Nothing a little duct tape can't fix

If you are wealthy, any of them will jump through hoops to take care of you. Generally, though, if you can be marginalized in a loss situation, they will take advantage of this in some way. USAA was mostly straight forward and easy to deal with, but, as I said, I saw them do plenty of sketchy shid too. USAA members can be disadvantaged by lack of a local agent; as in there is no one to fight for you. Even Allstate, if you've bought your policies from a high volume agent that makes a lot of money for them...the agent can rattle some cages. Upper mgt hates those calls and wants their top earners to be happy.

As for who is best...for everyday Jimmies and Joes, USAA if you can get it. If you live in a disaster prone area (hurricane, hail, tornados) I would say avoid Allstate. I've seen more lawsuits than I can shake a stick at over roof replacements, where State Farm, USAA, Farmers would just pay for the roof. My rec, though, would be buy from a top agent in your area...who is pulling in the bucks? Buy your policy from that guy or gal. Buy'em lunch every now and then, put them on the christmas list...normal business relationship kind of stuff. That way, if you ever really need them, they won't hesitate to go to bat for you.

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Ahhite Jimmy.

Jul 26, 2022, 11:41 AM [ in reply to I guess, in terms of the shadier stuff you've seen (from ]

Shady ins. co practices. I'm going to keep this on the property side for simplicity, but auto has it's own list of unethical practices.

-claims of previous damage w/o sending anyone to inspect. Ins claims are based on sudden and accidental damages, if they say that damage was not sudden and accidental but ongoing and they won't send someone to inspect, what do you do? What documentation do you send? How do you combat this? Most people don't know and ins. co's take advantage of this. Often.

-Blanket denials to a group defined by geography (think ghetto), age group (think old people), property value (think poor people). Insurance companies are by nature some of the wealthiest companies in the world and they are driven by numbers. If middle exec mgr needs to reduce his payout numbers, what do? Let's deny everybody in this category to see what percentage will fight it. There is no memo (can't leave a paper or e-trail), just one guy making a decision that has nothing to do with the fact that Hurricane Ida ripped your roof off. To the customer this can be catastrophic in terms of finance and sheer mental health. To the ins. co it's just an experiment that costs them nothing when they go back and revisit these claims and say, "oops, our mistake, we'll make it right". Exec mgt has no incentive to discourage this practice unless they get caught, then, plausibly deniability...I didn't know, fire the middle guy that did it.

Conversely, middle exec mgr wants to boost his/her customer service numbers. Cherrypick claims in an area where prop values are high, or where lots of 30-60 yr old white people live. Manage the heck out of this claim group, Customer service score for your group and you goes up. If your claim is in this group, lucky you.

Time-delaying claim approval. Insurance co's have all the time in the world. You don't and they're betting you're not gonna hire a lawyer.

Construction costs-most insurance companies use a Verisk product to calculate repair costs on their property claims. If you're not in the industry, you've prolly never heard of them, but they are one of the largest ins. analytics firms out there. They sell data, analysis, and software products to the insurance companies. Their software can tell you down to the cost of a single coat of paint, what a repair will cost specific to your zip code based on material costs and dept of labor. They will tell you these numbers are updated every month for every zip code and they are....with raw data that is often out of date and may not be applicable. They don't care. So?

Insurers know this, and will use these numbers to underpay the claim while telling customer, this is what the average cost of this repair is in your neighborhood this month. Verisk's data doesn't show the last hurricane that went through and doesn't show that contractors are charging 80% higher on average to victims of the storm in this zip code. So insurance co says your repair is 10K, but the lowest bid from one of your contractors is 25K because they can pick and choose the jobs they take. Insurer's will lean on the Verisk data to underpay, while knowing that the contractors available are charging more. And, as a customer, you have to go pretty far up the food chain to get mgt to approve the higher cost in this situation.

Property insurance business is rife with fraud and I have no problems with insurance companies protecting themselves, by doing so, they can keep your premiums low...in theory. The purpose is to show a few examples of how insurers operate...it's not every insurer, not every situation, there is never an absolute. These are practices that take advantage of customers who don't know better, can't afford to fight it, or don't have the will to continue. And silly me for taking the position that you and I pay insurance companies to keep us whole when shid goes sideways.

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lunge plumbers, lay some pipe knowledge on me.

Re: lunge plumbers, lay some pipe knowledge on me.

^^cant pronounce polybutylene***

Pay a few extra bucks and get the Flex Seal***

Go with the one that is firmer and has more girth***

And veiny***

If it ain't broke ...

I mean, I don’t know your budget or anything, so

Most insurance companies have a clause in the contract

Yeah. At this point my limit of paying to avoid having to go

Seems to me that environmentally sound option in piping is

Re: Seems to me that environmentally sound option in piping is

It's not easy being an activist trying to save our planet

Unless you have a stack of money laying around,

Amen. If you can get USAA, you best get it.

Normally they're about as good as you can do. But I've seen

Re: Normally they're about as good as you can do. But I've seen

There is a very noticeable sliding scale in the industry.

What are some things to watch for?***

What do you mean?***

I guess, in terms of the shadier stuff you've seen (from

I’ll answer this tomorrow. It got late.***

Ahhite Jimmy.

World-class response. Much appreciated.***

Re: lunge plumbers, lay some pipe knowledge on me.

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