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Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

wsj.com

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Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#541

Post by ncallaway »

tptacek wrote: post #422
ssl-3 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is an unversed lay homeowner who is inexpert in the insurance industry (or perhaps even any industry) supposed to know what risks an insurer thinks are important? Their job, I think, is to accept the quote, pay the premiums, and to keep living life.

On 1-3 occasions over the course of an insured's entire life, they'll be confronted with the paperwork for the insurance contract for the most expensive asset they'll ever buy. They should read it.

I wasn’t actually confronted with the paperwork. When I purchased my house, the insurerer that was selected by my bank informed me (several times) that they were unable to provide the complete coverage details and contract until after the insurance contract was in place.

Even then, it took me several calls and interactions to get them to send me the actual detailed insurance contract. They tried to fob me off several times with a brief summary document.

I would be surprised, based on my experience, if people are actually confronted with the paperwork as you suggest. The default flow of my home purchase made it clear that my request to review the coverage contract was so far outside the norm that they weren’t really sure how to handle it.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#542

Post by datascienced »

vba616 wrote: post #386
EligibleDecoy wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s called “money.” That is the reason. Slate roofs are common in the UK, and using synthetic slate is $7-12/sqft, whereas bitumen/asphalt shingles which are common in the USA cost $0.50-$1.00/sqft. Average home in the USA is 2,200 sq ft with a roof size of 1,700 sq ft. So $1,700 vs $11,900 is quite a difference (and that was being most generous, excluding installation costs, etc) So basically, average person who ow…

>that requires capital - more than the average owner really has access too It sounds odd to my ear to matter-of-factly state that the US is deprived due to being capital-poor. I mean, I'm not disputing anything specific, but where do middle-class people have better access to consumer finance than the US? If you'd asked me what single fact represents American homeowners to people interested in economics around the wor…

Who is on the losing side of interest rates going up while 30 year fixers are presumably paying something like 2%?

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#543

Post by skissane »

Eisenstein wrote: post #537
skissane wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but the point also remains with respect to averages. For example, compare how the UK and the US handle compensation for lost future earnings in wrongful death cases. In the UK, judges are guided by the "Ogden tables", actuarial tables published by the British government. The judge will use the deceased's age to look up a multiplier in the tables, which will be multiplied by their income at the time of death, to…

I agree that the systems are different and one is more oriented towards payout because we have little to no social safety nets so whatever the victims get has to last them for life, among other reasons I described above. Are you trying to say that one system is bad and another is good? They are different for different reasons, which can be explained by the structure of the society and what we expect courts to provide…

> I agree that the systems are different and one is more oriented towards payout because we have little to no social safety nets so whatever the victims get has to last them for life, among other reasons I described above.

The argument though is, a lot of the difference is nothing to do with the factors you cite such as social safety nets, it is about the use of juries in civil cases, especially to decide damages. David Bernstein (professor of law at George Mason University) puts the argument better than I can in a 1996 journal article – https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regu... – see in particular the discussion of juries on PDF pages 3 onwards, and his recommendation on PDF page 6 that state legislatures should remove the power to decide damages from juries and transfer it to judges only

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#544

Post by datascienced »

FireBeyond wrote: post #466
jeffbee wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you recently rob a bank or carjack an old lady? If not, I sincerely doubt that anyone would go to the trouble of following you around.

LOL. Police around here will routinely use rotary for grocery store thefts, fixed wing for pursuit of non-violent suspects. In fact a couple of weeks ago, they deployed a State Patrol fixed wing to come south about 40 miles to here to look for "a group of young males dressed in black that were graffiting numerous buildings in town".

Someone is in incentivised! Maybe x miles in the plane to get it again next year?

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#545

Post by datascienced »

danans wrote: post #492
sarchertech wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s required if you have a mortgage. Even if you don’t have a mortgage, your home is probably worth several times your annual salary. Most people can’t afford that loss if it burns down, gets hit by a tornado etc…

Also, consider that for a great many Americans, their house is the only significant asset they have. A huge number of Americans have no retirement savings at all [1]. For some of these people who do own a house, selling it at retirement is the only way they can avoid poverty (or at least maintain their quality of life), especially with the possibility of a future government significantly cutting Social Security benef…

Probably why it is smart to buy a property where most of the value is the land. If you can!

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#546

Post by mh- »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #406
pants2 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I was shopping for home insurance, an agent told me I was too close to a canyon, which I thought was strange because there are no canyons near me. They sent me a screenshot of the fire danger map where clearly it had the wrong location / coordinates for my address (they thought I was about a mile from where I really live). I pointed them to my address on Google Maps which has my correct location, but they s…

> Luckily, Lemonade has smarter systems and got my location right, so I was able to get insured with them. But I'm not sure what I would do without lemonade. Insurers with better information will be able to judge risk better, so they can undercut competitors on lower risk or avoid taking on higher risk. That really is what a competitive insurance market should be like right?

>That really is what a competitive insurance market should be like right?

Should be. But states like California cap insurance rates in such a way that insurers are dropping (non-renewing) policies, since they can't charge market rates.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#547

Post by namirez »

pants2 wrote: post #375
imgabe wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Last time I was shopping for home insurance, an agent told me I was too close to a canyon, which I thought was strange because there are no canyons near me. They sent me a screenshot of the fire danger map where clearly it had the wrong location / coordinates for my address (they thought I was about a mile from where I really live). I pointed them to my address on Google Maps which has my correct location, but they s…

This sounds like a Lemonade ad.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#548

Post by kchoudhu »

brogrammernot wrote: post #69
landedgentry wrote: post #17

I'm less concerned about the spying and more concerned about insurance companies arbitrarily non-renewing policies with no recourse for the consumer. Insurance is heavily regulated for good reason, and insurance should be a source of stability instead of anxiety.

Alright, I spent years working and building 0-1 insurance products. Let me peel back some stuff that’s been happening behind the scenes. Some officials are elected and some are appointed which all depends on the state. Appointed officials are usually more reasonable and elected are not because higher rates = mad voters = re-election chances lower. For a long time, insurers have struggled to get sufficient rate change…

> supply chain disruption, labor increases

All of these things have either reduced or stabilized over the last two years, but prices seem to keep going up. Strange!

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#549

Post by rlt »

mh- wrote: post #546
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Luckily, Lemonade has smarter systems and got my location right, so I was able to get insured with them. But I'm not sure what I would do without lemonade. Insurers with better information will be able to judge risk better, so they can undercut competitors on lower risk or avoid taking on higher risk. That really is what a competitive insurance market should be like right?

>That really is what a competitive insurance market should be like right? Should be. But states like California cap insurance rates in such a way that insurers are dropping (non-renewing) policies, since they can't charge market rates.

I don’t understand how states like California don’t understand basic economics.

Re: Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images

#550

Post by londons_explore »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #437
londons_explore wrote: post #351

> If your roof is 20 years old and one hailstorm is going to take it off, It amazes me that people in the US would even consider installing a roof that would only last 20 years. In the UK, you wouldn't consider reroofing anything that your grandparents remember being installed. Ie. Stuff doesn't get reroofed till it's 100 years old. Even then, you'll normally inspect and only replace the damaged bits. My 350 year old…

Has your 350 year-old house been hit by hail, some of which is the size of golf balls, in enough volume that the ground is as white as if it had snowed? Because that's a not-uncommon occurrence here in the midwestern US.

Ceramic tile and concrete tile roofs will survive that, and are also common in the UK. (Although tend to be only ~150 years old by now)
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