Recommended Insurer for Home Owner's Insurance

Chairman

Chairman

New member
I'm sure this will spark up a debate with this post but I was curious to see who people recommended as an insurance carrier for HOI.

I have quotes from All State and Wawanesa so far. I was told AAA was great and to stay away from State Farm (challenge anything with litigation). Can people confirm these anecdotes? Wawanesa was way expensive compared to All State. I have Wawanesa for auto insurance and they are pretty solid. I guess they can't compete with larger companies in home insurance land.

Anyone have a good gauge on replacement cost in Mulberry? I was also told to mention that most of our new homes are title 24 compliant. I am assuming that means our homes have fire sprinklers and other helpful safety features that should lower your premiums.
 
i have farmers, pay 1400/year for 800K of replacement coverage, which is about 116/month.
 
I have AAA and have had to file a claim with them and it was handled well.

I also have Farmer's on some of my rental properties and had to file two claims and had a horrible time. (Wife's in-law is a Farmer's agent who sold us the policies otherwise I would switch since the cost would be the same for better coverage at AAA.)

Check out the California Dept. of Insurance Homeowner's Insurance Premium Survey:https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/survey/index.jsp
 
Chairman said:
I heard Farmer's for auto is really bad. Sounds like their home is bad as well.
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we have farmers for car as well. one claim and the process was very smooth, no issues. you will get favorable/unfavorable reviews with all insurance companies.
 
For what it is worth, my friend who is an accident lawyer says Farmer's takes every claim to court and fights it. Not great if it is against you.
 
Chairman said:
For what it is worth, my friend who is an accident lawyer says Farmer's takes every claim to court and fights it. Not great if it is against you.
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i can see them fighting claims that other people make against the customers they ensure, that makes sense, keeps costs lower for their customers. we were the customer and we filed a claim with them and there was no haggle/hassle.
 
Had Farmers for decades for both home and auto. Never really paid attentions but when we moved I reassessed and boy was I getting nailed.  Went to AIS and re-quoted everything at a THIRD of the costs.  Unfortunately, had a rear end accident 2 weeks into my new coverage (felt bad).  They paid up and fixed my car without any delay.  I am very happy with their service and pricing.
 
Whenever we get a new vehicle or home, I get quotes from competing agencies, and Farmers is always in the same if not better range.

Maybe because we get the mutli-coverage discount.
 
Wasn't there a proposition that passed that made the discounts transferable from one insurer to another?

We have Ameriprise thru Costco for both auto and home for many years.  No major claims so can't give any worthwhile feedback for them.  Really wanted Wawanesa for auto but they don't allow $250k/500k liability to new policy holders.  Pay about $50/month/car/person with Ameriprise for that coverage.  Really can't have too much liability.  As for home, its about $1200 annually with roughly $600k in dwelling coverage.  We briefly had Farmer's on our current home but switched back to Ameriprise within a year.  Nothing against Farmer's, just want to keep financials simple with one company.
 
qwerty said:
Chairman said:
For what it is worth, my friend who is an accident lawyer says Farmer's takes every claim to court and fights it. Not great if it is against you.
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i can see them fighting claims that other people make against the customers they ensure, that makes sense, keeps costs lower for their customers. we were the customer and we filed a claim with them and there was no haggle/hassle.
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I meant they will fight their own customers who try to get paid out on a claim if they caused the accident or were in an accident.
 
I'm going with Allstate.  The quote they gave me was amazing, under $400/year for my little house in Marigold.  I called other places and they were quoting $1000+/year.  I don't know why the huge discrepancy but my deductible is $1000/incident.  That's reasonable right?
 
ZeroLot said:
I'm going with Allstate.  The quote they gave me was amazing, under $400/year for my little house in Marigold.  I called other places and they were quoting $1000+/year.  I don't know why the huge discrepancy but my deductible is $1000/incident.  That's reasonable right?
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are you sure its the same coverage? the 400/year is more consistent with renters insurance which is like 20-30 per month.
 
ZeroLot said:
I'm going with Allstate.  The quote they gave me was amazing, under $400/year for my little house in Marigold.  I called other places and they were quoting $1000+/year.  I don't know why the huge discrepancy but my deductible is $1000/incident.  That's reasonable right?
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You need to look at the replacement cost they used. Lots of variables that you need to match up before deciding who charges more or less.
 
ZeroLot said:
I'm going with Allstate.  The quote they gave me was amazing, under $400/year for my little house in Marigold.  I called other places and they were quoting $1000+/year.  I don't know why the huge discrepancy but my deductible is $1000/incident.  That's reasonable right?
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Last time I asked AllState (maybe 3-4 yrs ago) for homeowner insurance quote, the agent told me that Allstate itself cannot insure new customer in my area, but recommended few other "affiliate companies".  The rates are good but I've never heard of those companies before so I pass. 
 
qwerty said:
ZeroLot said:
I'm going with Allstate.  The quote they gave me was amazing, under $400/year for my little house in Marigold.  I called other places and they were quoting $1000+/year.  I don't know why the huge discrepancy but my deductible is $1000/incident.  That's reasonable right?
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are you sure its the same coverage? the 400/year is more consistent with renters insurance which is like 20-30 per month.
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Yeah, I was concerned about that too.  It's just $100 more than renter's insurance.  But Allstate says that's what happens for new home construction.  The premium will only go up every year after this.  But they give lots of discounts for new home construction.  The regular price is $800/year but after all the discounts is applied the final bill dropped to $400/year.

Dwelling Limit - $350K
Other Structures Limit - $35K
Personal Property - $175K
Loss of use Limit - $70K
Personal Liability Limit - $300K
Medical Payments Limit - $5K
Animal Liability Limit - $300K

- Ordinance or Law coverage included
- Worker's comp included
- Specified additional amount of insurance for coverage A at 50% included

Am I missing something big in here??
 
the only thing i would wonder is if 350K for the dwelling is enough. marigold is about 2K sq ft so that would be about $175 per sq ft to rebuild. not sure what construction costs are for a single home.  I think some have said that it costs TIC or other builders about $100 per sq ft (excluding land costs of course), but TIC and other builders have scale. maybe you just increase your coverage amount 5% per year to keep up with inflation?
 
I went with a broker who signed me up with Allied Insurance (a Nationwide Insurance Co.).  My premium is $510 a year which includes a multi-policy discount.  Coverage is $425k + 50% replacement value with a $1k deductible.  The other bigger named insurance companies (Allstate, Statefarm, etc.) couldn't touch the price.
 
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