Home Owners Insurance...

MicroPilot · Aug 18, 2004

( ... they keep cancelling me for bizarre reasons (... I'm 2.1 miles from a fire station /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif)....)

Holy Cow!!! I'm in deep trouble as the nearest fire station to me is 15 miles!!! I sure hope my insurance company doesn't find out!! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

cisco · Aug 18, 2004

OK, try AMICA. Such company is rather choosy (only insured me because I'd married into an insured family - now more liberal about newcomers), but rates are very competitive, and it pays a "dividend" each year on company profits and your claim history. It has been rated #1 for home insurance by Consumers Report for many years (including 2004). I recently had some frank words with the regional AMICA underwriter, as such declined to insure my new garage/apartment on my country property - which happened to be on the intracoastal waterway in SC, and hence susceptible to hurricanes (slab level in my garage is 20.4 feet above mean high tide, rather unusual, and quite high, for the Southeast coast). Anyhow, given I'd had a house, cars and a boat insured (and a 30 year history with the company), I was grudgingly insured, at a reasonable rate and with comprehensive coverage. Given my rates weren't jacked up after 2 auto claims (I've 2 teenagers) and I was not questioned re. damage in 1989 from hurricane Hugo, AMICA seems to be for real. They can be a bit choosey, only agreeing to insure my motorcycle this past year, and they wouldn't insure my tractor until they insured my garage/apartment, and then decided that it was "considered part of the personal property of the house", and fully covered. Go figure.

rozett · Aug 18, 2004

( Were you told or did you ask why being a farm or having horses was keeping them from selling you insurance? )

In order to do a quote, the agents go through a list of questions. For several, I listed my occupation as farmer. That led to additional questions. So, I then said that my occupation was a teacher (I am a substitute teacher at the local high school... 150 days last year). But most asked if we had any "dogs or other animals". Our two pleasure horses are a show-stopper.

I did go to the Bureau of Insurance via the state website. They list all carriers authorized to write homeowner's insurance. I found Farm Family Insurance. I will call an agent tomorrow. They do cover farms and people with horses.

Thanks for everyone's input..... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

DaveNay · Aug 19, 2004

( You should try to get a farmers poicy in West Virginia!!!!!)

This must be a trend with insurance in WV. My dad got a letter from his auto insurance a few years, saying that they were not going to insure his truck anymore. Not that they wouldn't insure him if he got a different vehicle, but they were directly refusing to insure a Bronco II /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif. I guess the mountains are a little too much for that truck /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif.

Dave

NY_Yankees_Fan · Aug 20, 2004

( Holy Cow!!! I'm in deep trouble as the nearest fire station to me is 15 miles!!! I sure hope my insurance company doesn't find out!! )

If the fire department is more then 5 miles away and/or no fire hydrant within 1000 feet of your home, you pay more! In the insurance industry this is called an unprotected risk. They will always ask these two questions when they are trying to determine the premium you will pay.

MicroPilot · Aug 23, 2004

( If the fire department is more then 5 miles away and/or no fire hydrant within 1000 feet of your home, you pay more! In the insurance industry this is called an unprotected risk. They will always ask these two questions when they are trying to determine the premium you will pay. )

Actually my insurance company did ask these questions. There is a hydrant near the begining of my road (The water co. made me and my neightbor buy and install this hydrant!) but the water co. insists that this is a flush hydrant only!! The county I live in does not have fire hydrants except in the 2 major cities(populations of around 5000 each). I have a scanner and have heard many times the FD doing tanker shuttles to supply water to fight fires. If your house catches fire here it's gonna be a total loss. I'll be damned if the need ever arises if I don't MAKE the FD hook up to the hydrant!!!

Bird · Aug 23, 2004

( I'll be damned if the need ever arises if I don't MAKE the FD hook up to the hydrant!!! )

Robert, you'll probably find first that you can't MAKE them do anything and second that, depending on the equipment they have, there may be no possible way they CAN hook up a fire hose to it, and run that hose to the fire's location. But of course, depending on their equipment AND the type of hydrant, location of hydrant, and water pressure, they may actually be able to hook up to it. When I lived out in the country, I was on the board of directors for our water company AND I was a member of the volunteer fire department. And as you said, there were no fire hydrants. However, we did have the flush valves (hydrants) in various places. They had locks on them and the fire departments had keys to those locks, but rather than hooking fire hoses to them, they used them to refill the tanks on the trucks.

NY_Yankees_Fan · Aug 23, 2004

If the fire hydrant can produce 250 gpm at 20 psi AND it is within 1000' feet of your house, then you should get the protected rate. HOWEVER, if your fire department is rated by ISO, Insurance Service Office, as a 8/9, then the savings will be minimal. ISO rates fire departments in the USA on a scale of 1-10, 1 is the best, 10 is the worse. They give 2 ratings, one with areas covered by fire hydrants and the other without fire hydrants. In the example 8/9, the 8 is an area with a fire hydrant and one without would be 9. The lower the ISO number the less you pay, with greater savings with an ISO rating of 5 or less. Most big cities are rated 2-5, very few are 1, and many are 9. ISO looks at the equipment the FD has, manpower, training, etc. to determine the rating.

MicroPilot · Aug 24, 2004

IF they don't hook up to his hydrant, then they'll be driving 5 miles to the nearest fill point. 10 mile round trip. I know I can't make them do anything, but I sure will be vocal about how there's water just a few hundred feet away.

Last year there was a house that caught fire 2 miles from me on my road. It burnt to the ground because the FD ran out of water and couldn't shuttle fast enough. Luckily it was unnocupied at the time, but I don't think the FD knew that. The most they could do was try to keep the fire from spreading to adjoining property.

Currmudgeon · Aug 24, 2004

( I'll be damned if the need ever arises if I don't MAKE the FD hook up to the hydrant!!! )

It's not that the FD doesn't want to use the hydrant. It's that, at the end of a long, skinny water main, they may not be able to suck enough water out of the pipe to do much good.

Yoiur best solution, if you can make it work, is to have a fire pond. I've put in fire ponds with hydrants that draw from the pond, but rural FDs often carry a suction hose and strainer basket so they can draw from ponds.