9 comments

  1. Insurance companies expect your premium to be paid on time or coverage is cancelled.

    When it comes time for a claim however, good luck getting the money needed to make yourself whole and put yourself in the position you were pre loss.

    In the last 3 years I’ve had asshole drivers run into vehicles and total them. 100 % other drivers fault not mine.

    One vehicle initial offer on one vehicle – $ 12,000 and change. I told the insurance “are you including a case of lube with that offer?” I ended up wjth almost $20,000 when done negotiating with them

    Another vehicle totaled was a 2018 RAV4 adventure. 25,000 miles in 2022 when car prices were very high. Rear ended by some
    19 year old shithead so hard it totaled it.
    I was initially offered under $ 28,000. I told the insurance company they must be smokin that good shit. Ended up with almost 40,000.

    Negotiating is hard and time consuming though and it is not always easy to win against these assholes. Especially wjth homeowners insurance. Where do you live if your house is a total loss?

    Scumbags. It seems like in many cases insurance is legalized government protected and sometimes mandated theft.

  2. Insurance companies need to be investigated for fraud. I think the John Grisham novel “the Pelican Brief” or some other book was based on insurance companies denying claims whether they were legitimate or not in order to make money.

    1. For people with properly working eyeballs and brains, we see this sort of thing all the time. My hope is that one of these days enough of us are going to realize that the cost of gov’t far out weighs the benefit and storm DC and kill everybody.

      “No gov’t is far better than a criminal gov’t.”
      –gs, 2099

  4. Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s pause a moment before railing against the insurance industry here.

    I live in suburban Philly and we had a relatively inconsequential hail storm here a few years back and 7 of the 11 homes on my cul-de-sac had new roofs from their insurance companies–even though most of those had not really sustained serious damage. State Farm was among the companies putting on new roofs. When they have reasonable risks and can charge profitable premiums, things are generally fine.

    That is not to say that everyone shopping for the absolutely-lower-premium-than-every-other-company may not be disappointed with their claims service. But you get what you pay for. I don’t bother shopping my USAA insurance because they are so wonderful in this area. To an extent you pays your money and you takes your choices.

    But in this case, people have been warning about this issue in Commiefornia for decades now. It’s not hard to understand. You can get a college degree in Forestry, where all the factors about maintaining safe forests are well-known, they’re not likely learning new science in that area, just finding new technologies to apply current knowledge. And forestry management works all over the globe where correctly applied. Part of the issue is national regulation, to be sure, but Commiefornia does not help itself in letting its electrical grid decline to third-world status, and mandating “letting nature take its’ course”. Nature is taking its course with a vengeance right now. You can have controlled buns (forestry management technique) or you can have uncontrolled burns (just turn on your TV, 24/7 right now), but you will have burns, period.

    Commifornia’s water policy has been a mess for decades, not nearly as influenced by the feds, too. They will do Herculean things for obscure fish, newts, and birds, but not so much for people or farmers. Again, you pays your money and you takes your choices.

    State Farm pulled out of that market last year because Commifornia regulates premiums, and their actuaries have pretty sharp pencils. They’ve been losing money there with the seemingly annual fire season, and are prevented from raising premiums. So while they are happily replacing marginally hail-damaged roofs in Philly, giving the homeowners the benefit of the doubt, they are finally saying that I should not be subsidizing Rachel Maddow’s homeowner’s insurance. And rightly so.

    I’m reminded of the late Sam Kinison’s schtick on living in the desert. “If you don’t want your home to burn, MOVE OUT OF COMMIEFORNIA!” Or at least stop voting the way you have been. It’ heartwrenching to watch, but I’m not coming up with a lot of sympathy for Democrats losing their homes there. James Woods, God bless him, I feel for. But the rest. Hard for me to work up many crocodile tears.

    And let’s not blame the insurance industry here. They are a risk-sharing business, they should not be a risk-shifting business. I should not have to pay for the forestry and water management follies of an insane state. If they let Commiefornian’s pay the premiums that would let them share the risk in their area, they’d still be insuring those homes. But they don’t.

    1. Exactly, California has refused for a decade at least to take the steps required to prevent or mitigate wild fires. This is basically the state shifting their financial burden and risk on to private companies. There is no reason the companies have to play along.

    2. That’s all well and good, but what about when the government forces people to buy insurance? Obama care is a clear violation of the constitution. And then those that can’t afford it are either told here is some free shit at someone else’s expense or you are told you make too much money for free shit so you are going to be fined and you are worse off than before.

      Also, I agree premiums have to cover risk sharing, however ; when it comes time for a payout and there is a clear loss; the insurance usually puts hoops in the way of a payout to make someone who had a loss whole

      – replacing parts of a roof instead of a whole roof.

      – using cheap aftermarket generic parts on a vehicle that you took care of well and some other asshole hit and then saying using cheap labor to slap on aftermarket parts gives you a vehicle that is pre loss condition

      – not paying diminished value claims on vehicles after they are hit by some other asshole. It is clear as day a vehicle involved in an accident fixed or not is absolutely not worth the same value as a vehicle that has never been in an accident. Any insurance adjustor or lawyer who tells you otherwise is either lying, or plain fucking stupid or both.

      – charging people with gas powered cars higher premiums to cover the pool of rich assholes who have electric cars is not not not risk sharing. That is bullshit. Period.

      – dragging out claims, especially large scale losses or injury claims from accidents is done on purpose to wear people who experienced losses down and an attempt to try and get them to give in and take a lowball bullshit settlement.

      These are just some of the scams insurance plays. Not all.

    3. Beat me to it…

      At the end of the day, it was the California government’s refusal to take appropriate action for fire prevention and suppression that caused the insurance companies to not renew coverage. They are businesses, not charities.

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