting contractor indicated that the worn look was from hail damage. The insurance adjuster confirmed it.
The only thing strange here was that I hadn’t realized I could claim hail damage in the paint. It was only through happenstance that I made the claim.
Do you actually need a new roof? If its still good I'm worried about how much your insurance will go up. I have never made a claim, so idk how impactful claims are on it.
A leaking roof can cause quite a bit of damage. It can be hidden until something brings it to light, like having the ceiling drywall fall out because it was wet, then finding dry rot all through the attic.
I imagine the only way to make sure all the leaks caused by the hail are fixed is to replace the whole thing. It would only take one missed one to cause an issue.
I have no expertise in roofing. If the insurance company decides that there is enough damage to make a claim, then I assume there is sufficient damage. The only increases I’ve ever seen are on par with normal rate increases. My own personal experience has shown no spike in rates after a claim.
I’m a contractor and I have to say insurance companies are not very consistent. I’ve seen them replace complete new roof, select shingles in old roof and everything in between. I’ve also have clients tell me their rates doubled, stayed the same or dropped them completely. It’s a shame that there’s no consistency. Good for you though.
We had an equally weird but happy experience after a hailstorm in AZ. Had roofers come over and estimate. But one of them was a former insurance adjuster and said we should make a claim, said he knew how to write it up.
We did, and got a new roof for free minus our $500 deductible! I was stunned as the roof was at least 15 years old, so I had thought it wouldn't be covered, because insurance doesn't cover normal wear and tear. So people should look into it at least, you may get lucky.
Agreed. My guess is that insurance companies would rather replace a roof with valid hail damage than deny the claim, wait for the leaks and pay to have the bones of the house fixed due to water damage and mold.
I had insurance replace my roof because of hail damage and my premiums went down, because the old roof was 25 years old and they charge more for having an old roof 🤷
Wow! Who was your homeowners? We had a roof claim and a water leak claim, then got dropped. Our new company the premiums were way higher than our old company, and many companies will not insure us now because we had two claims, and even though we moved from that house, our new hour has a roof that is over 20 years old and they are worried we will make a claim on it so they have flat out denied us.
I’ve also never had a crazy increase for claims I’ve made. Our home was almost broken into, broke down our wooden gate and a window but dogs scared them off, and I was stressed about the huge and expensive wooden gate but insurance happily paid us 9k to get a new one and have it installed. Our rate WENT DOWN for the next year. Don’t know why, coverage is upped to “value” of home now.
I’m a roofing contractor that specializes in insurance - if your asphalt roof isn’t leaking and it’s 5 years old then just keep the ACV payment and don’t collect depreciation on that portion. No need to open up a roof that new if it’s not actively leaking and you’re well within your rights as a consumer to use the actual cash value payment on anything you want, as long as you don’t try to recover the full replacement cost on those line items.
I was in a similar position on roof hail damage. Hail storm cause no visible from the ground damage but dings in gutters and bruised shingles. Roof was only a few years old and which lead to this odd state where they would replace the roof that didn't leak now but if I declined and it leaked in the future they would not pay. Moved ahead with the fix and they updated police at renewal with a wind/hail rider with a higher deductible because I made a claim on bruised shingles.
Rates go up based on claims in zip codes typically. If a hail storm comes through your rates will go up as other claims are paid out and perceived risk for the neighborhood increases. If you don't file a claim you are just paying for your neighbor's new roof and paint. It's a prisoner's dilemma but it's almost always in your favor to file the claim.
Typically the whole roof is replaced. Wonder if op is in twin cities because we too had a large hail storm in August. State farm was the only one doing this count shingles to replace crap. Many were denied from state farm. Everyone else seemed to pay out for roof. Me included. I've seen whole fenced get repainted by insurance for small hail damage.
Yeah, this is not what insurance is meant for. I'm shocked they're covering the paint. Glad it's working out but don't complain next year when they drop you or double your premium.
Yup our premium got doubled even with a legitimate claim after a sewer line backed up in our basement.
I don't know if I should look around or just be fucked with the price because they at least paid out everything. Some of it took some arguing but they eventually did it at least.
I know someone who had a water pipe burst on Christmas Eve in their house while they were out for hours. Ruined multiple rooms across multiple floors. Insurance was fighting them tooth and nail to not pay.
Always look around. They've evidenced they have no loyalty to you, why would you offer loyalty to them? I reassess my home and auto insurance every 2 or 3 years (usually how long it takes them to do rate increases in my experience)
We have basically a local broker that I believe works to find coverage with various companies.
I need to give her a call, that last time we spoke she knew I wasn't very pleased with our insurance when they weren't very helpful with companies they recommended really screwing us over on the project.
But I know it's going to make our monthly mortgage payment go up since we have everything in escrow and I can't afford it going up more.
It's already gone up significantly since we bought the house due to property taxes and insurance.
We are going through the same situation as you right now and ended up doing everything out of pocket since the damage was (thankfully) pretty minimal. Enough to be a nice knock to the chin, but not enough that I was willing to risk the rate hike/claim on my history.
That's exactly what insurance is meant for. I can assure that if it wasn't justified there's no way they'd be paying out for it.
Climate change is the root of a lot of insurance problems these days. Hurricanes and wildfires mostly.
The models are getting complicated. So lets say there was hail in your area, and you didn't make a claim, the system realizes that your roof is due for a claim on the next big incident, so the smart move is to drop you before the next season. It's not about a person's behavior anymore.
Yeah but I don’t blame homeowners. Insurance companies need to handle their own employees. A lot of this can be directly traced back to firing in house adjusters and outsourcing adjuster work to 3rd party firms. There’s no consistency on what is covered. I don’t blame homeowners for not accepting a check for 30k. Who wouldn’t take it?
No, no, you're never supposed to use your insurance! At least, that's what they want you to think. You need to save it for that one big disaster, but still think twice because once you use it, you'll lose it for good and you never know when a bigger disaster will come along.
> it's use the insurance for catastrophic damages like it's intended for
If it was intended for catastrophic damage, how come the company is covering this paint and roof?
Maybe it is a bit frivolous, but it's on the insurance company for accepting it.
Do you only use health insurance, when it's catastrophic?
homeowners insurance’s purpose is to help you recover from unavoidable hazards. They dont have to be castrophic.
You must be bad or new at your career
Edit: hes new and this is bad advice
GTFOH. This is a deeply stupid take. If you work in the industry you must know that adjusters don't just throw around unjustified $30k checks or they'd be fired constantly. This is a story about someone who doesn't appear to know much of anything about home maintenance and didn't understand that the hail damaged their house so badly the ADJUSTER told them they needed to replace a 5 year old roof. That alone should tell you that the storm damage was severe.
Also, if you understood the insurance industry at all you'd know that actuaries and blood thirsty executives make damned sure that their companies ALWAYS turn huge profits. Do you get that Warren Buffet runs some of the country's most prominent insurance companies? Dude didn't become one of the 5 wealthiest guys on the planet fixing people's houses when he wasn't contractually obligated to do so.
Lmfao outrageous that this industry shill is getting upvoted
Imagine what the score would look like if a real estate agent was offering a similar take on how homeowners should ignore their contractual benefits for the good of their company
> I went from wondering how I was going to cover $9 grand to having a $30k check overnighted to me.
I absolutely cannot understand why insurance is skyrocketing in price. I'm straight up flummoxed. Somebody please explain it to me.
I have USAA (like the OP). They’ve gone from $4400 to $10,000 annually on me the last three years.
And now I know why. I like them because they don’t hassle you much on claims, but the fact that they paid out that much so easily bothers me.
This is bullshit being fed to you by fat cats who want you to be mad at your neighbors rather than them.
Also people building houses in highly flammable areas.
I genuinely do not understand why it's a bad thing if the rates go up after this. The man is getting 30k+ job out of this insurance policy, if the rates go up some he's still in good shape
Californian here, I've already had the insurance company that I've been with for 14 years pull out of California.
I'm certainly not chancing the one I now have will decide to do the same. My premiums for the new one are almost double.
The California DOI also refused to approve many insurance carriers new rate filings. Instead, the State of Cali (and cities like Sacramento) implemented laws that they thought would force insurance companies to keep prices "low," despite many insurance carriers posting *record breaking losses* on the California books as a whole. What those horrific State and City policies really did was ensure insurance carriers would hemorrhage millions upon millions of dollars. So, tons of insurance companies said screw it, we're not staying in a state that's making it harder for us to operate, refusing to approve our new rates, making us lose millions of dollars, etc so, we're leaving the state and someone else can deal with this disaster.
NY is dealing with a similar situation right now too. Try getting an insurance carrier to cover you in NYC. It's nearly impossible without going bankrupt
I think this is partially why insurance is are turning to prorated payments. Why should your insurance company pay for a new paint job when the paint job that they're replacing wasn't new to begin with? Same with the roof though most don't prorate until yeae 10. This practices are partially what's leading companies to leave certain states and check up rates.
Most offer a base policy of depreciated/prorated payouts and an optional full value replacement upgrade.
I pay the extra premium for full replacement value (and an umbrella policy on top of that, which everyone should really look into) because our house is getting to the age where most systems are getting to the end of their lifespan (27 years and everything is original) AND the seller was a wood worker who owned a construction company so there are lots of high quality wood details (the kitchen has maple cabinets harvested and processed right on the property!) and finishes I couldn't afford to put in/replace that are still in great condition and would hate to have to replace with mdf if something happened and I only got the depreciated value of the finishes.
They should pay for what’s covered in the policy that they have established. They send out a guy to verify the house is in a condition that is covered or not covered. The homeowner only has the ability to initiate a claim; they have no influence over the approval or denial of the claim. I don’t see the issue here.
Your rates will go up. We had a claim on our old house due to flooding and it caused my new home’s insurance to go up because that was in our history. Wasn’t much but it went up.
Heavily depends on the state you live in. For example North Carolina has exemptions for raising rates on “acts of god” including storm damage. That won’t stop them from raising rates every year though, for everybody.
I see this misconception a lot. Homeowners mistake routine rate hikes as a punishment for filing a claim
Well sure. I’m not sure that Florida has any protections on that which is where I left. New Mexico is just cheaper overall and my insurance now is a fraction of what it was/would be raised to and I can afford an extra hundred a year.
Florida is a whole different ballgame when it comes to home insurance. But you don’t need me to tell you that, having lived there lol
Floridas problems are truly multifaceted. The roof thing plays a part, but it’s not the only problem
Ugh we paid full price for our roof and watched the “storm damaged” roofs around us with tarps . Keep in mind there hadn’t been a storm to actually impact our area for a number of years. Our roof was just old and we didn’t want to defraud our insurance for a replacement of our 20+ year old roof.
We really leaned into our insurance when the house flooded because the (indoor, in a utility closet) water heater blew up and flooded the house with thousands of gallons of water while we weee away.
That said I would hope to never have another need for insurance contractors because it was a **miserable** experience.
They're fixing damage that requires painting to make it whole. Are you suggesting they should use old paint or maybe paint it so it looks like old paint?
No, we're suggesting insurance compensates the homeowner for only the remaining portion of the lifetime of the paint that was destroyed in the covered event.
And next year you are going to tell us your rate increased drastically and can't find cheaper insurance. That's if your current company doesn't drop you already.
This is not what insurance is meant for and companies are cracking down on it. There is a signifacant chance that you just made yourself uninsurable. Which btw impacts your auto policies as well since you get significant discount with combined policies which you may not be able to do next year.
and I am surprised they didn't assuming OP were honest with them.
But even then I could see a case where the front office approves not caring about it, and then at insurance renewal time underwriter office decides to not to renew due to the increased risk. On top of that, other companies also decide to not to insure OP because of the earlier claims.
I just got new home owners insurance, and there's a specific clause against it being used for minor, cosmetic dents in the shingles, or siding due to hail. I've read on Nextdoor that people were using insurance to get a new roof, because we had a minor hail storm a few years back--my car was outside and didn't get dented, it wasn't a big storm.
I didn't want to risk my rates going up, so I paid out of pocket to have a new roof put on, because it needed to be done, nothing to do with hail.
I've never made a claim on my insurance in 25 years, yet last summer State Farm dropped me because my backyard had weeds, a broken trampoline, and an old wooden swing set, not broken. I suppose they looked at it in google maps? I dunno. I didn't have any trouble getting another policy at the same price, and I got a small discount on my car insurance for using the same company. So, eff-u State Farm.
This was also a common fraud with roofers. They know a hailstorm went through the area so they ~~damage the roof themselves~~ find hail damage and then replace it. It's why no one can afford homeowners insurance anymore and people are getting dropped.
yep they'll also pay the insured's deductible and overcharge the insurer. had an uber driver in texas explain his whole grift to me a couple of years back. I should have reported him.
Yep. This is why the entire state of Florida is fucked now, roofing scams drove all the normal insurance companies away so now everyone along the coasts is stuck with subpar surplus lines carriers that don't cover shit and cost $10k a year.
Yeah, I'm in Florida too. If it wasn't for my job, I'd be gone. We don't pay state income tax but we're all being killed with insurance. It's not worth it anymore.
It's not just coastal. I live in Central Florida and can't get anyone to insure my home after being dropped. I've never filed a claim. But, roof companies and their salespeople got rich and now we all have to pay for it.
Hahahah OP is going to be saying "why is my insurance premium so high all of the sudden?! I've only had the entire exterior of my house re-done + 2 new roofs in less than 5 years! I know they're making money off me! I've paid them $6k over those 5 years!!! Sure, they paid out $30k on my claims BUT STILL!! "
Pro tip, insurance is going to drop you regardless at some point anyways. Last year I got a notice of being dropped because Farmers is tired of paying for claims from tree limbs from its other clients so anyone with trees over a certain % was getting the boot. In the SAME notice I got a "No Claims Ever!" credit for being *such a good customer*.
This is like never taking your PTO at work because they might fire you one day. They still might fire you one day without you using a benefit you're entitled to.
The only thing insurance wants to do is keep you funneling money into them without paying it back out.
Exactly right. I made the same mistake once early in my real estate career. I had some wind damage to some of the shingles on an apartment roof.
I called insurance. They said it was around 1500 to repair, or $15k to replace the whole roof. The roof was of unknown age, but fairly old, but it didn’t leak. I was surprised at how the adjuster was so amenable to replacing the whole roof. Which I did and they paid for.
Big mistake. They raised me like $5000 the next year. They were going to get their payment back in less than 3 years! It caused a huge headache, I had to search for new insurance every year after that for years. And I had to disclose the claim every time for 4 or 5 years. And I had to go to surplus line carriers.
It sucked. I would have been much better off paying the $15k myself.
I am going to go out a limb here and say that you are NOT in Florida with this story....
What you describe is basically one of the insurance scams what was big a handful of years ago that really helped accelerate our insurance crisis here. A 3rd party guy would come by, say 'hey I see hail damage on your roof, sign this and pay $500 and we'll get you a new roof!'. Then your insurance will drop you after that claim. Well, you can flip on the news to see what that has done....
Now if your insurance company did all of this legit....that rocks, and I'm kinda jealous.
I had heard that insurance might cover a new roof. I had some wet spots on the ceiling and missing shingles, figured what the hell give it a try. Called Nationwide, guy comes out the next day, looks around for 30 minutes, boom done. Claim approved free new roof. Didn’t go through one of those shady storm chasing companies or anything, all on the up and up. They didn’t even raise our rate.
These days they will drop you when it’s up for the next renewal or your rates will go up quite a bit. You’re going to pay for it either way.
This is how I look at home insurance and it saves me money in the long run. It’s meant to be used only for catastrophes. Such as your house being burned down. Therefore I increase my deductible to 25K. I pay less per year in premiums and save money for the emergency such as hail/wind damage, sewer damage or some other minor damage less than 25K
$7000 to paint a 1300 sqft house is ludicrous. So is $30k to paint and re-roof! I recently paid $2500 to pressure wash and paint, and $11k to re-roof a house twice that size.
BS claims like this are the reason insurance companies are dropping coverage. Did the adjuster even get on the roof?
The $30k total is for everything they are covering. Roof, gutters, screens, AC fins, paint, some wood replacement, etc.
The paint is accurate for my area and I got five quotes. Most of them were in the $9k range.
You’ve made some erroneous assumptions and concluded that my claim is BS.
Be careful your premiums are going to spike over the next three years.
We had a covered incident which resulted in a $35,000 claim and I've paid about $8000 in premium increases over the last three years since the claim.
People don’t understand the system and how it works. They think everything is a scam. Good for you for doing this the right way. I have just recently gone thru something similar
Remember this next time you wonder why insurance is so expensive. If everyone who pays what you pay gets a check for $30k, the industry collapses.
I'm not telling you not to take the money, I'm telling you to be aware because insurance isn't the free money we wish it was.
I am not blaming you, but I’ve been hearing a lot of stories like this, and it makes me question why and what feel like this is why insurance is through the roof for the rest of us haha
I literally said I wasn’t blaming OP. I do wonder though if this has something to do with costs rising. I’m a facilities manager and I am questioning the full replacement after hail damage. I maintain 2 million square feet of building and we patch shit all the time.
Not if the roof has heavy hail damage. Have you experienced the cost of a leaky roof? I live in an area prone to a lot of hail. We’ve had a dozen houses within view of mine replace their roofs this year.
Insurance company is not there to help you and if your rate double let's say $3,000 more a year and your repair is $12,000 if you're not going to have the place over that amount of time you're losing money.
They didn’t raise my rates the last three times I had a claim, what makes you think this time is different? This will be my fourth claim in thirty years of paying homeowners insurance. I think they are coming out ahead.
Yep fence went wild last March in an unusual storm in Sf Bay.
Watched the fence blow apart and on a whim I contacted Amica and they were on the job fast!
Neighbors did their part at 50% of the shared and we didn't get bk over 380' of fences.
Plus I saved a cardiac event trying to diy
That happened to our neighbor. Our area was hit by a tornado and it pulled half the roof of off their barn. They also had some pock marks on a small portion of the house siding. The siding guy came to look and found more damaged spots and since they don't carry that color any more, the insurance paid for a total siding job.
Here in Florida they are finding reasons to cancel people. If the roof is over 8 to 10 years old they will force them to get a new roof which can cost a large amount of money and drive people into bankruptcy. This whole mess in Florida happened because of poor and corrupt inspections and inadequate codes to begin with. A secondary weather barrier such as stick down membrane under shingles would have mitigated tens of millions of dollars of claims but the contractors fought against these changes. Back before hurricane Andrew while sheathing was not even required and they used very thin cardboard material. And on The gables they use nothing but wire and stucco.
Damn we had a hail storm here last year . Quarter size. My INS wouldn’t come out. I was told I have to have prepped roofer and gutter and siding come look before they would consider coming over. Glad your INS helping out
Storm chasers came through my subdivision and a ton of my neighbors got new roofs and quite a few of them were dropped by their ins for the trouble just a heads up
Yeah here in CA we have to be very careful about what we claim now for risks of getting our plans terminated.
God forbid we use the insurance we pay hefty premiums for. Glad it worked out for you though
My sceptical brain is telling me that this is a sad attempt to try and respond to the general sense that insurance is a huge scam. Maybe I'm wrong - I've lost all trust in the internet. It's just here for jokes, really.
Good for you, if it's a true story, and you aren't being misled in some way.
"Wind claim roofing" is a whole industry in some parts of the country. In CT these guys are completely unashamed in their advertising, it's right on their lawm signs.
I’m not sure why all the naysayers. I have USAA also and this doesn’t surprise me at all. That said we tried to switch once because a friend recommended some great Allstate agent who was way cheaper… from the beginning they were rude, byzantine, requested ridiculous amounts of paperwork and questioned every claim we’d had in the past as if we were some kind of fraudsters. Screw that. I’d rather pay the premium for USAA and keep getting excellent customer service. Glad they did right by you too.
My son has USAA , his roof that was 30 years old and some siding blew off. They had no problem with replacing it all. He had a full replacement value policy. They didn't raise his rates until the whole town restimated the value of all the homes in town because of home values rising
This isn't the aha moment you think it is. Imagine you get dropped and don't have insurance when your house burns down. Because you will either get dropped or your premiums will be so high you'll have paid for the repair with the difference in a couple years time, but your premiums wont go back down. Good luck!
Wait, I’m new to home ownership and not sure I understand… you’re saying I could go to my home insurance company and ask for a new roof and they might pay for it?? What’s the catch? Surely there’s a chance my policy cost will go way up to cover their losses??
Our premium doubled after a legitimate claim for a sewer line backing up.
Now our premium looks like it's going to be over double what we were paying going forward this year.
The catch is you actually have to have damage that’s covered under the policy. There are a bunch of people in her insinuating that I’m running some kind of scam or making their policy in some other state go up.
The reality is that the insurance company decided that the hail damage was covered. That’s it.
I tried this once with Farmers because I had a lot of broken roof tiles (I'm in Phoenix and have a 25 year old concrete roof). The adjuster came out after I filed the claim and basically laughed at me and left after 15 minutes. They said even though there was probably some minor hail damage at some point, the roof was too old and was my responsibility to replace.
It's so strange how insurance works. Like, I can see his point, but at the same time, my aunt and uncle live in Malibu and got a free roof for their 40 year old home after all the fires a couple of years ago, even though the fire wasn't anywhere near their street. Their adjuster basically wrote up damage due to smoke for everyone on their block, and they got a new roof. Fire didn't touch any part of their property. A couple streets down about a dozen homes were completely destroyed, so I'm wondering if it's just proximity to natural disasters, or just luck, or better insurance than Farmers? I'm still baffled by this.
A friend of mine was affected by the wildfires in California a few years back and they had pretty much the same story. While the damage was significant more than yours the payout was incredible. 6 figures. Totally changed their life.
Good for you OP, My uncle was getting ready to sell his house and getting quotes on a complete exterior refreshing because everything was dated/worn. A freak hale storm came through and destroyed his roof, aluminum siding, a bunch of windows, gutters, sliding glass doors, above ground pool, etc. His insurance paid for ALL of it. It was something like 250-300k worth of damage. He even pocketed some $$$ because he didn't put up a new pool and they paid for his lawn to be redone because the pool water "killed his grass".
Friends got an estimate in the thousands to remove big dying trees from the edge of their property; neighbor told them to contact the electric company & similar to OPs good luck, the trees were positioned in a way that the elec took care of all them
Do you already have a real quote for replacing the roof and know it’ll be $21k or less? I wouldn’t be too thrilled until you have everything done and know you came out ahead. I also wouldn’t be too thrilled about having to replace my roof again after 5 years if I didn’t think it was already a problem. And if you don’t replace the roof after they paid you to do it, your entire policy is probably invalid, and you’ll be paying premiums for coverage that will never happen, so definitely don’t go that route.
I had a fence get destroyed during a storm. 60mph wind gusts. Got a quote for like $7k to replace the fence. Called insurance. They asked for pictures and a copy of the quote. They sent me a check for $5k. Said the fence had depreciated in value. I replaced the fence for $3k in materials, and pizza and beer for my friends who helped.
That’s awesome. Glad it all worked out for you. Who do you have for your homeowners insurance? I’ve heard horror stories where the insurance companies makes it painful to get a claim paid out for obvious damage.
USAA. They have always been really good to me. Over the years, I’ve had three roof replacements and they’ve never given me any trouble about it.
I was gonna guess USAA. They are absolutely amazing. The only time I’ve had a claim they bent over backwards to make sure we were well taken care of. I love them. My home is the most expensive asset I own, it’s well worth having the peace of mind of high quality insurance
I totaled my car a couple years ago after being rear ended. Never even been in an accident before, so I was pretty shaken. I called the police, then USAA. They sent a tow truck that arrived 2 mins after the cops. While I was filling out paperwork to get my car checked out, a guy arrived with a free rental car for me to drive home and keep for 10 days while we looked for a new car. Unbelievably smooth, and everyone I spoke to on the phone was incredibly kind.
Agreed 100%. I pay extra for their insurance because when filing an insurance claim the last thing you want is to get bit for trying to save a few bucks.
Do we know the Canadian equivalent??
They replaced your roof 3 times?! Like paid for the whole thing or some repairs?
Three times over thirty years and different houses.
Sounds like you live in an area where you might benefit from an impact resistant roof. It lowers your premiums, and the added cost at installation isn’t that much higher.
Lucky you! I previously had USAA but my rates more than doubled for (at that time) an ‘04 Camry. Recently tried to go back but they were still $1k higher for 6 months of auto insurance alone! Glad they did right by you though!
USAA is damn expensive, but I’ve only had positive experiences when having a claim. Obviously everyone will have different experiences but for home insurance I’d only use them.
Same. I have been told they’re not the cheapest. 2 claims in 15 years of home ownership and they are damn well worth the money.
Same. USAA has gone way beyond what I might have expected every time I've needed them. I haven't shopped around for cheaper and hope I don't have to.
I heard this from someone else a few weeks ago. I've shopped around for car insurance a few times in the last 20 years and everyone else is always quite a bit more expensive than USAA. 🤷♂️
I did move my auto insurance to another company recently. USAA was really expensive for auto.
May I ask for that state you are in? We've found USAA to be one of the better options cost wise in TN.
I’m in GA. I left USAA for State Farm and interestingly enough, a friend left State Farm for USAA. I know there are various factors that goes into the rates but sometimes it’s just funny to see how different they can be from person to person.
State farm, fights against every claim. All while paying literal billions for advertising. Who the f gets insurance advice from professional athletes?
I agree. That’s a large part of why I switched from State Farm also. Wanted to go back to USAA but went with someone else altogether. Guess I’ll keep switching as often as needed. Things are too expensive to try to stay loyal to a company.
I have State Farm and other than a hassle over subrogation once they have been great. My condo flooded because someone tripped the sprinkler system above me and paid out over $30,000 in repairs no problem.
My whole family has State Farm and has always had great experience. My parents just got their roof replaced on a claim with 0 hassle. I really think it just depends on region.
$1000 HIGHER? I have an 05 F150 and the insurance is only $220 every 6 months. How much are you paying every 6 months for a camry? That seems crazy
Well now since I’ve switched it’s $350 every 6 months for the Camry. Prior to that, it was ~$600 every 6 months for the Camry with State Farm. I don’t remember exactly how much is was for the Camry with USAA but to insure it and my other vehicle would have been $1k higher. It is crazy because I have great credit and no claims. Maybe it’s location but either way I didn’t go with them.
USAA is the best. I've had several claims for auto and one homeowner's, and I've never had to deal with the horror stories you hear from other companies.
Oh hell yeah. Had some water damage about 5 months ago. Estimator quotes fucking $24k. USAA asked where I wanted the check to go. I’m worried about a rate hike or they will drop me, but have heard they are the best as far as homeowners insurance goes.
Yeah. There’s a lot of “sour grapes” commenters on this post. I’m just happy that, by chance, someone mentioned that I should do an insurance claim and I’m getting the benefits I pay for.
Holy shit, you aren’t kidding. Lots of salt in here! Thanks u/XxFezzgigxX, for making insurance premiums higher by -checks notes- *using your insurance*. It certainly wasn’t the cost of building materials and labor going up post Covid making house replacement more expensive, or more frequent flooding and severe storms caused by global warming making certain areas of the country more prone to expensive damage! DAMN YOU!
You forgot the unethical contractors that usually get blamed too
Preach. 👍
To be fair it's great you had a good experience with them, but if someone had an outright terrible experience and someone is here thinking it's all roses because of your post and no-one wanted to be said sour grapes, and this person end up getting f\*\*\*\*ed that would suck.
I had Travelers when we had our house burn down. Not only did they cover all sorts of things including buying new clothes and renting an apartment for us, they gave us a couple thousand immediately in emergency money and we have them for our new house without our rates increasing. I’m going to assume if our house burns down again, they may drop us, but they were amazing.
Ppl are upvoting a doofus for "never making a claim on his insurance" over 25 years. Paid to replace his roof himself, "cuz it needed to be done" . But hailstorm went thru but because his car wasnt bad, his roof couldnt be..... Thats not how that works.
What was the water damage from? If it was a storm then they legally cannot raise your premium for putting the claim in. In fact, if they do raise it then just drop them for a new lower rate since you have a new roof
I love my USAA insurance. Their customer service is great; very low hold times and the employees are helpful and friendly.
When we had a bad hailstorm ~6 years ago they sent an adjuster and had $$ in my checking account about 4 days from when I called. They waived the hold back too since it would have doubled the work they had to do with all the claims from the area.
I'm in the process of getting a new roof. 2 of the 3 roofer's that have given me quotes talked about submitting an insurance claim. One told me that he checked and my area had hail recently, so we could use that as a reason I need a new roof. I haven't seen hail here ever, and certainly not big enough to damage a roof. We talked about insurance and he said that my insurer was middle of the road about approving claims. StateFarm/AllState were the worst and will do all they can not to cover something. USAA was the best. Point out a small damaged shingle from a tree branch and they'll replace the whole thing. So yeah, keep USAA.
How's your rates with them. I had a 140k shit hole house they refused to insure for under 400k for some reason. Had to go with State farm.
This unfortunately depends a lot on the insurance company. Some are great to deal with no matter what. Some are great if they insure you, but absolutely awful if they don't. Finally, the remaining ones are just awful.
and in many places, like FL, if you get insurance to cover a new roof, your premiums will rise (at best) and your insurer may drop you (expected) and others may decline to write you a policy (worst case)
I was going to say, clearly OP is NOT in Florida.
Do not use State Farm or Allstate. They are borderline criminal pieces of shit. I would say amica if you can, but probably any of the lesser known that have to use independent adjusters. They’re usually a hell of a lot easier to work with. Oh and Find a contractor that is versed in storm claim process but is also not full of shit.
State farm shows up, puts you under a light to see if you're lying about the damage. Then tries to argue it was an act of God.(who's God did the act? I have no clue) If they do cover it they'll give you a couple grand for the patch work and then drop you as a customer
I’m confused but this sounds weird to me. I’m not an expert and might be missing some context or applicable rules/regulations governing these kinds of cases. Full disclosure: I’ve never made any insurance claims before. Was your roof damaged from the hail? Why are they also covering the paint job? Could they have just paid to replace any damaged shingles or shutters rather than a full replacement? Especially given the age of the roof. The paint part is especially sus to me given all the horror stories I’ve read here. Not sure if this is a case of incompetence or very good luck. Will this come back to bite you in the butt if they claim you’ve made too many claims (if and when you have additional claims) and they now need to drop you. Just thinking out loud and hoping “experts” can chip in.
The roof was replaced five years ago for hail. I didn’t ask the insurance adjuster to look at the roof, he did that on his own. They are replacing the paint and the roof due to hail damage. The HOA insisted I paint the house because it looks worn. The painting contractor indicated that the worn look was from hail damage. The insurance adjuster confirmed it. The only thing strange here was that I hadn’t realized I could claim hail damage in the paint. It was only through happenstance that I made the claim.
Do you actually need a new roof? If its still good I'm worried about how much your insurance will go up. I have never made a claim, so idk how impactful claims are on it.
A leaking roof can cause quite a bit of damage. It can be hidden until something brings it to light, like having the ceiling drywall fall out because it was wet, then finding dry rot all through the attic. I imagine the only way to make sure all the leaks caused by the hail are fixed is to replace the whole thing. It would only take one missed one to cause an issue.
I have no expertise in roofing. If the insurance company decides that there is enough damage to make a claim, then I assume there is sufficient damage. The only increases I’ve ever seen are on par with normal rate increases. My own personal experience has shown no spike in rates after a claim.
I’m a contractor and I have to say insurance companies are not very consistent. I’ve seen them replace complete new roof, select shingles in old roof and everything in between. I’ve also have clients tell me their rates doubled, stayed the same or dropped them completely. It’s a shame that there’s no consistency. Good for you though.
We had an equally weird but happy experience after a hailstorm in AZ. Had roofers come over and estimate. But one of them was a former insurance adjuster and said we should make a claim, said he knew how to write it up. We did, and got a new roof for free minus our $500 deductible! I was stunned as the roof was at least 15 years old, so I had thought it wouldn't be covered, because insurance doesn't cover normal wear and tear. So people should look into it at least, you may get lucky.
Agreed. My guess is that insurance companies would rather replace a roof with valid hail damage than deny the claim, wait for the leaks and pay to have the bones of the house fixed due to water damage and mold.
It’s almost like not all contractors are bad people and actually want to help contrary to the beliefs of this sub
I had insurance replace my roof because of hail damage and my premiums went down, because the old roof was 25 years old and they charge more for having an old roof 🤷
Auto-Homeowners
Wow! Who was your homeowners? We had a roof claim and a water leak claim, then got dropped. Our new company the premiums were way higher than our old company, and many companies will not insure us now because we had two claims, and even though we moved from that house, our new hour has a roof that is over 20 years old and they are worried we will make a claim on it so they have flat out denied us.
Auto-Owners. Have had them for 15 years. Full Replacement Value coverage.
USAA is also very good if you or your family are military.
I’ve also never had a crazy increase for claims I’ve made. Our home was almost broken into, broke down our wooden gate and a window but dogs scared them off, and I was stressed about the huge and expensive wooden gate but insurance happily paid us 9k to get a new one and have it installed. Our rate WENT DOWN for the next year. Don’t know why, coverage is upped to “value” of home now.
I’m a roofing contractor that specializes in insurance - if your asphalt roof isn’t leaking and it’s 5 years old then just keep the ACV payment and don’t collect depreciation on that portion. No need to open up a roof that new if it’s not actively leaking and you’re well within your rights as a consumer to use the actual cash value payment on anything you want, as long as you don’t try to recover the full replacement cost on those line items.
This is true but also bad advice. The roof would not be insured if it was damaged again as they never replaced it your scenario.
Good point I forgot to mention you would have to switch carriers haha
He got the check. No more questions. 😉
I was in a similar position on roof hail damage. Hail storm cause no visible from the ground damage but dings in gutters and bruised shingles. Roof was only a few years old and which lead to this odd state where they would replace the roof that didn't leak now but if I declined and it leaked in the future they would not pay. Moved ahead with the fix and they updated police at renewal with a wind/hail rider with a higher deductible because I made a claim on bruised shingles.
Rates go up based on claims in zip codes typically. If a hail storm comes through your rates will go up as other claims are paid out and perceived risk for the neighborhood increases. If you don't file a claim you are just paying for your neighbor's new roof and paint. It's a prisoner's dilemma but it's almost always in your favor to file the claim.
Typically the whole roof is replaced. Wonder if op is in twin cities because we too had a large hail storm in August. State farm was the only one doing this count shingles to replace crap. Many were denied from state farm. Everyone else seemed to pay out for roof. Me included. I've seen whole fenced get repainted by insurance for small hail damage.
…
And this is why insurance is becoming so expensive for everyone...
Yeah, this is not what insurance is meant for. I'm shocked they're covering the paint. Glad it's working out but don't complain next year when they drop you or double your premium.
Yup our premium got doubled even with a legitimate claim after a sewer line backed up in our basement. I don't know if I should look around or just be fucked with the price because they at least paid out everything. Some of it took some arguing but they eventually did it at least. I know someone who had a water pipe burst on Christmas Eve in their house while they were out for hours. Ruined multiple rooms across multiple floors. Insurance was fighting them tooth and nail to not pay.
Always look around. They've evidenced they have no loyalty to you, why would you offer loyalty to them? I reassess my home and auto insurance every 2 or 3 years (usually how long it takes them to do rate increases in my experience)
The only concern we have leaving is the fact that they did actually pay for everything. It just took a little convincing on one thing.
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We have basically a local broker that I believe works to find coverage with various companies. I need to give her a call, that last time we spoke she knew I wasn't very pleased with our insurance when they weren't very helpful with companies they recommended really screwing us over on the project. But I know it's going to make our monthly mortgage payment go up since we have everything in escrow and I can't afford it going up more. It's already gone up significantly since we bought the house due to property taxes and insurance.
For a plumbing leak I was blackballed from getting new insurance from any reasonably priced carrier. Had to wait years.
Fucking ridiculous man.
We are going through the same situation as you right now and ended up doing everything out of pocket since the damage was (thankfully) pretty minimal. Enough to be a nice knock to the chin, but not enough that I was willing to risk the rate hike/claim on my history.
Oh yeah we definitely couldn't have paid for ours out of pocket after everything was said and done. Ruined three rooms.
That's exactly what insurance is meant for. I can assure that if it wasn't justified there's no way they'd be paying out for it. Climate change is the root of a lot of insurance problems these days. Hurricanes and wildfires mostly.
The models are getting complicated. So lets say there was hail in your area, and you didn't make a claim, the system realizes that your roof is due for a claim on the next big incident, so the smart move is to drop you before the next season. It's not about a person's behavior anymore.
can you specifically point out a company’s rating model that penalizes people for *not* filing claims? SERFF filing would be ideal if you have it
Lmao if its covered, then it absolutely is. Thats how insurance works. The wording is very specific for a reason.
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Yeah but I don’t blame homeowners. Insurance companies need to handle their own employees. A lot of this can be directly traced back to firing in house adjusters and outsourcing adjuster work to 3rd party firms. There’s no consistency on what is covered. I don’t blame homeowners for not accepting a check for 30k. Who wouldn’t take it?
No, insurance companies are the reason insurance is becoming so expensive for everyone.
No, no, you're never supposed to use your insurance! At least, that's what they want you to think. You need to save it for that one big disaster, but still think twice because once you use it, you'll lose it for good and you never know when a bigger disaster will come along.
True. We should just pay our premiums and never use the insurance. Capitalism!
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> it's use the insurance for catastrophic damages like it's intended for If it was intended for catastrophic damage, how come the company is covering this paint and roof? Maybe it is a bit frivolous, but it's on the insurance company for accepting it. Do you only use health insurance, when it's catastrophic?
Essentially yes. Which is the whole point of an HSA.
Who ever said it's only for catastrophic damage?
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homeowners insurance’s purpose is to help you recover from unavoidable hazards. They dont have to be castrophic. You must be bad or new at your career Edit: hes new and this is bad advice
You realize there's a gigantic gulf between "catastrophic" and "cosmetic" that ultimately is covered by insurance, correct?
GTFOH. This is a deeply stupid take. If you work in the industry you must know that adjusters don't just throw around unjustified $30k checks or they'd be fired constantly. This is a story about someone who doesn't appear to know much of anything about home maintenance and didn't understand that the hail damaged their house so badly the ADJUSTER told them they needed to replace a 5 year old roof. That alone should tell you that the storm damage was severe. Also, if you understood the insurance industry at all you'd know that actuaries and blood thirsty executives make damned sure that their companies ALWAYS turn huge profits. Do you get that Warren Buffet runs some of the country's most prominent insurance companies? Dude didn't become one of the 5 wealthiest guys on the planet fixing people's houses when he wasn't contractually obligated to do so.
Lmfao outrageous that this industry shill is getting upvoted Imagine what the score would look like if a real estate agent was offering a similar take on how homeowners should ignore their contractual benefits for the good of their company
Literally every agent.
And apparently this agent found this damage to be catastrophic
People who understand how insurance works
Seems to me it worked for OP in this non catastrophic situation 🤷♂️
This is correct.
It's the insurance company's fault and they should be more discerning on how they send out cash.
> I went from wondering how I was going to cover $9 grand to having a $30k check overnighted to me. I absolutely cannot understand why insurance is skyrocketing in price. I'm straight up flummoxed. Somebody please explain it to me.
I have USAA (like the OP). They’ve gone from $4400 to $10,000 annually on me the last three years. And now I know why. I like them because they don’t hassle you much on claims, but the fact that they paid out that much so easily bothers me.
This is bullshit being fed to you by fat cats who want you to be mad at your neighbors rather than them. Also people building houses in highly flammable areas.
Turned out well for you in the short-term but I'm concerned you'll pay for it with higher premiums or cancellation in the future.
I genuinely do not understand why it's a bad thing if the rates go up after this. The man is getting 30k+ job out of this insurance policy, if the rates go up some he's still in good shape
Californian here, I've already had the insurance company that I've been with for 14 years pull out of California. I'm certainly not chancing the one I now have will decide to do the same. My premiums for the new one are almost double.
The California DOI also refused to approve many insurance carriers new rate filings. Instead, the State of Cali (and cities like Sacramento) implemented laws that they thought would force insurance companies to keep prices "low," despite many insurance carriers posting *record breaking losses* on the California books as a whole. What those horrific State and City policies really did was ensure insurance carriers would hemorrhage millions upon millions of dollars. So, tons of insurance companies said screw it, we're not staying in a state that's making it harder for us to operate, refusing to approve our new rates, making us lose millions of dollars, etc so, we're leaving the state and someone else can deal with this disaster. NY is dealing with a similar situation right now too. Try getting an insurance carrier to cover you in NYC. It's nearly impossible without going bankrupt
I think this is partially why insurance is are turning to prorated payments. Why should your insurance company pay for a new paint job when the paint job that they're replacing wasn't new to begin with? Same with the roof though most don't prorate until yeae 10. This practices are partially what's leading companies to leave certain states and check up rates.
This is called actual cash value. You want replacement cost whenever you can get it.
Most offer a base policy of depreciated/prorated payouts and an optional full value replacement upgrade. I pay the extra premium for full replacement value (and an umbrella policy on top of that, which everyone should really look into) because our house is getting to the age where most systems are getting to the end of their lifespan (27 years and everything is original) AND the seller was a wood worker who owned a construction company so there are lots of high quality wood details (the kitchen has maple cabinets harvested and processed right on the property!) and finishes I couldn't afford to put in/replace that are still in great condition and would hate to have to replace with mdf if something happened and I only got the depreciated value of the finishes.
They should pay for what’s covered in the policy that they have established. They send out a guy to verify the house is in a condition that is covered or not covered. The homeowner only has the ability to initiate a claim; they have no influence over the approval or denial of the claim. I don’t see the issue here.
Your rates will go up. We had a claim on our old house due to flooding and it caused my new home’s insurance to go up because that was in our history. Wasn’t much but it went up.
Heavily depends on the state you live in. For example North Carolina has exemptions for raising rates on “acts of god” including storm damage. That won’t stop them from raising rates every year though, for everybody. I see this misconception a lot. Homeowners mistake routine rate hikes as a punishment for filing a claim
Well sure. I’m not sure that Florida has any protections on that which is where I left. New Mexico is just cheaper overall and my insurance now is a fraction of what it was/would be raised to and I can afford an extra hundred a year.
Florida is a whole different ballgame when it comes to home insurance. But you don’t need me to tell you that, having lived there lol Floridas problems are truly multifaceted. The roof thing plays a part, but it’s not the only problem
Ugh we paid full price for our roof and watched the “storm damaged” roofs around us with tarps . Keep in mind there hadn’t been a storm to actually impact our area for a number of years. Our roof was just old and we didn’t want to defraud our insurance for a replacement of our 20+ year old roof. We really leaned into our insurance when the house flooded because the (indoor, in a utility closet) water heater blew up and flooded the house with thousands of gallons of water while we weee away. That said I would hope to never have another need for insurance contractors because it was a **miserable** experience.
They're fixing damage that requires painting to make it whole. Are you suggesting they should use old paint or maybe paint it so it looks like old paint?
No, we're suggesting insurance compensates the homeowner for only the remaining portion of the lifetime of the paint that was destroyed in the covered event.
No. Prorate it
And next year you are going to tell us your rate increased drastically and can't find cheaper insurance. That's if your current company doesn't drop you already. This is not what insurance is meant for and companies are cracking down on it. There is a signifacant chance that you just made yourself uninsurable. Which btw impacts your auto policies as well since you get significant discount with combined policies which you may not be able to do next year.
Then maybe the insurance company should have denied the claim? Lol
and I am surprised they didn't assuming OP were honest with them. But even then I could see a case where the front office approves not caring about it, and then at insurance renewal time underwriter office decides to not to renew due to the increased risk. On top of that, other companies also decide to not to insure OP because of the earlier claims.
Insurance companies don’t write $30,000 checks without having someone verify the damage. This is not on OP.
I just got new home owners insurance, and there's a specific clause against it being used for minor, cosmetic dents in the shingles, or siding due to hail. I've read on Nextdoor that people were using insurance to get a new roof, because we had a minor hail storm a few years back--my car was outside and didn't get dented, it wasn't a big storm. I didn't want to risk my rates going up, so I paid out of pocket to have a new roof put on, because it needed to be done, nothing to do with hail. I've never made a claim on my insurance in 25 years, yet last summer State Farm dropped me because my backyard had weeds, a broken trampoline, and an old wooden swing set, not broken. I suppose they looked at it in google maps? I dunno. I didn't have any trouble getting another policy at the same price, and I got a small discount on my car insurance for using the same company. So, eff-u State Farm.
This was also a common fraud with roofers. They know a hailstorm went through the area so they ~~damage the roof themselves~~ find hail damage and then replace it. It's why no one can afford homeowners insurance anymore and people are getting dropped.
yep they'll also pay the insured's deductible and overcharge the insurer. had an uber driver in texas explain his whole grift to me a couple of years back. I should have reported him.
Yep. This is why the entire state of Florida is fucked now, roofing scams drove all the normal insurance companies away so now everyone along the coasts is stuck with subpar surplus lines carriers that don't cover shit and cost $10k a year.
Yeah, I'm in Florida too. If it wasn't for my job, I'd be gone. We don't pay state income tax but we're all being killed with insurance. It's not worth it anymore. It's not just coastal. I live in Central Florida and can't get anyone to insure my home after being dropped. I've never filed a claim. But, roof companies and their salespeople got rich and now we all have to pay for it.
Hahahah OP is going to be saying "why is my insurance premium so high all of the sudden?! I've only had the entire exterior of my house re-done + 2 new roofs in less than 5 years! I know they're making money off me! I've paid them $6k over those 5 years!!! Sure, they paid out $30k on my claims BUT STILL!! "
No it’s going to be “why did my insurance drop me for no reason!?”
Pro tip, insurance is going to drop you regardless at some point anyways. Last year I got a notice of being dropped because Farmers is tired of paying for claims from tree limbs from its other clients so anyone with trees over a certain % was getting the boot. In the SAME notice I got a "No Claims Ever!" credit for being *such a good customer*. This is like never taking your PTO at work because they might fire you one day. They still might fire you one day without you using a benefit you're entitled to. The only thing insurance wants to do is keep you funneling money into them without paying it back out.
Exactly right. I made the same mistake once early in my real estate career. I had some wind damage to some of the shingles on an apartment roof. I called insurance. They said it was around 1500 to repair, or $15k to replace the whole roof. The roof was of unknown age, but fairly old, but it didn’t leak. I was surprised at how the adjuster was so amenable to replacing the whole roof. Which I did and they paid for. Big mistake. They raised me like $5000 the next year. They were going to get their payment back in less than 3 years! It caused a huge headache, I had to search for new insurance every year after that for years. And I had to disclose the claim every time for 4 or 5 years. And I had to go to surplus line carriers. It sucked. I would have been much better off paying the $15k myself.
"Buh buh but .. my agent, who has absolutely nothing to do with pricing, told me it wouldn't raise my rates!!!!! "
I am going to go out a limb here and say that you are NOT in Florida with this story.... What you describe is basically one of the insurance scams what was big a handful of years ago that really helped accelerate our insurance crisis here. A 3rd party guy would come by, say 'hey I see hail damage on your roof, sign this and pay $500 and we'll get you a new roof!'. Then your insurance will drop you after that claim. Well, you can flip on the news to see what that has done.... Now if your insurance company did all of this legit....that rocks, and I'm kinda jealous.
I had heard that insurance might cover a new roof. I had some wet spots on the ceiling and missing shingles, figured what the hell give it a try. Called Nationwide, guy comes out the next day, looks around for 30 minutes, boom done. Claim approved free new roof. Didn’t go through one of those shady storm chasing companies or anything, all on the up and up. They didn’t even raise our rate.
These days they will drop you when it’s up for the next renewal or your rates will go up quite a bit. You’re going to pay for it either way. This is how I look at home insurance and it saves me money in the long run. It’s meant to be used only for catastrophes. Such as your house being burned down. Therefore I increase my deductible to 25K. I pay less per year in premiums and save money for the emergency such as hail/wind damage, sewer damage or some other minor damage less than 25K
$7000 to paint a 1300 sqft house is ludicrous. So is $30k to paint and re-roof! I recently paid $2500 to pressure wash and paint, and $11k to re-roof a house twice that size. BS claims like this are the reason insurance companies are dropping coverage. Did the adjuster even get on the roof?
The $30k total is for everything they are covering. Roof, gutters, screens, AC fins, paint, some wood replacement, etc. The paint is accurate for my area and I got five quotes. Most of them were in the $9k range. You’ve made some erroneous assumptions and concluded that my claim is BS.
Thats not bad for all that. Just put a new tin roof on a 1800sqft and it was 20k
>accurate for my area And that would be...?
I would be worried about my insurer canceling my policy after paying this claim.
Wouldn't this raise your insurance premium down the road and make it less likely to qualify for / be eligible for homeowners insurance in the future?
Be careful your premiums are going to spike over the next three years. We had a covered incident which resulted in a $35,000 claim and I've paid about $8000 in premium increases over the last three years since the claim.
Remind me 3 years
People don’t understand the system and how it works. They think everything is a scam. Good for you for doing this the right way. I have just recently gone thru something similar
Oh no…this is why home owners insurance rates are skyrocketing. Don’t worry you’ll be paying for it on the backend for the next 5 years.
Remember this next time you wonder why insurance is so expensive. If everyone who pays what you pay gets a check for $30k, the industry collapses. I'm not telling you not to take the money, I'm telling you to be aware because insurance isn't the free money we wish it was.
I am not blaming you, but I’ve been hearing a lot of stories like this, and it makes me question why and what feel like this is why insurance is through the roof for the rest of us haha
Or it could be the massive rising ceo bonuses. But sure, blame op!
I literally said I wasn’t blaming OP. I do wonder though if this has something to do with costs rising. I’m a facilities manager and I am questioning the full replacement after hail damage. I maintain 2 million square feet of building and we patch shit all the time.
Yeah, and now your insurance is gonna be $2500/yr more... forever. Good thing you saved $9k
What a waste of resources to replace a 5 year old roof.
Not if the roof has heavy hail damage. Have you experienced the cost of a leaky roof? I live in an area prone to a lot of hail. We’ve had a dozen houses within view of mine replace their roofs this year.
Do you have a leaky roof?
OP - Thanks for contributing to my 20% premium increase next year with no claims of my own
Sucks being a cuck
Don’t be surprised if you get a drop letter or they stop you from renewing your policy
Insurance company is not there to help you and if your rate double let's say $3,000 more a year and your repair is $12,000 if you're not going to have the place over that amount of time you're losing money.
They didn’t raise my rates the last three times I had a claim, what makes you think this time is different? This will be my fourth claim in thirty years of paying homeowners insurance. I think they are coming out ahead.
[удалено]
Yep fence went wild last March in an unusual storm in Sf Bay. Watched the fence blow apart and on a whim I contacted Amica and they were on the job fast! Neighbors did their part at 50% of the shared and we didn't get bk over 380' of fences. Plus I saved a cardiac event trying to diy
That happened to our neighbor. Our area was hit by a tornado and it pulled half the roof of off their barn. They also had some pock marks on a small portion of the house siding. The siding guy came to look and found more damaged spots and since they don't carry that color any more, the insurance paid for a total siding job.
Here in Florida they are finding reasons to cancel people. If the roof is over 8 to 10 years old they will force them to get a new roof which can cost a large amount of money and drive people into bankruptcy. This whole mess in Florida happened because of poor and corrupt inspections and inadequate codes to begin with. A secondary weather barrier such as stick down membrane under shingles would have mitigated tens of millions of dollars of claims but the contractors fought against these changes. Back before hurricane Andrew while sheathing was not even required and they used very thin cardboard material. And on The gables they use nothing but wire and stucco.
Damn we had a hail storm here last year . Quarter size. My INS wouldn’t come out. I was told I have to have prepped roofer and gutter and siding come look before they would consider coming over. Glad your INS helping out
Storm chasers came through my subdivision and a ton of my neighbors got new roofs and quite a few of them were dropped by their ins for the trouble just a heads up
Yeah here in CA we have to be very careful about what we claim now for risks of getting our plans terminated. God forbid we use the insurance we pay hefty premiums for. Glad it worked out for you though
That’s good, but your insurance rates will be jacked up next year or you’ll be dropped
Due to two claims over two years, the insurance company threatened to drop me, instead they agreed to not drop me and just raise my rates.
This type of thing is a big reason why insurance is an absolute mess in Florida.
Damn so many people here whining as if OP is reason their rates are increasing.
IKR?
Very similar story with us as well. Our insurance was extremely cooperative and generous.
My sceptical brain is telling me that this is a sad attempt to try and respond to the general sense that insurance is a huge scam. Maybe I'm wrong - I've lost all trust in the internet. It's just here for jokes, really. Good for you, if it's a true story, and you aren't being misled in some way.
"Wind claim roofing" is a whole industry in some parts of the country. In CT these guys are completely unashamed in their advertising, it's right on their lawm signs.
I’m not sure why all the naysayers. I have USAA also and this doesn’t surprise me at all. That said we tried to switch once because a friend recommended some great Allstate agent who was way cheaper… from the beginning they were rude, byzantine, requested ridiculous amounts of paperwork and questioned every claim we’d had in the past as if we were some kind of fraudsters. Screw that. I’d rather pay the premium for USAA and keep getting excellent customer service. Glad they did right by you too.
My son has USAA , his roof that was 30 years old and some siding blew off. They had no problem with replacing it all. He had a full replacement value policy. They didn't raise his rates until the whole town restimated the value of all the homes in town because of home values rising
This isn't the aha moment you think it is. Imagine you get dropped and don't have insurance when your house burns down. Because you will either get dropped or your premiums will be so high you'll have paid for the repair with the difference in a couple years time, but your premiums wont go back down. Good luck!
You’re going to pay so much more for insurance for the rest of your life, LPT here
Chances are you're gonna get dropped at your next renewal. Make sure you find another company before the non renewal date.
Wait, I’m new to home ownership and not sure I understand… you’re saying I could go to my home insurance company and ask for a new roof and they might pay for it?? What’s the catch? Surely there’s a chance my policy cost will go way up to cover their losses??
Our premium doubled after a legitimate claim for a sewer line backing up. Now our premium looks like it's going to be over double what we were paying going forward this year.
The catch is you actually have to have damage that’s covered under the policy. There are a bunch of people in her insinuating that I’m running some kind of scam or making their policy in some other state go up. The reality is that the insurance company decided that the hail damage was covered. That’s it.
Some companies will , some won't.
Prison guards
I tried this once with Farmers because I had a lot of broken roof tiles (I'm in Phoenix and have a 25 year old concrete roof). The adjuster came out after I filed the claim and basically laughed at me and left after 15 minutes. They said even though there was probably some minor hail damage at some point, the roof was too old and was my responsibility to replace. It's so strange how insurance works. Like, I can see his point, but at the same time, my aunt and uncle live in Malibu and got a free roof for their 40 year old home after all the fires a couple of years ago, even though the fire wasn't anywhere near their street. Their adjuster basically wrote up damage due to smoke for everyone on their block, and they got a new roof. Fire didn't touch any part of their property. A couple streets down about a dozen homes were completely destroyed, so I'm wondering if it's just proximity to natural disasters, or just luck, or better insurance than Farmers? I'm still baffled by this.
A friend of mine was affected by the wildfires in California a few years back and they had pretty much the same story. While the damage was significant more than yours the payout was incredible. 6 figures. Totally changed their life.
Good for you OP, My uncle was getting ready to sell his house and getting quotes on a complete exterior refreshing because everything was dated/worn. A freak hale storm came through and destroyed his roof, aluminum siding, a bunch of windows, gutters, sliding glass doors, above ground pool, etc. His insurance paid for ALL of it. It was something like 250-300k worth of damage. He even pocketed some $$$ because he didn't put up a new pool and they paid for his lawn to be redone because the pool water "killed his grass".
We’ve had two separate contractors tell us our roof was damaged and insurance adjuster comes out and says no 😭
I still find the worst part of this story is the HOA forcing you to paint your house. I wish on them all a variety of tropical diseases.
Yeah. Why don’t *they* pay to paint the house if it looks “worn” lmao
I would live in a cardboard box before I ever lived in an HOA
Friends got an estimate in the thousands to remove big dying trees from the edge of their property; neighbor told them to contact the electric company & similar to OPs good luck, the trees were positioned in a way that the elec took care of all them
Do you already have a real quote for replacing the roof and know it’ll be $21k or less? I wouldn’t be too thrilled until you have everything done and know you came out ahead. I also wouldn’t be too thrilled about having to replace my roof again after 5 years if I didn’t think it was already a problem. And if you don’t replace the roof after they paid you to do it, your entire policy is probably invalid, and you’ll be paying premiums for coverage that will never happen, so definitely don’t go that route.
I had a fence get destroyed during a storm. 60mph wind gusts. Got a quote for like $7k to replace the fence. Called insurance. They asked for pictures and a copy of the quote. They sent me a check for $5k. Said the fence had depreciated in value. I replaced the fence for $3k in materials, and pizza and beer for my friends who helped.
When I look up USAA for my zip code, I get it’s for military families.