Getting frustrated with home-owners insurance people...........question for you

[CathyA]

We get renter's insurance for both our kids who are living in an apartment and/or house while in college.
I've been having trouble getting things to be written down correctly for the declarations. I thought it was all finally correct and went to pay things online today, when I saw some fine print on each child's policy that got the year and structure totally wrong. I just figured out that their insurance was based on their previous apartments. Isn't that sort of shoddy work..........to not base the price of coverage on the present address??
I'm frustrated.

I emailed the insurance lady and she asked me to get all that information. Shouldn't that be up to the insurance company?
Thanks.

[Spartana]

Renter's insurance doesn't cover the property or structures, just the personal belongings of the tenants. So I don't really know why they would need info on the structures age, condition, etc... anyways. But if they do, then I think that information should come from the tenent or owner. The insurance person just writes the policy based on what you give them. And even if they don't cover the structure, for security reasons I'd make sure they had the correct info in case it DOES matter. Also take pictures of what personal items will be covered by renters insurance and keep them in a seperate place.

[iris lily]

Here's my stupid insurance story:

The Insurance company wanted a photos of a house we bought and they took a photo of--the WRONG HOUSE! The Insurance representative and I had some confusing, time consuming mis-communications about square footage until she actually emailed the photo that they were using because I didn't understand why she was insisting on insuring a minimum of 1,000 sq feet. The house they photographed was not even on the correct street.

When I called to report it they said "We don't re-shoot photos." umm, it's the wrong freeking house, a 2 story house. Mine is a 1.5 story cottage.

This service was inexcusable because the house was clearly marked and the street is clearly marked. There is no excuse to not get the right house, or at least to re-shoot it since they were clearly in the wrong. Yet they did NOT fess up to it. I ended up writing to the Bigger company to complain since that was my only recourse. I provided the city's property database record that described the house as 450 sq ft in order to get it appropriately insured.

[iris lily]

Renter's insurance doesn't cover the property or structures, just the personal belongings of the tenants. So I don't really know why they would need info on the structures age, condition, etc... anyways. But if they do, then I think that information should come from the tenent or owner. The insurance person just writes the policy based on what you give them. And even if they don't cover the structure, for security reasons I'd make sure they had the correct info in case it DOES matter. Also take pictures of what personal items will be covered by renters insurance and keep them in a separate place.

It also may cover liability for the tenant. That is really the only reason I'd have insurance in that situation. I never paid for insurance when I was young and renting.

[CathyA]

I guess their thinking is that if its an old house/apartment in a bad part of town, chances are higher that something bad will happen to your stuff.?? Both my kids have the same amount of renters insurance, but it costs them different amounts, based on where they live.
With all the mistakes that have been made on these 2 policies lately, it makes me wonder how some companies even stay afloat, and how accurate all their info is. I'm saving all my emails to the lady who handled this in case I need them later.

We also got "Personal Articles" insurance for both kids, since the instruments/equipment they have is pretty expensive. Getting the woman to understand those lists was a challenge too.

[jp1]

The reason that the insurance company cares is because even today fire is the biggest cause of loss to property, both real (buildings) and personal (stuff in buildings). Originally property policies were called fire policies because that was the only peril they covered. And in fact in a number of states such as NY there is, enshrined in law, what is called the Standard Fire Policy, which is a uniform minimum coverage that all property policies in these states must provide. So a wooden building would be a much higher hazard, even for contents, then would a brick building or a modern concrete apartment building, hence the premium would be higher.