your home insurance was non renewed!

I'm so mad at my home insurance carrier right now!

​Ever since last years fires in California insurance companies have been non renewing houses at a torrential pace. Even homes far from native growing brush and trees are dealing with non renewals. What do you do if you get a non renewal letter in the mail? You can get mad, yell and scream. But, what are really your options?
The first thing most of us would do if we got a non renewal letter is call your current insurance carrier and ask them why they are being non renewed. Yeah, the letter usually spells it out pretty clearly. But, sometimes you actually want to hear from a human that they are in fact non renewing your home. If you haven’t had any claims and you have been paying your bill loyally for years it’s easy to feel offended that your insurance company has dropped your home coverage. Legally, home insurance companies can't cancel your policy during the policy period. That's why they use the non renewal to get off business they feel is too risky.
A few things to know. Don’t take it personally. You didn’t do anything wrong. Your home just happens to be in an area that the company no longer wants to cover. It’s not about you. It’s just the companies effort to reduce their exposure in certain areas. Also, it’s important to know that once they non renew you. They probably won’t change their mind and offer you a renewal.
I have one company that will remain nameless for now. At the beginning of the year they were happily collecting money to cover homes all around town. A few months later they stopped issuing policies for my entire city. Not just the houses that are near the hills or situated in rural areas. They turned off insurance for everyone and then started non renewing all the policies that they had in force in the city. Does this make for a great customer experience definitely not.  Is it costing this company a lot of money? Yes, absolutely. Good news is that for most people in my city there are ten other carriers willing to insure their home and autos and it’s just a matter of taking some time and switching everything over. Other locations aren't as lucky.
I had actually planned on switching my home insurance to this company. I had filled in the application. Updated my mortgage company. And then I quickly realized that next year they would non renew me and I would have to shop my home insurance all over again. I decided at that point to stay with my current home carrier that wasn’t acting so drastically. I had to call my mortgage company and tell them to pay my current carrier. I had to cancel the new policy I had started. I needed to reapply my refund to my impound account. Oh, the fun.
Is it a pain to deal with a non renewal. Yes, it’s much easier when the home insurance just renews automatically, your mortgage company pays it and you don’t think about it. Unfortunately, a lot of people are finding themselves shopping for new insurance this year.  Most homes will be able to easily find new insurance. But, there are some homes that based off the location or claims history will struggle to find a new carrier. It’s just a matter of calling around and letting your agent know what your situation is. Most insurance agents have been dealing with this all year and we can pretty much tell you right away what your options are. The nice thing about calling an agency like mine is that we have lots of options. So, instead of calling ten different carriers you can call me and I’ll do the shopping and let you know your best options. Since we have so many home insurance options we still have carriers that will cover higher risk homes. We also work with the California FAIR Plan. They are the last resort, but we can get you covered. Call today 951-395-0754