H110Hawk posted:

Do make sure you check with your agent/broker - sometimes going from $1000 to $5000 or 1% results in small reductions in premium that you will never make up. For example - me going from a $1000 to 1% deductible on my fire insurance (so, roughly tripling it?) resulted in a <$100 annual premium reduction and I can never go back to $1000 with state farm. They don't write them anymore in California.

PainterofCrap posted:

The insurance comes in four parts:
Coverage A - the house
Coverage B- other structures that are not for habitation (garage, shed, and on some policies: your in-ground pool)
Coverage C: contents
Coverage D - Loss of Use. This is a reimburseable-only coverage (you have to spend the money first) for extraordinary expenses that you incur when your house cannot be lived in. Doesn't have to be structurally compromised: Having no power, water or heat are all grounds. Fear of mold is grounds. Most people want to stay in their home, so when they say that they can't, that's pretty much grounds

Coverage A is what it costs to rebuild the entire house and includes the basement and foundation, but not the land (unless you are in California & there's an earthquake). It is NOT the market value. Most policies write this as replacement cost value (RCV), not actual cash value (ACV) (more on that later)

B: same for however many structures you have on the property. Usually 10% of coverage A. You can elect to increase this if you rebuild or modify these appurtenant structures, or add more to your property. Also RCV.

C: best defined as your belongings, things that you would take with you when you move. Includes plugged-in appliances not permanently installed (i.e your refrigerator, but not your dishwasher). You can also increase this limit. Make sure you read the limits for certain items, such as cash, jewelry, firearms, and collectibles. As Motronic said you may want to consider scheduling Grandma's 16-carat diamond ring, or that Luger you great-uncle brought back from Sicily.

D: Keep any and all receipts for meals and lodging if you have to leave your home. This coverage will reimburse it. Many carriers also have accounts with companies that will locate a hotel or long-term housing and bill the insurer directly so you don't have to pay. Korman Suites and similar providers are popular with us since they have their own kitchens. Keep in mind the 'extraordinary' definition: these are expenses above & beyond what you would normally incur. So, If you go out to eat twice a week normally, we'll reimburse you for the other five days of meals. If you buy groceries & cook, you'd be doing that anyway so there's no incurred expense we'd pay there.

Normally this limit is the same as coverage A, although some high end policies don't have a dollar limit, they just say, "reasonable." Some have limits on how long you can stay out of the house (1-year); some are unlimited. Only once in 35-years have I come close to exhausting a limit. Once I paid for a family of four to go on a 2-week cruise because it was cheaper than local accommodations (the Dad Vail Regatta was in Philadelphia and room rates were outrageous when anything could be found). If you have an extraordinarily large family, or one with serious mobility issues, you may want to look into increasing this limit.

Sub-Coverages to watch:

Hidden mold or rot. This nifty coverage, usually limited to $5000 or $10K, will cover the cost of mold remediation should mold arise out of a covered loss (mold has been excluded for years, so this gives back some limited coverage). See if it includes hidden rot: that way, if, say, your toilet floods the house, and during the course of repair find hidden rot in the subfloor or framing under the toilet, this will pay (up to the limit) to repair that rot damage, which (like mold) is normally excluded. Not too many companies offer it, so ask if it's available. Again it's a cheap add, so get it if you can.

Code upgrade. Most policies will write this in to Coverage A as an additional coverage that is 10% of coverage A. If you are buying a house built since 1990, this limit is probably sufficient. If you are in a house built before WWII, it probably is not. Many local governments have codes about minor things like rubble & mortar foundations, foundations with no footings; asbestos; lead piping (you'd be surprised); knob & tube wiring, Federal Pacific Stab-Lok panels...amazeballs PO "There, I Did It!"s, and the kind of substandard building practices this thread revels in.

Unfortunately when you're in the middle of rebuilding you Mayfair rowhome after some tuner drove his Miata through your foundation wall into your basement, and the Philadelphia L&I folks are marvelling at the build techniques of their grandfathers and writing pages of required changes, that money will disappear right quick, and no, you can't use leftover Coverage A money for it. Sorry.

So consider bumping up your code upgrade limit if you can

Service Line Coverage and Mechanical Breakdown coverage: Not everyone offers either or both of these but ask if they do because you want these. They're cheap and will save your rear end. The former covers failures of soil lines, water mains, underground electrical runs etc. outside the home that cause covered losses. It'll cover excavation and repair or replacement of the run, usually up to $10K.

The latter covers appliances or mechanicals that fail & cause a loss (gas furnace fire: boiler puffback; icemaker or dishwasher flooding). These are handled through an agreement with Hartford Steam Boiler, who will determine if a loss is covered or not, and how much. They send me a report, I pay you, and at the end of the year, HSB reimburses us some percentage.

ACV/RCV: When you have a loss that damages 15-year-old wallpaper, or five-year-old engineered wood floor, or a room painted two years ago, or your kid's room with crayon all over the walls, or hammerstrikes to the walls or trim (or Fido has been chewing up the baseboard...really, puppers, WTF?). then the value or replacing re-papering, re-painting is diminished by age, and/or wear and tear, so we would pay what it costs to restore it and subtract for the wear. That's ACV (If you ever have a liability claim - go after someone else's policy for damage done to your property - that's all they'll ever pay: ACV).

RCV means that we agree to pay the reasonable cost to restore your property (less your deductible). The catch, so to speak, is that we'll pay ACV up front, and, once the repairs are completed, we'll pay the depreciation ("recoverable depreciation") to you once you show: a) that the repairs are completed, and b) that you actually spent all of the money, including the deductible, to do so. If it costs you less than RCV, we'll pay the difference between the ACV & what it actually costs you.

So you want RCV coverage on contents. The only way to get ACV on coverage A and B is through certain high-risk writers (like Scottsdale or Philadelphia Contributionship) or if you find a carrier that still writes an HO-1 or HO-2 or a Standard Fire Policy (SFP-1) (named-peril policies; the SFP-1 covers fire & that about it,was probably written by Ben Franklin)

Note: most companies will limit their depreciation to 50% no matter how hosed-up something is. Of course, there are exceptions coughcough _{Allstate, Homesite} cough

A little bit on perils:

named-peril policies only cover the perils that they write in the policy.
Coverage c (contents coverage) is usually named-peril only (although, as usual there are exceptions but usually only in policies written for large risks (i.e. the wealthy) or scheduled items (which are usually broader). This leads to situations where the damage to the house or garage is covered, but the contents are not (typically exterior finish or roof leaks not caused by wind) which is fun to explain to people along with why we're covering the water damage from a roof leak but not the roof repair.

All-Risk (bad name. Really should be "Open Perils"). Essentially, the policy says it'll cover everything, then has a long list of exclusions. But then you get to Additional Coverages, where they'll limit or take away some coverages, and dollar-limit what they'll pay on others.

Typically you're getting an HO-3, or a higher-end version of the HO-3 (ours is called an "HO-3000") and these policies cover A and B as open-peril, and C as named-peril. D kicks in on any covered ,oss.

and finally: the deductible. Get the highest deductible you can afford. The lower you go, the higher your premium will climb.

SO

tl;dr:

Make sure you have sufficient limits to cover your stuff
Get the highest deductible you can afford
Get RCV for contents
See if hidden mold/rot endorsement is offered
See if Service Line and/or Mechanical Breakdown coverage is available

nwin posted:

This is awesome-thank you!

My in-laws recommended shopping around for homeowners insurance every 2 years to make sure you’re getting the best rate. That sounds pretty intense to me.

BonerGhost posted:

Turns out, your insurance company doesn't communicate directly with you when you do that (or maybe it was just this company).

Motronic posted:

I'm sure it was that company/that state. I have an indy agent. I've been with 4 different companies through them over the years and all of them have communicated directly to me about all the important things. It appears they also communicate some or all of that to him, as he's give me a call/dropped an email about stuff I'd just been notified about a few times now.

I never considered that the agent could be an information funnel. That's probably a very good, direct, and simple question to ask of any agent or agent/company pairing.

Steve French posted:

Anyone have advice?

BonerGhost posted:

At this point we move around too much for it to make a lot of sense to switch all the time, and I've yet to find a company other than USAA who will insure our personal property when we're posted overseas, but normies should absolutely address that question when shopping.

Motronic posted:

I wouldn't be super happy to let that much water lay against my foundation. It probably will be fine but I'd be out there with a shovel finding the low spot and digging a channel through the snow to drain it off.

Steve French posted:

Thanks. That was my first attempt

Motronic posted:

Ahhh, okay, didn't quite pick up on that. So here's the deal: it doesn't matter at all then. The water laying on top is the "tip of the ice burg" issue. What you need to worry about is the hydraulic pressure against your foundation which is just gonna be there with everything at this level of saturation and the very little slope you seem to have.

And it sounds like your place was designed for this with proper drainage that is all working fine so yeah. Maintain your sump pumps. Watch for any changes. But it sounds like you're doing everything reasonable and necessary here.

StormDrain posted:

Just celebrating the moment where you decide to work less now despite the fact that it means you're going to work a lot more later.



Also that top hole was sized just right that I could get my hand in one way but not the other. And I could barely get my arm turned around in it.

Edit, this was refeeding the outlet in my half bath with 12ga wire so I can install the correct 20a breaker to all of my bathrooms.

NomNomNom posted:

Why is your ceiling the same color as the wall? You monster.

StormDrain posted:

She insisted that I paint it all the same color, including the doors and trim.

Johnny Truant posted:

What the gently caress

The Dave posted:

It really makes you aware that you’re just a big rat living in your tiny boxes. Not sure that’s the vibe I’d want for my meditation space.

brugroffil posted:

Prefinished vs finish on site hardwood--what are the benefits and drawbacks of each, assuming I'm paying for installation either way?

StormDrain posted:

PerniciousKnid posted:

I have water seeping into my basement for some reason and I'm getting tired of waking up at 4am to vacuum up the pool. Any useful water barriers I can use to gate off the problem area? I tried making some sandbags with socks and sand but it's not really cutting it, the water just goes under.

Edit: unfortunately due to recent weather there's a big backlog before I can get anyone to look at it and solve the problem

Edit: Or is there a way to passively suction or wick the water off the floor into a bucket or something?

Friend posted:

So, new years celebrations got a little wild in my neighborhood and a bullet came into my house from above. I got away with a mild bruise, but my poor house...




It won't be my first time patching ceiling drywall, but do I need to jam a wooden dowel into the hole or anything before I patch the roof, or can I just patch it? There isn't any attic access to this section, it is roof/insulation/ceiling all sandwiched together.

Friend posted:

So, new years celebrations got a little wild in my neighborhood and a bullet came into my house from above. I got away with a mild bruise, but my poor house...




It won't be my first time patching ceiling drywall, but do I need to jam a wooden dowel into the hole or anything before I patch the roof, or can I just patch it? There isn't any attic access to this section, it is roof/insulation/ceiling all sandwiched together.