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Answer:

An A rated, admitted carrier

A local agent, who will take the time to be sure you have all the coverages/endorsements you need (like that jewelry floater), and adequate limits

Guaranteed replacement cost on the dwelling (you can’t get that everywhere)

replacement cost on the contents

building ordinance or law enhancement

backup of sewers & drains endorsement

Some carriers have a “bells & whistles” package that incorporates most of these extras, at a discounted price. Plus, you need someone to explain each of these to you, and explain why you may or may not need them.

Keep in mind, some coverages (like flood and earthquake, and depending on where you are located, wind) are NOT available on a standard homeowners policy, and must be purchased seperately.

I want to purchase a car from a small car place, the man puts 30 day tags on it and mails the title to the DMV, but my father cant get off work to come put insurance on the car for me. So can I buy the car there, have the title put in my name, but have the car towed home and stored off the street until I can add it to insurance and get my own tags? or is it illegal to tow a car without insurance on it?

Answer:

Have your dad call his insurance agent, if you are covered by his insurance on another car most policy’s will cover you for the drive home and for a few days…. But have you dad check first

I’m buying a house and one of the requirements of the grant that I’m receiving is that the insurance on the house can’t be over 0.00 a year. ( a month). I’ve tried Progressive and Sagamore already and they’re over. So does anyone know of anything?

Answer:

ask a local independent insurance agent how that can be done. S/he probably represents 10 to 20 companies.

likely, you’ll have to accept some limitations you wouldn’t otherwise want.

Answer:

For homeowners insurance you would not need to give the insurance a list of items of your entire home. However, if you have valuable items (jewelry, artwork, computers, fine china & crystal, musical instruments, etc.) and want to have these scheduled onto your policy then you would provide a list which includes a full description of the item including serial numbers, model name, for jewelry the cut of the stone, setting information, etc. This full list should be provided to your agent and then put on a schedule onto your policy. You will see each item actually listed line by line. You should check your list against the list on the policy and have it updated each time you make a purchase in any of these categories.

In terms of the rest of your household contents, you should have a full inventory for your own peace of mind in the event of a claim. Your agent should be able to provide you with a household inventory brochure to assist you in preparing this. You should also consider supplementing your written inventory with pictures and/or a video inventory (walking through your house and filming each room–focusing on higher value items along the way while verbally stating where purchased, dates and or any other helpful information).

This type of inventory should be kept off premises, i.e. in a safe deposit box, at your office, a family member’s house, etc. and a copy at your agent’s office. If you ever have a major catastrophe, you will find it to be invaluable in the prompt resolution of your personal property claim and will assist you in obtaining a higher payment than you otherwise would since many people forget everything they had. Remember when doing your inventory to account for all your library contents, i.e. books, movies, cds, etc. since the cost of these add up very quickly.

I hope this information helps. Good Luck!

my house was broken into (we’re in the middle of remodeling it) and my list of items was “over” the amount small claims handles. So they’re refering me to the local agent.

Answer:

Are they sending an agent or an adjuster? An adjuster is a professional who determines the amount of damages that you suffered and how much your insurance will cover. The agent is the person who sells insurance. The license to be an agent is different from a license to be an adjuster. It would seem possible that a person could have both but not too likely. (A good adjuster is so in demand, that he wouldn’t have the time to be an agent too. In addition, sending your agent to look at your claim might be somewhat of a conflict of interest.)

Whenever a claim is over a certain amount, they want to have an adjuster come look at the situation to determine a fair and reasonable settlement. You do not have to accept the first offer they make if you feel that they are setting too low of a price. You can negotiate for a higher settlement, but you often won’t get as much as you think you should. Claims adjusters have training to make determinations as well as reference materials to check the costs related to the claim. (In the case of storm damage to a house, he has to know not only the cost of the materials needed to do the work, but also how much labor on such a job costs in that area.) Most adjusters try to be fair.

Sometimes they have to handle claims differently than usual. One time, we lost a lot of shingles from our roof in a bad windstorm. (The whole west side of the house.) Usually, in a claim of that size, they would send an adjuster to determine the loss. However, since there were so many claims in the area due to the storm, they realized that most claims like ours would be real and that there were too many to send adjusters out on all of them. They had us take photographs of our roof and mail them the photographs. The adjusters could look at the photos and make a preliminary adjustment from their desk in the office. Since we live in the same city as the home office of the company, after making the prelim adjustment, an adjuster from the home office could plan a route around the city. He would drive from location to location and determine if the photo sent in matched what he saw. He could also determine if there were some places that needed more follow up in case he saw something looked like it might need more work than the home owner had thought it would. It saved them a lot of time in taking care of a lot of storm damage fast. For anyone who was claiming a lot of damage (more than just roofing) from the storm, they had to go to the site to make a thorough examination to make a repair estimate. (And the adjuster could look for hidden damage that the home owner didn’t even know existed. He might end up with more than he expected in some cases.)

In your case, you didn’t have a natural cause like a storm that was reported all over the news. You had a break in. The police have to examine the scene for evidence. The insurer also wants to see for itself just what happened. Therefore, the insurer will send the adjuster out. They want to be fair to you and they want to be fair to everyone else An adjuster would be aware of some to look for that might have been damaged that you aren’t even aware of. Just because most people are honest and you most likely are part of the most people, they want to know that you are. If they just paid on every claim submitted by everyone without checking the claim out, there would be criminals out there making money off of insurance by making false claims. They are protecting themselves and everyone who has insurance with them from the possibility of fraud.

This is just standard in cases where the claim is more than a certain amount. The way they did our roof a few years ago was a short cut that was reasonable in that case. There is no short cut in theft. If it exceeded their set limit for being a small claim, they have to go strictly by the book.

In addition, when settling your claim, you need to understand if you got your insurance on an actual cash value basis (ACV) or on a replacement cost basis. You also need to know what your deductible is. Here is a made up example of how ACV and replacement cost work.

The price you paid new for items x, y and z that were lost was ,500. Your deductible is 0.

Case #1 You have ACV basis coverage. If you had sold x, y and z in working order used at the time you had lost them, you would have gotten ,587. In that case, you would receive ,087 on your claim. The actual cash value (value as used merchandise) of the items less the deductible. If your refrigerator was just purchased new recently, it would be valued basically with its full price, but a 20 year old refrigerator will be depreciated a great deal.

Case #2 You have replacement cost basis coverage. The current cost to replace x, y and z with new merchandise that is the most like what x, y and z were is ,521. You will receive ,021. If you have replacement cost, you will get brand new merchandise that may have better features than the old. If a refrigera

Answer:

Well, it’s easy, if you can sell, and have a base of contacts to work from. People don’t come to you, you have to go to them.

The average new agent washes out. 95% of agents wash out, not being able to sell even ,000 worth. The average agent that doesn’t wash out, makes K the first year, with 60 to 80 hour workweeks. One bright star in a thousand will make into six figures.

Answer:

There’s really no answer to insurance questions like this without examining the policy – there might be no difference, and there might be lots of difference. For instance, most homeowner policies also double as a general liability policy, and commercial insurance might not. Insurance matters are a legal contract, and the fine points are matters to discuss with your agent and your attorney. The details vary from contract to contract.

Even if you work with full-commission (3%) agents, they just work with their favorite title insurance companies. They don’t comparison shop the best deal for you.

How do you find out the quality of service of a title insurance company? How do you find out all the fees that the title insurance will cost you?

Title insurance is to ensure that your home has a free and clear title and no one has a lien or a claim on it. It’s critical and requires professional expertise. You don’t want to do it yourself, and cannot afford to be self-insured. You don’t want to find out by surprise that your home isn’t yours after you’ve paid your down payment and all the closing costs. Title insurance ensures that this never happens, assuming that the insurance company does its job.
Is anyone familiar with the California laws? Is it always the seller’s agent who chooses the title insurance company? Do the laws require that all title insurance companies do pretty much the same things to check the title?

Answer:

title insurance is cut and dry so to speak,

im going thru a large claim on mine right now,
they are really terrible to deal with.
they all have to provide the same coverage, and service as required by the state,
the fees they charge are usually state regulated also, they all charge the state regulated amount, ( like Gap insurance for a car ) its always the same for everyone.
a trip to the register of deeds will save you the money, ( I wish I would have )
if its not on the record the title insurance wont cover it anyway.

I had an easement the title insurance didnt find, and now the easement holder came in and is doing as he wishes all over our property, tearing down trees, removing a building,

It was on record at the court house, and the title insurance still dosen’t want to pay.

Answer:

the best way to find a good company with a good rate is to call an independent agent in your area. they write for a lot of companies and can look for you. some of the best companies are ones you may never have heard of. try also placing your home and auto together for a discount on multiple lines.

We filed a claim When we had a bad storm and lighting hit our storage building, it burned to the ground. It was a total lost. About a month later we received a letter from our agent stating that the company would not write the policy and gave us no reason as to WHY? They did pay half on the building and half on the contents of what it cost us to build back. This was due to an act of God. Can they cancel on us???

Answer:

Well, ask the people in San Diego who lost their homes due to on of the two raging wildfires that burned through here or those in the gulf who were hit by tornadoes, storms but not the actual hurricanes and you will find the answer is yes. They can cancel or not renew the policy for even smaller claims than those. BTW, my policies all exclude acts of God, war, disaster or nature. This is why many State Attorney’s have filed suit against the insurance companies…