Insurance Companies Don’t Want to Insure Our Home
Maddie Dog at the Detroit Dog Park party at old Tiger Field. This has nothing to do with insurance. But kittens and puppies make everything better on the interwebz.
Let the piling on of unexpected costs begin!
Did you know that many insurers won’t cover homes in historic districts? Yeah, us either.
Guess whose house is in a historic district? Yup. Ours.
If and when we do find an insurance carrier — of what kind of insurance is still being debated — it will likely cost us 20% more because of the replacement costs associated with being in a regulated area. Joy.
So now we just have to find a carrier. That is actually turning out to be a larger issue than it would seem.
We called USAA, our carrier for most things, and discovered they cannot write home policies in Michigan for people who don’t have direct military services. (Weird rules and laws. No need to get into it here.) But, being a good customer-serivce company, they always put members in touch with partner companies.
Yeah, the partner companies… they can’t help us, either. The homeowner’s insurance group said it doesn’t offer policies in historic districts. The renovation insurance company doesn’t do projects of our size. Arguh!
Remember what our house looks like inside? No, well here are the pics.
Needless to say, Karl and I had our first real house-related squabble over the insurance issues. Yes, we were all copacetic when it came to cashing in our life savings. But insurance? Duel at dawn!
(To be fair, we also squabbled that night over whether we need a Ford Ranger [him] or an F150 [me, obvs!].)
Anyway, we realized it’s not just about insurance. It was about how we look at problems and information gathering.
I’m struggling with this issue because I do not have the information. And if there’s anything I am, it’s an information/data freak. I want knowledge. Knowledge is power. Knowledge ensures that I make the right choice and don’t accidentally eff this all up when the house burns down and the contractor falls off the roof and the place gets broken into and every last stitch of building material gets taken. (Not that I’ve been thinking about worst-case scenarios or anything.) I do *not* like not knowing things.
Karl, on the other hand, is much more laid back. He figured we’d get insurance and didn’t really see what the big deal was over what kind. And I couldn’t explain the issue to him because the problem seemed so obvious to me. I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t understand. Granola bars might have been thrown.
For you, readers, let me illuminate the crazy. I need to know what our choices are, exactly, and what they cover. I don’t even understand our options right now, and every time I think I’m closing in on answers, more options pop up. I’m playing whack-a-mole with insurance. Before I feel comfortable, I need to understand every last angle of a problem so I know I have all the facts required to make a choice. I am a reporter, in other words.
Plus, it finally dawned on me: Many of our friends in Red Hook had insurance. And they are getting fucked, there is no other way to put it, by their insurance carriers. They thought they were covered; the nice salesman said they had everything they needed. Guess what. No.
I don’t want that happening to us. It makes me scared. And if I hate anything more than not having the information, it’s being scared. And for me, scared is usually directly related to lack of data points.
Oh, and we haven’t even started talking about the dogs. Most insurance companies won’t cover ours — they have a long list of banned breeds — so we’re already limited on our options. Awesomesauce.
So the next few days as we figure this out should be a challenge in marital relations. To Karl’s credit, though, once I told him about the Red Hook connection, he completely got the issue. He is good husband. He gets gold stars.
Amy Haimerl 
One Response to “Insurance Companies Don’t Want to Insure Our Home”
Think of it as part of the Detroit initiation rites. I think we need a club with sashes and badges, like the Girl Scouts. For example, I’m pretty sure we’ve earned the “Only way to sign up for is on website that is down most days” badge a few times over.
Another example: The title company is holding our “overdue” winter taxes in escrow because the city still hasn’t cashed the check that I sent them over a month ago. I should get a badge for that too, me thinks. 🙂
If it’s any consolation, you are in good company and part of a great club of folks.