....and basically only a policy meant to protect mtg lending banks from losses.

Pages and pages of exclusions which amounts to a "we don't cover anything policy." Same for warranties.

Don't even think about running a check to see if payment might be available. My wife and I were dinged for 5 years on our credit reports for just having our agent run an inquiry!

But, this is one of the things that we have been programmed to believe as being absolutely necessary.

You know... instead of addressing the massive greed in that crime syndicate of a 'business'?

They are simply casinos. They are betting you won’t use the insurance and they are the house so they always win.

The companies aren't being held to their own standards anymore. Insurance commissioner titles are a joke - most of them do nothing.

the most complaints. Wouldn't you know --- Progressive, State Farm, GEICO, U.S.A.A. and Allstate led the list of complaints against them?

You might as well save the premium money and self insure. Or if these are your carriers, pay a bit more and switch company. At least you will have real insurance.

For the 8 years we lived in Toledo and the 15 years we lived in Chicago area. We had one claim which was the result of a situation that actually saved the company money. When we moved to Ohio we had them and after two months in our home we got a notification saying our rates were going up due to “excessive claims”. One claim in 23 years. We dropped them for Auto-Owners/Home-Owners.

We are over invested in housing. Insurance doesn't make the risk go away. Only truly unexpected calamities payout big time.

The numbers supporting your life are more important than all the insurance or all the things you own.

Experiences matter more than trinkets.

because they are not insurance. They advertise that they are members of Better Business Bureau (another joke) but some customers and state consumer affairs departments are suing them.

This is the “Christian” based group that I hear advertising on Sirius/XM.

No thanks.

I believe they have had complaints. There are several of these outfits.

based on a Terry Pratchett book. It became even clearer in 2008, after Hurricane Ike hit our area. People contacting their insurance companies, the adjuster coming out, then telling them that their house was still "livable" because they had pitched a tent between the only two walls and under a portion of the roof still left.
So, yeah, the commercials pitch insurance as a safety net for you if something goes wrong, but the reality is that money is going straight into the ceo's pockets for that new yacht, helicopter, or whatever the latest shiny new toy is that the epstein class has decided is the thing this week.

The movie Laundramat starring Meryl Streep. While it isn’t about insurance specifically insurance plays a major role in the movie as the start of the plot.

Now homeowner's insurance. It is happening in auto insurance as well? These guys seem to have unlimited money to spend on advertising.

In the US we had State Farm, only made a couple of claims in 25 years, both paid without hassle (one involved a woman whose car rammed through our fence and hit the corner of our house- fence destroyed, house only minor external damage- they went after her insurance company)

In Canada, we use BCAA (AAA equivalent) which is underwritten by Manulife. One claim in the seven years we’ve been here, paid without hassle. When we paid off our mortgage, our insurance agent was worried we would cancel our insurance…seems crazy to me to not carry homeowner’s insurance.

The one I described was in the late 80’s, and I think there was one after that in a different home in the 90’s?

Deductible soaring. Rates rising at multiples of inflation.

Privatized profits and socialized losses.

Home owners insurance is really just there to protect the bank if your house gets hit by a tornado, hurricane, etc that you don't just walk away from the rubble that the bank has to sell at pennies on the dollar.

when those asshats want to deny claims or pay pennies for repairs.

Good morning.

The rules of the Latest Breaking News forum require that I link to "reputable mainstream news websites and blogs." The Wall Street Journal. is a reputable mainstream news source.

MSN is not a news source. It is a news aggregator. It takes stories from news sources and reruns them. Along the way, it strips the links to the stories' authors, preventing readers from seeing what the authors' credentials are and what other stories the authors are working on.

The authors are working people, and I like to see that they receive the recognition they deserve. Not everyone agrees with that notion. I'll leave that decision up to you.

Also, you are wrong in your assertion that you have no access to The Wall Street Journal. I can see from another of your recent posts that you have difficulty looking things up, so this is as good a good time as any to remind you of the valuable role your public library plays.

Your friendly local public library has a subscription to The Wall Street Journal. and many other periodicals through databases to which the library subscribes. Go ahead. Take a look. All you need is your library card number and a PIN. You don't even have to go to the library. You can do this online.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Have a great weekend.

My favorite lie is : "You're in Good Hands"

A 2 inch crack in a sewer pipe was allowing water to flood the basement. Water kept permeating and following the pipe the lateral pipe in the front yard. They said I should have known what was going on underground.

A solar company ENRG had improperly installed the panels on my roof, the sold to to another than another company. There lag bolt mount penetrated the splines of my tongue and board roof underlayment. That caused the mounted to moved up and down eventually splitting the board which allowed water to come into the house. We were have heavy thunder storms with gust up to 50mph. That was picking up the panels. I should have known...
Meanwhile the solar panels had to be removed by a company license only by the leaseholder. They gave my roofer 3 days to have the roof repaired, before they had to be reinstalled. The leaseholder is a company in Texas, Spruce with a dismal history. SF said I should have only repair the one section. It was like getting half a hair cut on the 30 yr textured.shingles. I ate the combined cost of 17k .

SF no longer has a regional office in NY State its send in all out to Illinois. They kept passing the claims around like it was a hot potato. Its the so sue me attitude. I over 50 yrs they paid one claim here, my uncle drove through the garage door, yup and hit the back of my 47 Chevy and drove it forward into the back wall of the attached garage. They didn't pay for the house damage they paid for the car damage.

My agent he is just the collector of premiums. I've tried to find a new company but that is next to impossible. I pity the folks in other states that keep getting hit.

It's a grift economy. Whoever successfully scams the most people wins. The optimal business model is getting corporate welfare from the government while grifting at the same time.

to the tune of almost $50K for repairs from water damage. I been using USAA for over 40 years, and they have become terrible about taking care of their members.

Insurance has become a roll of dice to get a claim paid.

houses backed up because the town had no record it was even there and never cleaned it out in decades. My insurance company (Nationwide) was fantastic. All I had to do was take pictures and email them to NW, the submit bill to them. It cost $15,000 to do all the work necessary and they paid 100% minus my $1k deductible. Apparently I have a coverage for just this type of situation up to $25k. None of my other neighbors did and while their policies covered pumping out the water and drying out the basement, it didn’t cover any of the repair costs, like drywall being replaced, flooring, painting, etc. My neighbor had just refinished her basement because of a mold issue from leaky outdoor faucet they had no idea about. They had put down vinyl plank flooring, but that had to be ripped up so the concrete underneath could dry out. Ours is carpeted, so much less expensive to begin with and we replaced with carpet since whatever flooring you have has to be ripped out anyway.

My premium still hasn’t increased. Still paying $144/month. Meanwhile, my mom in Florida just had her premium increase by $500/month and she is 5 miles inland, not in a flood zone and on the 5th floor of her building.

It was a freak thing as we never get water in our basements. I have no idea if my insurance company tried to get money back from the town, since they were responsible for the backup. I don’t think any of my neighbors tried to get reimbursement from the town, either.

One of my neighbors lost thousands of dollars of musical instruments and other band equipment.

Last summer I experienced a catastrophic housefire and my homeowner's policy was with Nationwide. They quickly paid out for all damage repair at current estimated cost (not at the value that my house was purchased, but at today's replacement cost.)

I have no complaints with Nationwide, they are currently monitoring the rebuilding of my house and replacement of lost possessions and furnishings. Prior to that housefire I had never thought about what would happen if I ever went through a terrible loss like this. It was life-changing for me.

Insurance companies that are difficult to deal with,

I also have full replacement coverage. I’ve also been very diligent in letting them know every improvement we have made to our home (have remodeled pretty much the whole house) and have kept every invoice for all the work.

I have pictures taken of everything in my house, too.

Insurance companies usually get reinsurance to fund catastrophic claims on them. But even those reinsurance companies can be protected from losses by government bailouts as the ultimate insurer of last resort. So if a large disaster like a mass terrorism event or a huge flood happens, they can have some of their losses covered by the taxpayers. Nice business model. So why not create some blanket government insurance for people directly and eliminate these profiteering middlemen? Oh, I forgot, the insurance industry lobbyists give huge donations to the politicians not to do that. Insurance is a racket but we seem to be forced to buy something we may never need but also may not cover what we thought it should.

In almost 50 years, guess how much I've claimed. I'm sure you guessed correctly. Zero. Not a sou, not a farthing, not a zlotny.

to just issue denials...

real estate
health
auto
worker's comp

We are just pawns in a bigger game the billionaires and giant corporations are playing among themselves.

If I get a mortgage or a car loan it's the lender who decides what sort of insurance is adequate. The choice is not mine. My personal well-being and security is not the product I'm paying for, That's just the way it is advertised on TV.

So long as the pawns behave in a predictable manner the games will go on.

I've been excluding all television and internet video advertising from my life nearing 15 years now. I have no idea what current insurance advertising looks like and assume it's worse than it's ever been, provoking subliminal fears of complete ruination in humorous ways. Insurance is an important part of the game because consumers who have lost everything are unprofitable and unpredictable.

I don't want to be afraid. I don't want to be a feckless consumer manipulated by television advertising. I don't want to be predictable. I don't want to be a pawn in the game.

Yeah, I've got insurance, but it's not the "restore my life to exactly what it was" sort. That's an unreasonable expectation, especially in medicine where there are so many things that cannot be fixed. Ideally we'd have some sort of universal health care and the entire health insurance industry would become a mere ghost of what it is now.

Mostly I have liability insurance which is a necessity in a nation where people are quick to sue one another.

I don't need anything more than liability insurance for my cars which I could replace or repair out-of-pocket, which I have done

My wife and I have enough insurance to replace our home but most of the contents are irreplaceable but of little value to anyone but ourselves.

In any case, in a better world, every citizen would be provided with a safe, secure, comfortable place to live no matter what tragedy befalls them. That ought to be final safety net whether or not a person has any kind of insurance.

Too often people want to pay the smallest amount they can get away with so accept large deductibles and skip optional coverages.
Often there is very little difference in cost to have a lower deductible which can save thousands if a claim is filed.
Many base policies offered now are very bare bones, but optional add-ons are available for very little cost. Having your roof covered at replacement value rather than a depreciated value can be tens of thousands of dollars after a hailstorm. Water damage is often excluded in base policies but can be added for a couple dollars a month to cover the second most common HO claim insurance companies receive.

Insurance is expensive, so know what it is you are paying for.