121–130 of 374 posts
What's really crazy is that apparently some people have the idea that mercury is an 'investment' and will voluntarily keep jugs of it in their home: http://www.ert.org/products/mercury_response_guide/Attachmen...
[0] http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/methylmercury.html
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/pdf/Mercury_FactSheet.pdf
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Yap. An insurance inspector if they are nice enough, will let you know between the lines how you need to phrase your claim. Forgot what the trick word was when we had a leak at our house, but it was similar phrasing -- "So let me remind you, if it is , we'll cover it. If it is we won't. So... which one is it". -- "Oh ok, definetely then ...". /smile
It's kind of scary that something of this magnitude would depend on the kindness of the claims inspector. The one I dealt with was professional yet friendly and helpful (and climbed my wooden stepladder while wearing heels without a second thought). If she had been having a bad day, or just generally of grumpy disposition, or whatever, things could easily have gone the other way.
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> So if they're adjusting premiums such that they're net positive on every single account, does that mean they'll refund your money if you end the contract without ever having made a claim? No, because you're paying for the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your worst-case scenario has been mitigated, on the off-chance it happens . Even if there is no disaster, you still benefited from not having to worry ab…
Insurance rates usually go up after a claim even if it's obvious that the claim doesn't reflect a higher future risk, though.
Now of course if they charge too high, then you could go to a competitor. But there is this CLUE database (I just learned about in a sibling comment here) which apparently is shared among insurers and depending on what is there (or what is not there! -- such as, it was really just an accident) you get labeled and dropped. So even a competitor might decide it is safe to stay away from you.
I wonder how this kind of thing plays out for people that don't have anywhere near $50k available. I'm assuming since the company worked first and then invoiced, that the options would be either (1) sell the house and use the proceeds (assuming equity exists) to pay off the cleaning, or (2) declare bankruptcy. If the company were to require pre-payment for cleaning, then it's really just down to either (1) abandon an…
(3) clean it up with a dustpan :-D Seriously, mercury is not dangerous unless inhaled or ingested. Suit up with a cheap hazmat and gloves and clean away...
But then again, I have a generally lax regard for life and limb. The way I figure it, my drinking, obesity and other vices probably erode my life expectancy more than a single controlled exposure to mercury.
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I'll throw my hat in the ring. Recently had a car totaled when getting it shipped cross country. Apparently because it was an "Act of god" (a hailstorm, with what looks like fist-sized-rock-hail in that every piece of glass and most trim on the car had holes in it, although I'd argue the insurance was for the idiot driver who didn't pull over or cover his load.) the insurance company refused to do squat. The car was…
Wouldn't you in this case claim the money from the transporter and they would hopefully be covered by their insurance?
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Insurance is such a scam. A friend of mine made two claims within about five years: once for water damage and once for a burglary. The insurance company agreed that she was covered. So they paid her and then dropped her. No big deal, right? Wrong. Once you've made a claim or two against your insurance, it can be very hard to get any new insurance company to cover you. She finally did find a new insurer, but the price…
"Because of this, I avoid making any claims unless absolutely required." This is economically efficient behavior - and in fact you should set your deductible to the highest amount you can afford out-of-pocket, as insurance is really only efficient for amounts above that. You should be aiming towards insuring catastrophic loss - eg, a fire that burns your whole house down.
You self insure when you can afford the max cost you could incur (e.g. You could buy a new car if you had to.) You buy insurance when you can't afford the rare but very costly catastrophic loss - life insurance, health insurance, car injury insurance.
A friend of mine has a "mercury blob maze" [1] where you have a little blob of mercury trapped in a plastic container and you have to get it through the maze - it was fun to use at different temperatures, as the blob would want to break apart when hot, or not move at all when cold. Shaking it turns it into 300 blobs. Upon seeing it, my science teacher dad had some cool stories about playing with Mercury 20-30 years a…
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> She finally did find a new insurer, but the price has gone way up -- negating her original claims. This isn't a scam at all. That's exactly what you'd expect from insurance. Insurance isn't there to save you money. In fact, the expected value of an insurance plan is always going to be negative on an infinite time horizon[0]. The whole point of an insurance plan is to smooth risk : instead of the small possibility o…
While I agree with you that you should only insure the risk you can’t carry yourself there should be a profitable business opportunity insuring individuals that have been dropped by other companies provided the reason from the drop is not predictive of future risk.
I freaked out a little, and thankfully had a calm property management company that just said, "Look the area above bathrooms always looks like this, and we just need to have the people upstairs caulk a bit better around their bathtub, and we'll be fine.
I'm not going to claim I have any idea whether calling the HazMat/FireDepartment team makes sense here (Hell, Mercury is dangerous) - but it's always a good idea to see if there are safe alternatives that might save you several tens of thousands of dollars.