I am the only son. I have 5 sisters. My mother is 84 years old. We divide things between us kids on looking out for my mother. My area I have been given is the Home and Car Insurance. Ever so often I look at my mother’s insurance policies and evaluate them to see if they are proper. Five years ago I looked at my mom’s insurances and they were way out of whack.
She owns a house that is valued at 62,000 and with the land the house/Land comes up to 85,500. Her home was being insured for 200,000 with contents. I called the agent to inquire. He called my mother’s policy a Platinum Policy. Her deductible was at the lowest amount possible. She had never made a claim in her life. After I was done with speaking to the agent I lowered my mom’s household policy by 60 percent and her car policy by 25 percent. I decided that the policy must have been a mistake that I passed off as my mother being elderly and signing off on something she didn’t know a clue about.
I went for my weekly visit to my mother today and she handed me her insurance again and said it had gone up lots in the last 6 months. I gave her a hard time for not telling me sooner. I looked at the policies and they were way out of whack again. I called her agent and adjusted it. I saved my mother who is 84 living on Social Security 214 dollars in 6 months on one call.
I wonder how many old people are being taken advantage of out there?
I called the insurance home office and filed a formal complaint and had the agent removed.
I’m not saying she isn’t being taken advantage of or that you shouldn’t pursue this…you should to be sure, but something to consider…the market value of a home is not what you need to insure for. You need to cover for what it would cost to rebuild the home. Like billhouk points out, it is a regulated industry, and part of that regulation requires covering to the rebuilding cost. Partial coverage is a bad thing for a number of very valid reasons.
There are honest agents out there. Find one you trust, listen to and weigh his advice carefully, and get your mother the right coverage. And read the policy. I was in insurance a few years back and I’d bet money that less than 1% of the insureds ever actually read their policy.
Shop your mom’s coverage, there are a bunch of good companies out there, I have been involved in commerical property and casualty insurance for years, there are only a few companies I do not like. For the last 20+ years I have insured through an independent agent but was with State Farm for years. But there are agents, just like any other profession, that will take advantage of whoever they can. Call your insurance commissioners’ office and see if they think you have a legit complaint. I am not sure what the sales commission on a policy is I think around 15%, maybe more, but the more the policyholder pays the more the agent collects. You have a broker issue not really an insurance issue. It would not hurt to talk to a carrier representative, they lose business because of agent like this. And they don’t want to over insure a property either.