I know we need insurance for a variety of things (home, auto, health) to help level the rough financial spots in life. But I’ve always had a bad attitude toward insurance companies because, well, they seem to always have a bad attitude toward me.
The idea behind insurance involves a large group pooling its resources to mitigate risk. Insurance companies more or less pull this off but muddle things a bit when the need (and desire) for profits is introduced into the mix. The disconnect comes from thinking that insurance companies exist to provide insurance. They don’t. They exist to make money.
All of which is a lead into my latest BA adventure with Big Insurance. Yesterday we received a letter in the mail from Country Financial (aka Country Companies) indicating that they were dropping our homeowners insurance. They were nice enough to provide reasons: We filed claims for the 2006 tornado that took off part of our roof and some of our siding. We also filed a claim when our sump pump broke during a heavy rain a year and a half ago and soaked the carpet in our basement.
The roof and siding repair was several thousand dollars, granted. But it was a TORNADO! The sump pump incident only required a cleaning company to come out and clean the carpet. But that’s it. We collected way less money in claims than we have paid in premiums over the years. But apparently we weren't profitable enough for Country Financial.
Did I mention this lunacy comes via COUNTRY FINANCIAL?
The idea behind insurance involves a large group pooling its resources to mitigate risk. Insurance companies more or less pull this off but muddle things a bit when the need (and desire) for profits is introduced into the mix. The disconnect comes from thinking that insurance companies exist to provide insurance. They don’t. They exist to make money.
All of which is a lead into my latest BA adventure with Big Insurance. Yesterday we received a letter in the mail from Country Financial (aka Country Companies) indicating that they were dropping our homeowners insurance. They were nice enough to provide reasons: We filed claims for the 2006 tornado that took off part of our roof and some of our siding. We also filed a claim when our sump pump broke during a heavy rain a year and a half ago and soaked the carpet in our basement.
The roof and siding repair was several thousand dollars, granted. But it was a TORNADO! The sump pump incident only required a cleaning company to come out and clean the carpet. But that’s it. We collected way less money in claims than we have paid in premiums over the years. But apparently we weren't profitable enough for Country Financial.
Did I mention this lunacy comes via COUNTRY FINANCIAL?
Anyway, I now have 60 days to find another company to cover my house so I can pay them money and not dare file a claim in return. Thanks Country Financial!
8 comments:
Standard Mutual is right there in Springpatch.
At least they did retroactively force you to pay back your past claims as some health in$urance companie$ have.
I also follow the tip that never make a claim unless the house is totally destroyed.
Oops
At least they didn't retroactively force...
really interesting case...
thanks for sharing...
Country Financial sucks for home owners insurance. We got screwed as well. When a hail storm happened that dinged up our siding and roof pretty good (we're talking some big hail), they at first said that there was no damage done despite there being lots of very visible dents in the siding ... and despite several of our neighbors having new roofs and siding given to them from their insurance.
Then we got a private roofer to stop by who said within minutes that we have a decent amount of damage done, we called them back to ask them to come out again with our roofer. Our roofer pointed out several things to them and they agreed that there was damage that needed to be fixed.
After going back and forth even more (this whole process has taken months...) and not getting phone calls returned, they finally agreed to cover the cheapest things to repair like the drainage pipe, but say that the rest of the damage they see isn't "consistent" with the larger hits despite our roofer and all our neighbors insurance saying otherwise.
Now it's back to the drawing board and them trying to force us to prove it with old photos despite their insurance sales people taking pictures of the house before they insured us (mysteriously they don't seem to have that).
Stay far, far away from them...
I don't believe you are telling the entire truth about Country, If you are not happy with them, you won't be happy with any one.
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