Would you consider cancelling homeowners insurance if.......???

[punkinhead]

Lost a home to Andrew and a roof to Irma. Would never own a home without insurance. Part of the reason we left Florida however was because the insurance became so expensive.

I have several friends in Florida who have dropped homeowners insurance not only due to the cost, but because insurers are so adept at weaseling out of hurricane related claims. They felt they were paying for insurance that would never pay out when needed.

 

[FIYes]

Like others have said I would never drop homeowners insurance. My house has been paid off for a number of years. I never considered dropping insurance. If you want to save money, raise the deductible.

 

[jazz4cash]

The premium increases are annoying nut it is still pretty hood value in my state. I might consider a catastrophic coverage policy with 25k deductible. My state has a lot of regulations to protect homeowners from themselves so that cost is spread to everyone.

 

[big-papa]

This is the same reasoning that my mom used for always having a spare carafe for the coffee maker in the cupboard over the fridge!

haha! The first thing I did when we bought our latest coffee maker was to buy another carafe (along with another filter basket)
Not for insurance, though - It was so that I didn't have to wash a carafe & filter basket every single day.

Cheers.

 

[street]

No, I would not drop it. I do use a higher deductible and that brought the price down a lot. At this point I can afford the gamble of higher deductible and pay out of pocket if something would happen.

 

[skipro33]

I'm glad I decided not to drop our home insurance when we paid off our mortgage. House was purchased at $97,500 in 1985. Burned down in a wildland fire in 2006. Insurance company paid us over $550,000 for the house and another 70% for contents. Premiums before the fire were in the $2,000 range annual and after the fire in the $3,000 range annual.
Best roll of the dice I ever made. If I had rolled the other way and dropped coverage, I would have not been able to afford to stay in California.

Also, consider this: if you lose your home in a disaster, you can not just walk away from the mess. I spent over $100,000 in clean up and restoration of the land before I could pound one nail into one board. If you can afford to walk away from your home, just know there's more expense than just the market value, such as the clean-up, hazardous materials work. And the land still belongs to you. Including property taxes, electric, water, etc utilities that have a flat base cost. Try to sell a parcel that has the ruins of a burned house on it. Likely the cleanup could cost more than the land is worth.

Another consideration; if you lost your house, you'd likely also lose a lot of other stuff of value: RV, cars, boat, etc. Unless fully covered, you'll have those costs to restore those lost possessions.

Now that you've paid off the house, don't chinch out now. You'd be sorry if you had a catastrophic loss.

 

[timbervest]

We have lived in our house for 39 years and have always carried homeowners/earthquake insurance. With what the insurance company paid on repairs from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake I am still ahead in terms of premiums paid vs. benefits paid.

 

[Sunnymar]

One reason never to cancel: LIABILITY