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Andy Dufresne posted:I'm not trying to pick on you, but that's a very immature view of a transaction; you're acting as though the client has no agency. I weighed the value of my $300 against the value of reducing the chance of bankrupting my family and it was one of the easiest decisions of my life. Permanently disabling someone in a car accident had been far and away the biggest risk to my family's assets. I think the most important thing is to not buy insurance from a company's who's biggest expense is advertising. GEICO had good customer service but was very stingy. Progressive sucked poo poo in every way possible. Terrible company. I've been with Amica for a decade for car, homeowner's, and renter's, and they've been great. I'd totally do USAA if I could qualify for their good tiers.
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Jul 2, 2020 04:15
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Sorry, I rolled some numbers together. It was an additional $130 for the auto policy limits and $214 for the umbrella, but minus $40 on the home policy by adding umbrella. FWIW this broker told me that the umbrella rates at 100/300/50 were much higher or not offered by some companies because of their minimum coverage requirements.
Andy Dufresne fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Jul 2, 2020 |
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Jul 2, 2020 04:20
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Dik Hz posted:I think the most important thing is to not buy insurance from a company's who's biggest expense is advertising. GEICO had good customer service but was very stingy. Progressive sucked poo poo in every way possible. Terrible company. I've been with Amica for a decade for car, homeowner's, and renter's, and they've been great. I'd totally do USAA if I could qualify for their good tiers. I don't own a house but Geico was the cheapest quote by quite a bit for auto so that's who I went with, Gecko be damned. That is entirely local market and actuarial history dependent though. Also helps me put a few more bucks in Warren Buffet's pocketbook, so that's always nice.
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Jul 2, 2020 04:21
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Dik Hz posted:$300/year seems like a lot on a $1m ubrella over the top of already high limits. But it's highly market dependent and your market may be different than mine. I think I pay around $15/month for the umbrella on top of my 100k/300k/50k policy. USAA sucks these days. The house we're trying to buy is not currently occupied by the owner. Is it common for insurance companies not to offer homeowner's in this case?
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Jul 2, 2020 04:29
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Inner Light posted:I don't own a house but Geico was the cheapest quote by quite a bit for auto so that's who I went with, Gecko be damned. That is entirely local market and actuarial history dependent though.
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Jul 2, 2020 04:44
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Dik Hz posted:My point Is: If an insurance company is the cheapest quote, and they spend the most on advertising, they're not doing it because they enjoy losing money. They're doing it by not paying out claims. You cannot say that definitively.
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Jul 2, 2020 17:27
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I just had a claim with Geico back in October of last year. No issue at all getting the work done at the shop I wanted, and all the follow up stuff that needed to be done. The local claims rep was great.
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Jul 2, 2020 17:52
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Geico has been amazing for auto claims. My wife and I have been hit 3-4 times in the past 5 years and every time it's been super easy. We have everything else through Farmers though, and when we purchased our house a couple months ago, we moved auto back to Farmers since you can only get an umbrella if everything is under the same company. We now have a pool, so I definitely wanted the $1M umbrella. With all the discounts, it obviously made our auto cheaper than it was back with Geico. Prior to Geico, I did have auto on Farmers, but never made a claim through them, so I can't comment on how they are. I live in northern CA, so earthquake insurance is a thing. It's $120/year or something, but if you add it, it reduces the premiums of auto/home/umbrella/everything by more than $120, so even though getting EQ insurance is pretty dumb, I pay even less total than without it.
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Jul 2, 2020 18:41
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:
That's interesting. I have a friend that's an insurance broker and she said that earthquake insurance is stupid because the deductibles are so high as to make it nearly useless. I'm not sure we get the same kind of discounts on the other policies here though
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Jul 2, 2020 18:48
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Insurance chat itt is pretty timely for me, as I've been discussing it lately with a friend. I've concluded that "sticking with the same auto policy/company that I got over 15 years ago as essentially a child and then getting homeowners insurance through them when I bought my house 3 years ago without shopping around" isn't the best strategy, so I'm planning to look into an independent agent to help out. However, I just paid my premium for the next 6 months of auto and my homeowner's is done via escrow and has a November renewal timeline. Should I wait until closer to the renewal dates to look into switching, or do they have reimbursement procedures for this sort of thing?
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Jul 2, 2020 18:51
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BonerGhost posted:USAA sucks these days. USAA is still 25% cheaper than all other car insurance in Massachusetts, and for home I haven't seen anyone handily beat their quotes. One place came in like $100 lower but they didn't take credit card payments like USAA (who can charge the insurance to my USAA card which gets 2.5% back on all purchases lol). Last but not least you can still call USAA and get an American on the phone in 2 minutes. Where else can you do that?
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Jul 2, 2020 18:58
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I'm totally talking out of my rear end on this, but my experience has been that it's fine to change insurance at any time and they will give you a prorated refund. I don't know if that was specific to my carriers, related by the state, or whatever though.
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Jul 2, 2020 18:58
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Andy Dufresne posted:I'm totally talking out of my rear end on this, but my experience has been that it's fine to change insurance at any time and they will give you a prorated refund. I don't know if that was specific to my carriers, related by the state, or whatever though. Ok, well it's probably something I should ask the agent anyway - if necessary I guess it wouldn't be too bad to check with them, then table things for a couple months if necessary.
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Jul 2, 2020 19:01
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:I live in northern CA, so earthquake insurance is a thing. It's $120/year or something, but if you add it, it reduces the premiums of auto/home/umbrella/everything by more than $120, so even though getting EQ insurance is pretty dumb, I pay even less total than without it. Obviously this is in the realm of "renters insurance is basically free if you have auto insurace" but that is shockingly cheap. You must live in a place not likely to get hit, with a construction type unlikely to fall down. I have a raised foundation down in LA County. We're at $750/year with max discount (brace and bolt program), a $38k deductible (15%?), no breakables (lol), and almost no alternate living expenses ($10k. Enough to get me moved into one of my dad's houses.)
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Jul 2, 2020 19:05
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gvibes posted:Roof kind of looks like it's in bad shape in a couple of photos. The remodeled bathroom and the fireplace-in-a-box made me think that it was a flip, but I don't see a transfer. My theory is that it's been a rental for the last ~10 years and since covid they've decided just to sell it. The updates look fresh so I'm guessing they just tore it apart after the last tenant, and just left the roof and whatever the gently caress else wasn't on their radar. It's all moot anyways. My partner did a 180 after her father poked around the neighbourhood and said he didn't like all the low income housing, so we're not looking at it anymore. Cool little house though and about what we're looking for. A wood stove or a heat pump would be ideal, maybe a second floor to hide from the dogs.
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Jul 2, 2020 19:21
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Bi-la kaifa posted:My partner did a 180 after her father poked around the neighbourhood and said he didn't like all the low income housing, so we're not looking at it anymore. You going to push back on that at all?
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Jul 2, 2020 19:25
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Hell no. Something else will come up in a nicer area that everybody will be less chicken poo poo about.
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Jul 2, 2020 19:33
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Maybe a bit out of scope, but doesn't the fear of living around poors contribute to the cycle of poverty? Not speaking to your situation personally, but it does seem emblematic of a larger issue.
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Jul 2, 2020 20:02
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Inner Light posted:Maybe a bit out of scope, but doesn't the fear of living around poors contribute to the cycle of poverty? Not speaking to your situation personally, but it does seem emblematic of a larger issue. This is an interesting take on gentrification that I have never heard in my entire life.
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Jul 2, 2020 20:08
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There's a lot of systemic issues in the area I live, and the consequences of colonization aren't really masked unless you really put your blinders on. Although you can't really escape that reality here you can move to an area where you'd be less of an invader, if that makes sense? I don't want to do a big derail on it.
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Jul 2, 2020 20:21
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Bi-la kaifa posted:Hell no. Something else will come up in a nicer area that everybody will be less chicken poo poo about.
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Jul 2, 2020 21:06
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therobit posted:Uh, this started because more than one person in the thread told a guy making $43k/yr with no other debt that he couldn't afford a $170k house. Which, assuming a reasonable down payment, would leave him with a payment of $1k. I also qualified it with "assuming you don't also have a car note or credit card debt." Thanks. I'm satisfied the quotes you actually quoted were reasonable and measured, and that your own responses that you quoted were exaggerating the responses. In particular, suggesting you didn't roll snakeyes (a 1/36 chance) is not the same as suggesting it's a "miracle" you avoided bankruptcy (the presumptive remaining 35/36 chance); and neither Motronic nor Hoodwinker told the poster that they simply couldn't buy a house, period, which is the accusation you leveled. gwrtheyrn posted:That's interesting. I have a friend that's an insurance broker and she said that earthquake insurance is stupid because the deductibles are so high as to make it nearly useless. I'm not sure we get the same kind of discounts on the other policies here though The high deductibles are what makes earthquake insurance affordable, and you can buy down that deductable if you want, but: it's important to understand why you get high deductible earthquake insurance. It's to salvage your finances in the event of severe damage or total destruction of your home in an earthquake. You don't make a claim when a little 4.5 knocks over a shelf or puts a crack in your chimney. But not losing the entire value of your home when the 7.0 hits (and it is coming for sure, it's just a matter of when) may well be worth a few hundred a year to you. As an example, my policy has a 15% deductible, and currently costs me $731 annually. I'm a quarter mile from the Concord fault. There's something like a 75% chance of a 6.7+ earthquake in the Bay Area in the next 30 years; assuming I'm still here, and that my premiums haven't risen over that time (back of the envelope math here), I'll have paid $22k against a single limit of $391k, where I'd not make a claim unless I incurred at least $58,650 in damages. My premium is as high as $731 probably because of my proximity to the Concord fault (which is not an especially dangerous fault line - see https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2015/04/11/little-known-concord-fault-poses-big-threat/ and ignore the headline to see the ~4% chance of a 6.7+ in the next 30 years statistic in the text - but this is additive to the general bay area risk and my proximity has to matter), and the type of ground my house is built on (compacted alluvial deposits), and its age (1957) and construction type (wood on concrete piers with cripple wall, not upgraded with bolts or other seismic retrofittings). Premiums for you might be much lower or much higher. But I think the premiums are pretty negligible, given the potential for my house to fall off its foundation and suffer catastrophic damage in even a moderate (6.7+) Bay Area earthquake, especially given the potential on the Concord fault line. Not everyone needs an earthquake policy, but IMO everyone should at least price them out and understand what the risks are.
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Jul 2, 2020 21:18
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Leperflesh posted:Thanks. I'm satisfied the quotes you actually quoted were reasonable and measured, and that your own responses that you quoted were exaggerating the responses. In particular, suggesting you didn't roll snakeyes (a 1/36 chance) is not the same as suggesting it's a "miracle" you avoided bankruptcy (the presumptive remaining 35/36 chance); and neither Motronic nor Hoodwinker told the poster that they simply couldn't buy a house, period, which is the accusation you leveled. It might be just be the area. The earthquake everyone is afraid of here is supposed to be 9+ and basically level most of washington and oregon, and in that case even if you get paid, you're still pretty hosed since you wouldn't be able to rebuild any time soon in that doomsday scenario. We also have this volcano that everyone keeps talking about.
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Jul 2, 2020 21:31
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Hi thread! My wife and I are looking for homes and its... not fun. I wanted to get a sense of what people thought an appropriate price range for us, in line with the recent discussions. Total income: 136k Monthly debt liabilities: ~$750ish in student loans We're looking up to 400k, but would like to be in the 350 - 375 range. We'd put 15-20% down depending on how much free cash we'd need for other things (i.e. a kitchen renovation). I think what's depressing is I know the median income for my area, I know what jobs pay, and its just hard to find anything in this range. Are people just overpaying for homes and are house poor?
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Jul 2, 2020 22:05
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:I think what's depressing is I know the median income for my area, I know what jobs pay, and its just hard to find anything in this range. Are people just overpaying for homes and are house poor? All of the above and more. Or they bought before hyper inflation took housing prices for a ride leading up to the recession. Or this is their third jump to a new house, taking on marginally more debt compared to rolling over the value in their home. Or rich parents. Or dead grandparents. The list goes on. Also many or most of them don't plan on leaving money leftover for a kitchen renovation, they deal with a lovely kitchen for years. Or they immediately HELOC the money out and become house poor. Without your student loans it wouldn't be too bad. It's why those are such a big crisis these days. $9,000/year goes a long way. How long do you have left on them?
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Jul 2, 2020 22:45
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H110Hawk posted:All of the above and more. Or they bought before hyper inflation took housing prices for a ride leading up to the recession. Or this is their third jump to a new house, taking on marginally more debt compared to rolling over the value in their home. Or rich parents. Or dead grandparents. The list goes on. Also many or most of them don't plan on leaving money leftover for a kitchen renovation, they deal with a lovely kitchen for years. Or they immediately HELOC the money out and become house poor. I think even if we had no student loans we wouldn't feel comfortable buying a house that we couldn't afford (however difficult) on one salary, particularly in this economy. I guess I am stupid, but I just don't understand how people afford homes anymore  There are so many places where an entry level home is $500-$600k+ and salaries are barely higher than ours.
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Jul 2, 2020 22:51
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gwrtheyrn posted:It might be just be the area. The earthquake everyone is afraid of here is supposed to be 9+ and basically level most of washington and oregon, and in that case even if you get paid, you're still pretty hosed since you wouldn't be able to rebuild any time soon in that doomsday scenario. We also have this volcano that everyone keeps talking about. The policy isn't necessarily for rebuilding, it's to make you (partially) economically whole. If you still choose to live in the aftermath of what would probably be a multi-year event just to get utilities again that's your choice, but not your obligation with the insurance payout. Seven Hundred Bee posted:I think what's depressing is I know the median income for my area, I know what jobs pay, and its just hard to find anything in this range. Are people just overpaying for homes and are house poor? There are a lot of areas like that, so it's entirely possible there is a high rate of it in your area. Or they bought a long time ago. The're also always people that came in with significant down payments from pre-existing equity or other sources. That's why what you're paying for a house isn't really as important as the amount you're financing. I think those of us who give advice here don't often call that out, but mostly because the context is "I want to buy a $x houe and I have $y to put down on it" but it's an important distinction in any case.
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Jul 2, 2020 22:56
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You have correctly deduced that the housing market in the US is completely insane.
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Jul 2, 2020 22:56
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We’ve tried to conceptualize it in what we feel comfortable paying a month between mortgage, insurance and taxes. But yea sometimes the numbers just do not add up - I guess people are choosing between retirement savings and mortgage, too.
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Jul 2, 2020 22:59
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gwrtheyrn posted:It might be just be the area. The earthquake everyone is afraid of here is supposed to be 9+ and basically level most of washington and oregon, and in that case even if you get paid, you're still pretty hosed since you wouldn't be able to rebuild any time soon in that doomsday scenario. We also have this volcano that everyone keeps talking about. Yeah I've actually read up on the cascade subduction zone, juan de fuca plate, 300 year tsunami records in Japan, etc. etc. It's fascinating. For you guys, the idea is that when the big one hits, your quake insurance will let you go buy a house in another state while your home state spends several years recovering to the point where it's feasible to rebuild a house on your lot. Earthquakes are big regional disasters, much like flooding and hurricanes - they tend to cause widespread damage to a large geographical area. In the aftermath, you get thousands (or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands) of properties that now need extensive repairs or total rebuilds, and there's nowhere near enough capacity in contractors and trades to do it all at once. So homeowners are left with: a lot (which is now worth a lot less than it was yesterday), an uninhabitable house (that may need immediate money just to prevent from becoming a teardown), nowhere to live, and a mortgage they have to keep paying. This is quite different from what is typical for claims against a general homeowners' insurance policy, which covers things like theft and fire: usually a fire is constrained to just one or a few structures (but see also: california wildfires), so presumably you can take an insurance payout and immediately start work on a burned-down house, or replacement of stolen property, or pay off someone who was injured on your property, etc. So for me, my earthquake policy's large deductible doesn't matter. I'm not actually paying that 15% out of pocket, because any event that causes more than $50k of damage to my house is probably causing just as much to every house in my neighborhood, and similar or more damage to thousands of other houses in my region. If my house is inhabitable then I'm just gonna repair it out of my pocket. The insurance is for allowing me to pay off my mortgage completely and relocate somewhere, while I wait the months or years it will take to tear down the wreckage, clear the lot, and sell the empty lot to someone willing to build on it. It saves me from being on the hook for a mortgage on a house that no longer exists. There's other scenarios where maybe the damage isn't as severe, but still significant, and in that case the insurance is just helping me with some of the repairs while I probably take out an HELOC or tap my credit or refinance or something to pay for the rest, because while I have a safety fund to cover home maintenance it sure as hell isn't $50k, and I'm not pulling $50k out of my retirement money to cover that either.
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Jul 2, 2020 23:08
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:I guess people are choosing between retirement savings and mortgage, too. Haven't you heard in this very thread that home ownership is the path to financial stability and wealth?
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Jul 2, 2020 23:08
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I replaced all the support beams in my house right after I bought it (wood beams over slab foundation - the previous owners had let water accumulate in the crawlspace and erode the wood beams) and the house is re-settling in a big way. Lots of sticky doors and windows, busted seal on patio door, some vertical cracks in the paint, etc. The company that did the crawlspace work says that's normal (of course) but to put my mind at ease I'd like to have a structural engineer come out and let me know if my foundation is hosed. What sort of service am I looking for? "Foundation assessment" or something? The big picture goal here is that I want to start with some renovations to the interior and exterior in the next few years, but I don't want the work to be compromised by even more settling and have my counters pull away from the wall or my new windows pop out of the frames. It's also a bit tricky to find an actual structural engineer with any availability right now. They keep trying to refer me to Home Inspectors and assume I'm buying a house.
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Jul 2, 2020 23:15
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vs Dinosaurs posted:You cannot say that definitively. Insurance isn't a "make it up with volume" industry.
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Jul 3, 2020 00:19
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Dik Hz posted:Ok, then. Where does the money come from? You pay less. They spend more. How does that work? Tech and people come to mind as cost levers.
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Jul 3, 2020 00:33
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I know this thread appreciates a good war story. I have a war story but I can't promise it's going to be good  . I have been out of my house for showings from 9am to 9pm the last 2 days and so I waited until I could reach my fridge and pour a beer to dump my stress out.We were supposed to close July 7th, so yesterday evening around 6pm the final documents were in and everything was sent to the underwriter with a big congratulatory email to all parties involved. My house had qualified for an appraisal waiver because the house had an appraisal on file from 2016, we had a large down payment, and my credit score was good enough. This was actually a sticking point when I was talking with lenders because I thought it was ridiculous to pay $600 for an appraisal when I'm putting 60% down. As I have since learned, lenders have no control over the appraisal requirement if they want Fannie backing. It's not something that can really be shopped unless you go with non-conforming lenders or the lender just credits you the cost. In any case, I was lucky to have met the criteria for a waiver so I patted myself on the back over the $600 I saved. Until today when my lender calls me. You see, *someone* took out an appraisal on the property in question in the last 2 weeks. As Fannie's rules clearly state, if an appraisal has been taken out on the property in the last 120 days the appraisal waiver is no longer valid. The loving seller took out a bridge loan and it required an appraisal. That appraisal was uploaded to Fannie and now my loan can't go through unless I get a totally separate appraisal. My mortgage guy says he spent the entire afternoon raising this up the chain and calling Fannie and there was no way around it. Luckily he got approval to credit me that extra $600 at closing so I'm not out anything, but my closing is delayed somewhere between 1-3 days. This is really a "gently caress Fannie" scenario. The seller couldn't have known what would happen, the mortgage guys said they had literally never seen it happen, and unfortunately there's just zero flexibility.
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Jul 3, 2020 03:11
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Dik Hz posted:Ok, then. Where does the money come from? You pay less. They spend more. How does that work? It comes from not paying agents to sell insurance.
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Jul 3, 2020 04:14
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Leperflesh posted:...So homeowners are left with: a lot (which is now worth a lot less than it was yesterday)... So you lose a lot on your lot and go cast your lot elsewhere?
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Jul 3, 2020 04:21
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Is it in a realtor’s purview to pit two home building companies against each other if they both give me comparable offers and prequalifications, or is that something I do myself? And another thing: have any of you ever had to pay your realtor out of pocket because the seller refused to pay them?
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Jul 3, 2020 07:01
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So to bring it back to insurance questions. On a home owner policy, is there a way of estimating the cost to rebuild your home due to fire etc? Our initial home insurance quote was surprisingly cheap (~1k) compared to what I had expected but it has a dwelling value under half of what we are paying for the place. I get land in Seattle is valuable but half the cost of the home seems low. There is an ‘extended dwelling coverage’ add on listed as 50% so I guess that increases the dwelling value by 50% in case of total loss? I asked the agent for more info but how do I know if this is sufficient? Finally, we are mulling over earthquake insurance but holy hell is it expensive and yeah, with a gigantic deductible. Happy to hear other Seattle area folks keep talking on that.
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Jul 3, 2020 14:54
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Hawkeye posted:So to bring it back to insurance questions. I think the insurance appraiser/adjuster figures that out? I have no actual idea so don’t quote me. I do know that in our case, the replacement value of our house (what it would cost to rebuild it as it was in case of total destruction) is almost four times what we paid for it (we bought an unrestored Victorian on the cheap in a not very hot market). The insurance company figured this all out for us. Because of this, we opted for the more expensive coverage with much higher deductible (rather than 200k rebuild which would have gotten us an ugly cheap shitbox) because what was builder grade crap in 1910 is now irreplaceable luxury millwork and poo poo.
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Jul 3, 2020 23:10
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