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Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

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Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance companies want money to come in and never go out. If they could they would sell life insurance to dead people and homeowners insurance to the homeless.

The irony here is that's what insurance customers want, too: to incur arbitrary risks and have other more responsible customers pay for them.

Customers want to pool risks with other customers that are lower risk than they are. Florida homeowner want to be on a national market because they are the highest risk group. Obviously the rest of us want Florida to be separate.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#472
post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, you are wrong; insurance in California is redistributive by regulatory design. Farmers (when operating in CA) must offer insurance X% of homeowners in a range of $Y-$Z, subsidizing those customers who are more expensive to Farmers. It's relevant to the story: Farmers is disallowed (for political reasons) from canceling accounts in Auburn due to actuarial climate updates; Farmers has new incentives to closely…

This quirk of California law (that insurers cannot factor in climate risk or anything other than trailing 20 year average costs) is why insurers are pulling out of the state; it isn't generally true of insurance.

If anyone is interested in learning more, this odd lots episode covers the changes to the home insurance market if a fair bit of depth:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BYbSz1MXdFA

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw one case where a guy was dropped because of an aerial photo of a pile of junk in his yard. I’ve had piles of junk in my yard during various remodeling projects. If the satellite passes over the day before the dump run, there’s no way to tell that the junk was gone the next day. If there’s an inspection, it’s easily explained. I suppose you could offer an explanation for the satellite photo, but in that case you…

You're supposed to notify your insurer when you remodel!

Ok, “remodel” was maybe not the right word here. Projects large enough to generate a sizable pile of junk, but not ones that materially altered the structure of the house. Replacing built-in shelves with a built-in desk, replacing a non-elevated deck without altering the footprint, etc.

My point is more that a totally reasonable and brief occurrence becomes permanent and without context in satellite imagery.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm not in America, and I'm wondering if this is an American thing? I just checked my insurance policy. The word "trampoline" never once occurs in it. I don't think my insurer cares about trampolines. If I think about it: given the absurdly large payouts for some injury lawsuits in the US, I understand why American insurers might be particularly sensitive to things that might induce injury, like trampolines. Gi…

To explain the lawsuit issue, here is a perfectly plausible scenario and how it could play out somewhere in the USA.: 1. A person is at a friend's house for dinner 2. Upon leaving to go home, they trip and fall trying to navigate an unlit path to their car 3. Their injury lands them in the hospital and requires a week or so of recovery time in which they could not work, and as they contract out they lose that money 4…

> 4. The health insurance that fully covered their injury, looks at the medical records and finds that the injury occurred on another property and calls the people involved and finds out about the unlit path

In Australia, if you are seriously injured, you will be sent to a public hospital, where the government will fit the bill for your treatment. If it is a workplace injury or a motor vehicle accident, they might seek to recover costs from the compulsory private insurance in those cases, but otherwise they wouldn't. Many people also have private health insurance, but the private system usually doesn't get involved in accidents and trauma, it prefers to focus on things with greater predictability and profitability (e.g. hip replacements).

Every country is different, but I suspect in many other countries with either public or hybrid public/private systems, it is going to be a similar story

> This is how you end up with such lawsuits that the USA is famous for -- people are forced to sue other people in order to not go bankrupt, and things get piled on that.

It isn't just about lawsuits, it is also about damages payouts. In the US, there is a very broad constitutional right to a jury trial, which extends to civil lawsuits; and (in many cases) the law entrusts the jury, not just with deciding whether the plaintiff has factually proven their case, but also with awarding damages. American lawyers have mastered the art of emotionally convincing jurors to make big awards (especially if the defendant is a big corporation, or an unsavoury private individual). And big awards create precedent for bigger awards in the future. Even though judges can reduce jury damages awards, and often do, I think that only partly reverses the impact of juries in encouraging their growth. Also, the fact that many states have elected judges makes them hesitate about reducing jury damages too much, since that might offend the voters and threaten their re-election chances

Compare Australia: we also have a constitutional right to a jury trial, but it only applies to the most serious federal crimes; it does not apply to less serious federal crimes, nor state crimes (regardless of seriousness), and there is no constitutional right to a jury in civil cases. Sometimes, you can get yourself a jury in a civil case (depending on various complex legal factors), but in practice the majority of civil trials don't have one. And even when there is a jury, the norm is the jury only decides whether the plaintiff has proven the facts of their case, and damages is wholly up to the judge. Judges tend to be much more conservative in awarding damages, and as a result, the runaway damages inflation which has happened in the US, has been far less of a thing in Australia. And all judges in Australia are appointed (both state and federal), and the process is mostly insulated from politics, so Australian judges are far less afraid to offend public opinion

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm not in America, and I'm wondering if this is an American thing? I just checked my insurance policy. The word "trampoline" never once occurs in it. I don't think my insurer cares about trampolines. If I think about it: given the absurdly large payouts for some injury lawsuits in the US, I understand why American insurers might be particularly sensitive to things that might induce injury, like trampolines. Gi…

To explain the lawsuit issue, here is a perfectly plausible scenario and how it could play out somewhere in the USA.: 1. A person is at a friend's house for dinner 2. Upon leaving to go home, they trip and fall trying to navigate an unlit path to their car 3. Their injury lands them in the hospital and requires a week or so of recovery time in which they could not work, and as they contract out they lose that money 4…

It’s critical in the USA to never tell your health insurance that you got injured in a way that may cause them to sue. Because health insurance is not actual insurance it’s almost always best to assume fault for your injury.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#476
post #338

I don't really understand the privacy concern here. To wit: insurers can demand actual inspection of your home when making underwriting decisions. The condition of your house is very much their business. Why is an aerial photograph of your roof, which everybody in the world already has on Google Maps, such a big deal?

I think the issue is that in some cases the information is inaccurate and there are sometimes limited avenues for a customer to object if their insurance is cancelled based on inaccurate information. To the extent that the information is accurate, I agree. If you make an agreement with a company and buy insurance based on your statement that you don't have a pool, but then you do have a pool, I don't see any reason w…

There was a case recently in NZ where home owner tried to defraud an insurance company. Well suddenly none of the insurance companies would work with him. Insurance is a requirement for mortgage so this person is effectively going to loose his house.

False positive with similar circumstances would be a nightmare.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not a good thing if insurance is more accurately priced? Insurance isn't a redistribution mechanism. And dilapidated roofs aren't a social good. Municipalities have actual redistribution schemes to make these kinds of repairs. I'll note that there's nothing at all redistributive about sneaking a trampoline onto your property, too. Further, I'll note that working class people also take pride in their houses…

Because everything is turned as a cash-grab by corporations and prices never go down.

But inflation is good TM

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not a good thing if insurance is more accurately priced? Insurance isn't a redistribution mechanism. And dilapidated roofs aren't a social good. Municipalities have actual redistribution schemes to make these kinds of repairs. I'll note that there's nothing at all redistributive about sneaking a trampoline onto your property, too. Further, I'll note that working class people also take pride in their houses…

Because everything is turned as a cash-grab by corporations and prices never go down.

You've never seen anything on sale?

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#479
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the culling Insurance companies are very keen to get as much risk as possible off their books before the climate gets even more extreme in its volatility Good goes with bad, so long as the bad goes, some good going too is undesirable but OK because they are aware if the catastrophic climate events looming The insurance companies are behaving logically, probably legally IANAL, but for people who are sim…

Insurance companies want money to come in and never go out. If they could they would sell life insurance to dead people and homeowners insurance to the homeless.

If you could sell your car for a million bucks, you would. So would I.

What prevents it is there are no customers willing to spend $1m on our cars.

This is the Law of Supply & Demand, and how markets work.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You (say) have a trampoline. I do not. We share an insurer. Our insurer asked, when you applied, if you had a trampoline. Your trampoline materially increases the risk that insurance is going to have to pay to cover a lawsuit on your property. You lied, and said you didn't. I am now paying to subsidize your trampoline. Why shouldn't I want them to be running drones over our houses? Worrying times... for pirate trampo…

Wouldn't said trampoline simply not be covered by the policy since you lied about it? The agents are checking a box and the underwriter is sticking in a boilerplate "Customer said no trampoline therefore trampolines are excluded from this policy" text

It would be hard for the insurance company to prove that the head injury was from the trampoline rather than tripping on the porch.
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