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Old 12-12-2007, 03:56 PM
 
Location: NM
88 posts, read 308,831 times
Reputation: 27

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In all of my research weighing the pros and cons of moving, I am trying to compare costs of various necessities. Someone on the forum had suggested that home insurance would cost more in CO.
Guess what! The good news is, on the Forbes list of states with the highest insurance rates, CO is #10. The bad news is, TX is #1! I figured they were about equivalent. According to this article, TX is twice the annual cost. CO has hail and the occasional tornado. TX has all that plus the added fun of the occasional hurricane.
So there you have it. That goes in the "pros" column for me.
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Old 12-13-2007, 01:21 PM
 
Location: Governor's Park/Capitol Hill, Denver, CO
1,536 posts, read 6,078,631 times
Reputation: 1131
I love it when someone in another city teaches me something new about my own city/state! I have been stuck in Austin with a rental car, hidding under a bridge during a cattle killing hail storm. I was so glad to come out of that unscathed, but my rental car was flooded in Houston in the Braeswood/610 Loop South area! However, every car I have owned here in Denver has been hit by hail. A funnel cloud knocked over a tree, which landed on one of my cars. Though really large hail and funnel clouds/tornados are rare in Denver we do get them. Often you will hear of more of them the further east you go from the city. The smaller hail is common here and I don't think I have seen a summer without at least one small hail storm. Those are the storms that folks neglect to check the shingles on their roof for damage or small dents on their cars. Not sure if there is a time limit on insurance claims, but I imagine so. I had my mother's roof repaired due to such a storm 2 years ago and she lives in Lakewood. I didn't even see or hear about hail but her neighbors advised her to look. There is a weather term called the Denver Cyclone pattern and some use to believe that we were the begining of the tornado belt. That was information that was tossed around when I was a kid but not so much so now. Thanks for the info FlyingBuffalos!
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Old 12-14-2007, 06:25 PM
 
136 posts, read 740,711 times
Reputation: 37
Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingbuffalos View Post
In all of my research weighing the pros and cons of moving, I am trying to compare costs of various necessities. Someone on the forum had suggested that home insurance would cost more in CO.
Guess what! The good news is, on the Forbes list of states with the highest insurance rates, CO is #10. The bad news is, TX is #1! I figured they were about equivalent. According to this article, TX is twice the annual cost. CO has hail and the occasional tornado. TX has all that plus the added fun of the occasional hurricane.
So there you have it. That goes in the "pros" column for me.
IMO, house insurance difference is not a big deal. It can be ignored as a factor for your making a moving decision.
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Old 12-15-2007, 09:48 PM
 
1,763 posts, read 5,987,277 times
Reputation: 831
Quote:
Originally Posted by flyingbuffalos View Post
Guess what! The good news is, on the Forbes list of states with the highest insurance rates, CO is #10. The bad news is, TX is #1! I figured they were about equivalent. According to this article, TX is twice the annual cost. CO has hail and the occasional tornado. TX has all that plus the added fun of the occasional hurricane.
So there you have it. That goes in the "pros" column for me.
TX also had an abnormally large number of "toxic mold" claims, in many cases houses were total losses. It got so bad the insurance companies stopped coverage for it. Now if your house has toxic/black mold, you're on your own.
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Old 12-16-2007, 11:34 AM
 
3,555 posts, read 7,834,430 times
Reputation: 2346
Well timrankin; you're kind of close, but not on the mark.

The primary reason homeowner's insurance (as I pointed out in flyingbuffaloes OP) is so expensive in TX is that it's NOT REGULATED.

The entire thing with black mold is kind of like the (politically motivated) scam about "tort reform". There was a large case of mold where the insurance company (allegedly) cut some corners on clean up and mold came back and sickened some family members.

Lots of media hype, not a lot of facts put out by the insurance industry's PR flacks; "if we have to cover this your RATES WILL DOUBLE, OR MAYBE EVEN TRIPLE. Emergency meetings by the state leg (best politicians money can rent or buy) and mold coverage was stripped out of homeowner's policies.

Of course the insurance industry, not wanting to miss a money making opportunity, immediately offered a MOLD RIDER, to cover mold. IIRC at the time I was paying about $1,000/year to insure my $200K house, with 3% deductible.

Had the rates DOUBLED my rate would have gone to (according to the insurance industry PR folks) approximately $2,000/year. But amazingly enough when the offer came for MOLD COVERAGE on my house the cost per year was approximately $120/year. Not exactly a doubling.

So this leaves us to decide among several possiblilities:

1. The insurance industry fired and replaced every actuary who did not know how to calculate potential losses from mold claims.

2. The number of future mold claims dropped very dramatically in one year, ie; the crystal balls got a lot clearer.

3. The insurance industry decided to offer mold coverage at a loss, because they're just really nice guys and don't care if they made a profit.

4. The insurance industry was lying.

After living in TX for 30 years and, (1) having pretty closely watched the state legislature and their "keepers" (banking, oil and gas, insurance, big law firms), and (2) using a modicum of common sense, I'm going to have to go with the latter.

golfgod
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