Posted on 05/31/2006 5:08:40 PM PDT by dasboot
I was notified by my insurance agent that our policy carrier was unwilling to re-up our contract. Reason: 'cost of re-insurance too high'.
No other explanation. Last week I got a notice from my agent that the only insurance I could get was through the MA 'Fair Plan'...state program for problem properties...at DOUBLE the cost.
So I called another agent. She said, "Give me the address."
"Ohhhhh". [And not a good "Ohhhhh"].
She tells me that insurance carriers are, en masse, cancelling insurance contracts [when up for renewal] on any property that is within one mile of a major body of water!
What's going on??? Is this MA only? Nation-wide? A greenie plot to vacate the waterfronts? The fallout of Katrina?
Anyone else getting the screw? Can't find a thing on line about it. Pardon the vanity...don't know where else to find info.
I'm 85' above sea level. About a mile inland from the Atlantic. I'm hoping for a life preserver, here. Getting ready to retire on a tight budget....I can't take much more of this price-gouging. What to do?
It is happening throughout the industry.
I don't know about your situation, but I and all taxpayers are tired of supporting those people (through our federal taxes) that continue to live in flood plains, ocean or river fronts and return to these same properties after floods.
That's what I feared was happening. Looks like no options. Uncle can always tack on a temp state income tax to cover their 'fair plan' losses. TX [sheesh]
How could you loose, using a prophet? ;o)
I wonder - at 85' above sea-level, if you and your neighbors couldn't threaten a class action suit demanding they provide proof that your homes will ever be in danger of flooding? Even the tsunami in Indonesia wasn't that high.
I would think a good lawyer could couch it in terms that would indicate suspicion of collusion etc etc
Move
Wait, wait; don't tell me! One of the "areas of color bordering Boston"? I've noticed that car insurers are also quietly canceling auto insurance in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan... Actuarial tables are a bitch. Call Tom Menino. I'm sure he'll help.
When the chips are down, I just trust my old magic 8-ball.
I don't want to start a vanity, but I have an insurance question; it probably varies from state to state, policy to policy, was thinking of getting a legal opinion because I think some people may be bs'ing me and it is causing me a lot of worry. Will just throw it out here to see if anybody has any suggestions about it.
It concerns a large tree I love and didn't want to cut down if I didn't have to. One estimate was $10,000 and another was $5,000. It got very complicated, and I ended up hiring an arborist to write an opinion. He said my tree was healthy, my neighbor built his garage too close to my tree, and that it was good for ten years. I was advised not to crop the tree as my neighbor asked me to (limbs extend over his new very expensive garage, big as some people's houses) as that would further compromise it now since when my neighbor excavated, he dug out a lot of the large roots.
Now my neighbor said a limb fell on his garage (must have been on the other side because I didn't see it) and he would fix the leak that sprang in the new roof as a result of it this time, but . . .next time . . .
I told him his insurance is supposed to cover it. I called my agent. My agent told me I was responsible for keeping my tree trimmed. My neighbor says his insurance company will go against my insurance company if there is any more damage.
Now my ins agent has my letter in his file so they have an out, so I am worried that if a large limb damages his garage, he could take me to civil court for damages.
So I call the ins co about that and another problem (he is partly responsible for ruining my driveway when he excavated and left a dip and I damaged my exhaust system when I tried to use it the other day, so that needs to be regraded. Part of it could be erosion, but I don't think so.
The girl at the insurance company said my policy covers damage to my property is somebody else's tree falls on it, and his policy should cover damage to his property if my tree damages his property.
I even went so far to call the city building permit office to see if he had applied for a permit because I never saw one like I had to post (orange you can't miss them) when he built his garage. He said he would look it up, what's the address. I gave it to him and he took a few minutes and came back and said he built it legally. It is two feet from the property line and just large enough to meet code without getting a deviation.
I'm a little paranoid because I think they might have pull with the city if the guy I talked to saw the name on the property. Whatever. When a neighbor a block away built an oversize garage, I was sent a paper to sign off on. I did. When a neighbor across the alley and down one wanted to put up a huge trellis-type fence, I was sent a paper I had to sign off on saying I didn't object. I did. What was that to me? But when this enormous garage was built, I was not sent any paper to sign off on which I thought was odd, but if it met the city standards, I guess it isn't.
I'm thinking of trying to find a lawyer to get a legal opinion because it worries the heck out of me, and I am so fond of that tree I hate to have to take it down if I don't have to, not to mention the expense. It has been here since the Indians roamed these parts, probably 100 years or more.
I don't know if anybody will read my post buried this deep or not. I can always ask on usenet and see what I get from that.
Now back to the OP because I am not insensitive to his plight. I would pay double and be looking at options. It's about your only choice at this point. If you really love your home and location, I can sympathize even if it is a liberal, gone-down-the-tubes state. Parts of it are probably still very scenic and nice to live in.
Use the prophet to buy a castle in another state.
I think Moses and John the Baptist are taken but one of the minors like Amos should still be available.
Air conditioning bills in Baton Rouge are horrible, just as bad or worse as heating in the north. They all depend on energy. I told my kids not to move to any part of the country where you have to have air conditioning. You can build a fire if you have to or do something to survive in the cold, but if you are sensitive to the heat (it can kill some people), it is not good to live in those places.
That's a very nice area.
I've been to Salinas. I can understand your desire to leave the area. Come on down to Texas, we'll put some beer on ice and have a bar-b-q!
Wall Street Journal today (May 31,2006) had an article about insurers pulling out of the home insurance market.
Bracing for the Worst
Believed at Risk of a Major Hurricane,
Northeast Chafes as Insurers Pull Out
By LIAM PLEVEN
May 31, 2006; Page B1
LONG BEACH, N.Y. -- Nearly 70 years ago, a violent hurricane ripped across the south shore of Long Island, then largely farmland. The storm, locally dubbed the Long Island Express, sent 30- to 50-foot waves surging ashore, killing 50 people and 750,000 chickens in the Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk.
Tomorrow, a new hurricane season is set to begin, with the ever-present threat that a mammoth storm could deviate from recent patterns making landfall in the Southeast and follow a path similar to that of the Long Island Express. But where chickens scratched in 1938 now sit some of the most expensive homes in the U.S. As a result, the insurance market here is showing glimmers of the kind of fragility that has plagued places like Florida.
Hurricane Floyd barrels toward the Northeast in 1999.
In Long Island and New York City, Allstate Corp. has been dropping customers. MetLife Auto & Home, a division of MetLife Inc., is restricting new policies in the Northeast and other hurricane-prone areas. Premiums are going up as much as 20% to 30%, and hurricane deductibles may follow.
A look at Long Beach, a city of 35,000 located on a barrier island off Long Island's south shore, shows how the insurance industry has intensified efforts to limit its exposure in the Northeast.
In Long Beach, part of Nassau County, finding any hurricane coverage at all is getting harder and more expensive. "There are very few insurance companies that are willing to write homeowners' policies right now," says Denis Miller, a Long Beach insurance agent. He says he recently placed one customer with another major insurer, but for an extra $350 annually, almost a third of the prior premium.
....
Excerpt - Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2006
The Northern counties are definitely cooler than Asheville area to the South.
Try Ashe, Watauga or Avery. Ashe County borders Virginia - nice county, quiet. Young folks have left. Watauga County has a state university Appalachian State University. Avery County is ski country.
Hope this helps
I use to live there, several years back. I had a pretty good job too, as a tail-gunner on a bread truck.
Heck no! This is where the independently-wealthy DINK Bostonites are moving to, 50 miles south, to build their million-dollar dream-houses...on what was the lazy dairy farmland where my kids roamed. Oh yeah: and the greenies are foisting the farmers (my friends) out....through abusive governmental collusion....for golfing-buddy developers, greenways, bikepaths, and nature habitats. This really sucks.
I love Asheville. It is a very nice town.
Dang man, don't be telling all these Yankees to move down here. They'll never understand bare feet, gun racks in trucks, or grits. Next, you'll be telling them about all the pretty girls, the fresh air, & er..... I better shut up! :)
Federal government subsidizes stupid and dangerous choices
May 29 2006 10:15 AM
By Dan Mitchell
The Wall Street Journal opines on the federal flood insurance program, which encourages people to build homes in risky areas:
You may never have heard of Camille Howard of New Orleans's Jefferson Parish. But if you pay taxes, you've helped her repair her home with federal flood insurance (NFIP) -- no less than four times since she has owned it, and seven times before that. And therein lies a tale of policy mistakes and taxpayer liability. The federal government says some 120,000 properties nationwide have received "multiple" taxpayer subsidized flood insurance payments -- at a cost of $7.25 billion. An astounding 26,000 of those have received four or more flood payments. One property in Houston flooded 16 times and sucked up $807,000 in repairs -- seven times its market value. The owner keeps rebuilding, mother nature keeps tearing it down, and hapless taxpayers keep footing the bill. ...The fact that many flood payments go to wealthy owners of beachfront vacation homes seems to have eluded politicians in both parties. Dauphin Island off the coast of Alabama, for example, is one of the nation's most vulnerable barrier islands and has lost nearly 500 expensive vacation homes and rental properties since 1979. The island has nonetheless received more than $21 million in federal flood payments. Congress is equally oblivious to the basic business concept that insurance is supposed to cover its costs via premiums. NFIP premiums currently cover just 60% of expenditures, which explains why the program is $21 billion in debt. ...Federal flood insurance, in short, is the equivalent of paying heart patients for smoking cigarettes and then also paying for their next triple bypass. Without NFIP, thousands of the homes swept away by Katrina in low lying flood plains would probably have never been built in the first place, while homeowners and local governments would have taken flood-mitigation precautions to reduce property losses. Ideally Congress would abolish the NFIP, and homeowners would purchase flood insurance in the private market or accept the risks of building.
Castroville is good for one thing only - French fried artichoke hearts!
Otherwise, it's knowb as the armpit of California
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