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Yes, per claim. For medical insurance, it is per year though.
and therein lies the source of the confusion. Almost everyone uses their medical insurance during the year, but most people go decades or forever (if you are lucky) without using their homeowners insurance. The average consumer hears "insurance" and reverts to the product he knows: medical insurance with an annual deductible.
People should carefully review the declarations pages sent with homeowners and auto insurance renewals.
I have some damage to my home for $4,000. I had a company come out and quote me $4,000. I called my insurance company and they will pay the remaining balance, but I pay $2500.
My question is, if my insurance deductible is that high, should I be paying the entire deductible?
I don't want to ask the insurance company at the risk of sounding clueless.
Get three estimates
Don’t take first one
That is pretty clueless too
I have some damage to my home for $4,000. I had a company come out and quote me $4,000. I called my insurance company and they will pay the remaining balance, but I pay $2500.
My question is, if my insurance deductible is that high, should I be paying the entire deductible?
I don't want to ask the insurance company at the risk of sounding clueless.
Get estimates on paying for the repair work yourself, my guess is that you can probably get it done for less than the $2500. And when you renew your policy, if Hippo offers insurance in your state get a quote from them you will be pleasantly surprised, I pay half what I did with USAA and have a smaller deductible
For that small claim I wouldn't report it, rather just try for a better deal and pay it myself. Any claim is cause for them to raise your rates, so in a year or two you could make up the additional $1,500. I would only use the homeowner insurance to be for major claims, in our case 27 years here and have never used it, (Knocking on wood) but it's still gone up to $2,300/year due to lumber and labor costs.
I agree with you. When I was 17 learning to drive, I hit my grandmother's garage door. She made a claim, they fixed the door, then promptly dropped her and covering her very old home.
I have some damage to my home for $4,000. I had a company come out and quote me $4,000. I called my insurance company and they will pay the remaining balance, but I pay $2500.
My question is, if my insurance deductible is that high, should I be paying the entire deductible?
I don't want to ask the insurance company at the risk of sounding clueless.
Since you’re only talking about $1500, I sure would NOT generate a claim. Besides, maybe the fence folks can work a deal for cash. Not unheard of.
Only use insurance for big stuff (flood/fire damage.)
Too many claims can get you canceled by your insurance. And that’s NOT a good thing.
Good discussion highlighting that different types of insurance have different ways that they function with regards to things like deductibles etc.
These are generally mandated by each state and operate that way for a reason.
To the OP, I would call your agent and just openly discuss their advice on whether putting the claim in might raise your rates in the future and get their thoughts. Each insurer and state is different, ask your agent.
I agree with you. When I was 17 learning to drive, I hit my grandmother's garage door. She made a claim, they fixed the door, then promptly dropped her and covering her very old home.
Yep. For my Honolulu property, when I was applying to get covered by All State, they initially were going to deny me as they saw a claim on the property. But it was a claim filed by the owner literally one day before I took possession of the unit (light water due to the guy in the unit upstairs leaving his balcony door open during a major rain event). I made sure that the old owner filed a claim under his policy before I took possession of the property. If the claim isn't big, I certainly wouldn't mess around with insurance.
I have some damage to my home for $4,000. I had a company come out and quote me $4,000. I called my insurance company and they will pay the remaining balance, but I pay $2500.
My question is, if my insurance deductible is that high, should I be paying the entire deductible?
I don't want to ask the insurance company at the risk of sounding clueless.
Why are you acting surprised by the amount of your deductible? You know the one who chose when you purchased the policy.
And yes, you’re required to pay the full deductible or they won’t cover the damage
Since you’re only talking about $1500, I sure would NOT generate a claim. Besides, maybe the fence folks can work a deal for cash. Not unheard of.
Only use insurance for big stuff (flood/fire damage.)
Too many claims can get you canceled by your insurance. And that’s NOT a good thing.
I had an insurance company cancel me without even making a claim. Back story- I had a small fire, it was *outside*, an ember from the woodstove caught against the barnboard siding and the wind was strong enough to get it to ignite.
My wife was on the couch, recovering from abdominal surgery. After discovering the fire I grabbed a portable phone, dialed 911 and tossed to the Mrs., telling her to tell them we were on fire. Then I set about to trying to put it out myself. It was rough but I managed to get it out myself, before the FD arrived.
(The dummies from the FD didn't even assess the situation properly, they went *inside*, bashed my stove apart and then demolished the wall and ceiling. *They* did more damage than the fire did. After all was said and done, I found a little girl upstairs, wandering around with an odd box in her hands. I asked her what she was doing. She told me it was in infra-red imager and she was looking for fire in the walls. That was the last straw, I rather impolitely suggested that they were all mentally deficient and since I already had the fire out by the time they got there, it might have been prudent to have used the imager *before* they started wrecking my stuff where the fire clearly wasn't.)
I had spare barnboard to replace the bit that had burned, and decided that my deductible would be more than what it would cost me to repair the damage that the Fire Dummies had done (doing it myself, a contractor would have cost a LOT more). So, I decided not to bother making a claim. All good right?
Three days later, my insurance company calls and tells my that my coverage is cancelled. I was furious. I got even more impolite than I had been with the little fire-girl as I explained that I wasn't even making a claim since there wasn't that level of damage. When I finished offering my opinion of his intelligence and that of his parents, his mother's choice of employment and the probability that neither he nor his mother knew his father's name, I moved on to threats of all manner and a proclamation that I was very good at making permanent wagon repairs. Eventually he did the only sensible thing and informed me that my coverage was at that point reinstated. That was a shame because I was all ready to move on to his management and let *them* know my opinion as well.
(I won't even get on to what happened when the town building inspector dropped by for a visit, suffice to say that I made *him* very unhappy as well.)
For a long time, it remained a big mystery to me, as to just how in Hades my insurance company had known that there had been a fire. I finally figured it out a few years ago- there is a website on which every single fire call in the country is logged, and insurance companies monitor it. I got into the site and checked the date and time- sure enough there was my name and address.
I haven't seen any comment here as to why someone would have a higher deductible. By choosing a higher deductible you lower the cost of the insurance policy by absorbing some of the cost yourself. Some insurance agents will quote a lower rate to get or keep a customer and not tell them they are offering a policy with a higher deductible. Of course if you don't make a claim it is all good. But ...
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