Insurance Hades

[jimindenver]

They need a law that if a insurance company finds a reason to NOT pay a claim, they need to refund the premiums collected.

 

[Almost There]

They need a law that if a insurance company finds a reason to NOT pay a claim, they need to refund the premiums collected.

In most cases it's not so much a case that the insurance company refuses to pay a claim! It's that the insurance industry is kind of stacked in favor of the insurer, much like the casino is stacked in favor of the house.

First, the deductibles have gone up considerably over the years with no comparable reduction in premiums. Years and years ago, when a windshield was broken by a stone, the deductible was $50.00, insurance paid the rest and a lot of the glass shops waived the deductible as an enticement to use them. Today the deductible is $500. and the windshield is in the $300.00 range, hence no claim.

The fine print on the policy has slowly been tightened up - it's frightening the number of people who don't understand what they're covered for until they think they have a claim only to find that the policy excludes whatever it is that they've lost. The exclusion was there from the time the policy went in to effect but the average consumer doesn't read the fine print until it's too late.

When I got my first van and for years after that, the contents of your vehicle were covered under your insurance policy. If the vehicle was broken in to and stuff stolen, the broken glass and the loss of goods were all covered under your insurance policy. Today - not a chance! The glass doesn't meet the deductible and the contents are covered under your house/tenants policy which has it's own higher deductible. The minimum deductible available here in Ontario on a homeowners/tenants  policy is $1000. And your household policy is likely to be 'replacement value' which means that you have to go out and buy the object stolen, then submit the claim to the insurance company.

I also found that the 'independent' insurance adjuster is usually siding on the part of the insurance company and tends to lowball the value of the vehicle. I had one claim where the value of the vehicle just felt kind of low to me...just gut feeling. I insisted on a detailed printout of the valuation from the adjuster and then went through it with a fine tooth comb (just because I could). In the valuation they hadn't included such things as the trailer hitch, running boards, upgraded stereo, etc. etc. etc. I was able to argue the value of the vehicle to the point where it was fixed instead of written off. But how many people know to do that - I suspect not many.

I'll have to make the decision this fall as to whether to carry a household policy to cover my possessions or whether to just consider myself to be self insured on the contents. After all, there will be 2 boxes of valuables stored at a friend place and a CT with stuff I don't want to sell or throw out parked in a friends' back yard pending a move to the west coast. Is paying a couple of hundred dollars a year for content coverage worth the money??