Homeowner's insurance questions

[RetMD21]

The wife and I have been with State Farm for decades and haven't shopped around. What we are paying seems to be a reasonable amount compared to what I understand from others. I should and will shop around but I am equally concerned about coverage of claims. A friend had a house fire with extensive smoke damage and despite having lots of coverage had to fight with SF to get items covered especially with regard to personal property. Who has receipts for everything in the house?

Our personal property limit is set at 75% of the house cost. That seemed high and I asked a SF agent about that years ago. He said it was standard. I naively thought that it would probably be an easy to get coverage for losses up to the household limit but obviously this isn't the case. Our items range in value but include things that we would give away if we were to move. I don't think they realistically come anywhere near 75% of the value of the house.

We aren't USAA eligible. Should I use an independent agency? Is Chubb better at covering claims an most? Does anyone have experience with Amica? Is it stupid to have home contents coverage in excess of our estimate of replacement cost? We would be open to moving the auto and umbrella insurance, of course. I'd appreciate any advice

 

[earlierme]

Amica is suppose to have great service.
That was my experience.
I had auto insurance with them 30 years ago when I ran into an utility poll during a snowstorm.


My mom's homeowner's insurance just renewed. She's with NJM.
The personal property limit is set by default to 60% of dwelling coverage. We had it lowered to 40%. We're told we have to do it every year.

 

[Buckeye]

The wife and I have been with State Farm for decades and haven't shopped around. What we are paying seems to be a reasonable amount compared to what I understand from others. I should and will shop around but I am equally concerned about coverage of claims. A friend had a house fire with extensive smoke damage and despite having lots of coverage had to fight with SF to get items covered especially with regard to personal property. Who has receipts for everything in the house?

Our personal property limit is set at 75% of the house cost. That seemed high and I asked a SF agent about that years ago. He said it was standard. I naively thought that it would probably be an easy to get coverage for losses up to the household limit but obviously this isn't the case. Our items range in value but include things that we would give away if we were to move. I don't think they realistically come anywhere near 75% of the value of the house.

We aren't USAA eligible. Should I use an independent agency? Is Chubb better at covering claims an most? Does anyone have experience with Amica? Is it stupid to have home contents coverage in excess of our estimate of replacement cost? We would be open to moving the auto and umbrella insurance, of course. I'd appreciate any advice

We lower ours every year. Still way over-insured but we're only allowed to lower it so much.

 

[COcheesehead]

I have an independent agent and she has shopped it every year for us. Most years it went down until the last couple years. My cost for next year, however, will stay the same. Which isn’t bad. Home, auto and umbrella are with Shelter.
Stay with a good agent, switch companies freely.
Insurance is regulated, but what you pay is based on how a company rates you as a risk. You need to find the one that sees you as a lower risk.

 

[ncbill]

Were my home worth over $1 million I'd skip the mass-market insurers and go with someone like Chubb.

My experience with a minor (~$10,000) claim with State Farm on a relative's home was...not the best.

 

[harllee]

I have Amica and they are excellent on claims. My mother had State Farm and we had to fight them to get a claim paid.

 

[Buckeye]

I have Amica and they are excellent on claims. My mother had State Farm and we had to fight them to get a claim paid.

My neighbor had a large tree limb take off a bit of the corner of their roof and they had to fight tooth and nail to get their claim paid. I think they'd been with State Farm for over 30 years. They were very unhappy.

 

[groesbeck]

I've had Amica car insurance for about 25 years and I've had claims and they were great. I wish they'd insure my house but they will not in my location. They used to call me trying to sell me life insurance and I'd say that I'd buy it as soon as they'd insure my house.

 

[MarieIG]

Chubb used to be good covering claims, although I don't know about them currently. To the best of my recollection, they were not cheap.

 

[Aerides]

We reduced our contents coverage to the minimum they would allow. Super expensive things like good jewelry aren't covered anyway, and sentimental stuff has no "value" to reimburse. Everything else? So what in the unlikely event of a catastrophe I could refurnish a new house and feel no real pinch.

Where I live, probably half the value of the home is the lot. The structure? I would not want to rebuild, I'd just plow it down and move. So we took the lowest coverages we could on that stuff. The main thing is liability, and to ensure we have the right amounts to make our umbrella coverage happy.

 

[Midpack]

I get new quotes every few years for home and auto, and have changed homeowners three times, auto twice. I’ve gotten quotes from Amica and USAA, they haven’t been competitive, especially Amica. I’ve read they are both excellent - but DW and I have had two auto accidents, both simple collision cases (no medical or liability) that were settled more than fairly by Liberty Mutual and Geico respectively, and zero homeowners claims in over 50 years. So paying a substantial premium seems unnecessary or I’d switch to Amica or USAA. YMMV

 

[PatrickA5]

We lower ours every year. Still way over-insured but we're only allowed to lower it so much.

We lower ours every year. Still way over-insured but we're only allowed to lower it so much.

Did lowering the contents coverage save much money? Our personal property is waaay higher than what we need. It seems like I asked about that years ago and State Farm said it couldn't be lowered - or maybe they said it wouldn't save me anything. Can't remember.