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Guest kenya

Insurance Companies Suck !!

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Guest kenya

Well, I'm sick...... after buying all the material to add on a new room on our house for a home office & sign shop, I called my insurance company to see what the room would raise my premium.

They said that it could not be done unless I put in two water flow ports in two adjacent walls, since the room is on a concrete slab & doesn't have a crawl space under it.

This is to allow flood water to pass thru the room, IF EVER it would flood.

Adding the room on & doing it with those ports, would still raise my insurance $400 a year more.  :-[ :-[

And this is just closing in the carport. The roof is there, all we would be doing is closing in the sides.

I already pay $2,370 a year for my homeowners insurance, so I said "screw it, I'm not paying anymore & building a room with those pass thru's in the walls".

Now we are moving everything around & not going to add on, just use the large room in the back of the house.

Since all the hurricanes came through in 2004, home owners insurance is insane.

When I get moved around, all post photos of my rearranged home shop.  :rolleyes:

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Insurance companies have one aim: to make a PROFIT..and as big a profit as they can. In reality, they don't care about you, or me, or anything else..in spite of that fake smile your agent always has.

My ex-wife was an insurance agent. They are actually given classes on how NOT to act in the customer's best interest.

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  Kenya ,

Since the carport is existing & covered under your insurance already... What would be the result of going ahead with your plans as far as the insurance co is concerned ? If you did not change the coverage into living space , If a disaster happened , I would think you would still get paid as if it was like it is now . I REALLY understand the possible zoning & building permit issues & requiements , but I would close in the carport & have fun . :thumbsup:

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  Kenya ,

Since the carport is existing & covered under your insurance already... What would be the result of going ahead with your plans as far as the insurance co is concerned ? If you did not change the coverage into living space , If a disaster happened , I would think you would still get paid as if it was like it is now . I REALLY understand the possible zoning & building permit issues & requiements , but I would close in the carport & have fun . :thumbsup:

so would I. Sometimes you just gotta dio what you want to do. Where I live, unless you pour a foundation, you don't even need a building permit.

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Whats a building permit? :-[

where I used to live..they said the same thing when I called about building my shop. They told me you had to have a building inspector and that costs money so no permits required.

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I guess here in town, You need a permit to put up a fence, but not a building........  Go figure,,,

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I guess here in town, You need a permit to put up a fence, but not a building........  Go figure,,,

might go back to the old days when range wars were fought over fences.

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If you have a big enough yard you could get you one of the pre-made storage buildings, insulate it and run electric to it.

In my home town me and a buddy did that for several years running our own computer shop on the side. It gave us plenty of room to do everything and the building was 12' x 20' perfect for a small sign shop. run a counter down the length of 1 wall for your main assembly area.

We only paid $3500 for the building.

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Guest kenya

Yeah, I'd like to go ahead and just build it.

But since we are an established licensed contractor & live right on a major highway, we would surely get nailed if we didn't pull a permit.

When we built our screen room on the front of the house, the building inspector stopped in & asked where's your permit? I told him that I didn't fax the proposed layout yet. He said no problem, I expect it on my desk in the next couple of days.

This little town doesn't miss a thing.  :-[

As far as my insurance company, they send out people periodically to inspect the house. The last time they came, we got busted for not telling them that we had horses.  :-[

What's really a bunch of crap is that we have to insure the house for $197,000, but I just had it appraised in 07' for $140,000.

I have to keep enough insurance to cover today's rebuilding cost. And that doesn't cover the guest house or the 40' x 60' barn.

I've just settled on the fact that the 14' x 26' room on the back of the house will do for now. My plan is to sell & move in the next couple of years. Our neighbor is the neighbor from hell.

But we ARE going to close in the carport & make it a screen room & b.b.q. area now.

They can't open there mouth about the water not flowing through the screen....... just alittle rearranging, but it's going to work out better for me. I actually will have more room than the carport area would be. :rolleyes:

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Got busted not haveing a building permit in our town 20 yrs ago - I told him it was just for a roof over tthe back porch and had him cooled down until he was filling out the paper work and found the porch was 15x35.  building inspectors suck and so does the insurance!  I have thought about a "12x20 portable building as they are not taxable

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Things like this make me love our 40acres in the county. We haven't pulled a permit for hardly anything built out here. If they ever do say anything we have no penalties and the inspectors could care less what you do. They just want the permit fee which is only $15 anyway. Gotta love MS prices. :-[ Also anything that costs less than $1,000 to build does not require a permit at all. We built a 30x50 shop for my buddy and just told the county building dept that most of the materials were given to him by friends. Not a peep out of them.

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I hear you on the FL insurance.  I just moved here from Michigan and for 1017 Sq Ft we pay MORE than the 2500 SQ ft we had in Michigan...  Then again I wasnt expecting any hurricanes from the Great Lakes. 

As far as permits, it seems the city of Tampa loves to charge a fee for every tiny thing you do.  As was told to me by the city inspectors that stopped by because we had just moved in. 

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Just a word of caution. I closed in my carport years ago without any type of flood ports. In South Louisiana, we get some serious rainfalls. The first major storm, put 1/2 inch of water in my game room. Had to tear out the Pergo flooring and cap the slab to raise it to the same elevation as the house slab. I ended up having to buy all new flooring due to mold. There really is a reason for requiring a flood protection system of some type.

Charlie

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Vette, that is horrible!!  I can't stand insurance companies for ANYTHING!!!  :thumbsup:

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I have no sympathy for insurance companies at all !!! The 2 extremes are the salesperson trying to sell you insurance  " because we want to protect you in case something bad happens & keep you from loosing everything " & the adjuster who implies anybody making a claim is less than honest ... errrr

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Wow, I feel bad for you guys down South, that is a chunk of change for homeowners...  Here in IL, I pay about $1K a year, including mandated mine subsidence, due to where I live.

Regarding building permits, the way my family has always figured it, if it can get built/done on the weekend, before the inspectors are driving around, no permit needed... :thumbsup:

My uncle has built a 2 additions to his house and a 20x100 garage (in a few stages) with 0 permits.  We always joke that we are going to have to cover them with camo netting one of these days..

Either way, if I lived in FL, I wouldn't be giving them any reason to deny my claims when the next major storm wipes it out...it's only a matter of time, right?

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[quote author=kenya link=topic=22499.msg178035#msg178035 date=1255192006

Our neighbor is the neighbor from hell.

LMAO, I have one of those!

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Our little burg paid one of the city employees kids a for a summer to go around and get digital pictures front and back of all the houses - that way they can tell if we add on - - - - It's not right I tell ya

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