I recently spent some time on the phone with my insurance company and by the end of it, my head was pounding.<\/p>\n
In the span of three years, my house insurance is up roughly 50 per cent. No claims and no acceptable explanation.<\/p>\n
At most I think a reasonable rate increase, given the extent of natural disasters, would be 15 per cent perhaps in that time period, even 20 combined. But more than 50?<\/p>\n
I’m tired of the insurance company copouts.<\/p>\n
Sure, there are more natural disasters.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ve never seen an increase like that before<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t take kindly to a bunch of excuses that water claims were up in a year of drought. The agent\u2019s answer to that? People in your postal code area may be overflowing their toilets and bathtubs.<\/p>\n
Well, guess what? Go after them and leave the rest of us alone. If they\u2019re irresponsible enough to do those things, then they should see the bigger increases.<\/p>\n
I think they should come up with a new way of approaching their customers and the way rates are determined. And I think there\u2019s not enough transparency into these decisions.<\/p>\n
Alarm bells<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a loud alarm bell going off here and it has to do with worsening housing affordability.<\/p>\n
If they are raising rates hand over fist, that\u2019s just going to make owning a home that much further out of people\u2019s reach in the not-too-distant future.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s because for those people who have mortgages, they are required to have house insurance.<\/p>\n
Imagine if it gets to the point \u2014 not too far down the road by their math \u2014 that a person pays out just as much or close to it a month for their house insurance as they do for their mortgage.<\/p>\n
And what about the seniors who\u2019ve worked to pay off their houses, only to be slapped with that kind of expense. Especially galling if they have not made one single claim in their lives.<\/p>\n
House insurance, I feel is a must even if you have paid off your mortgage. \u2014 you never know what can happen.<\/p>\n
I had my electrical completely upgraded to 200 amp. Roof is recently new. My house is fine.<\/p>\n
But under the insurance rationale, we should just bulldoze all the older homes in Atlantic Canada.<\/p>\n
If your home is of a certain vintage, they\u2019ve got an excuse to raise your rates, regardless of the condition.<\/p>\n
Big brother approach<\/p>\n
And this next one is particularly galling.<\/p>\n
You can agree to a credit check because, get this, said credit check is supposed to paint a picture of how well you take care of your home.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a risk assessment I personally never heard of before from any insurance company I dealt with.<\/p>\n
I agree with the insurance company inspections that have been in place for many years. They make sense.<\/p>\n
The agent just got right under my skin going on about people not being clean, not taking care of their homes.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019m clean.<\/p>\n
To me this is just another level of intrusiveness.<\/p>\n
They are dangling a potential discount, but can we trust that?<\/p>\n
I also don\u2019t want to hand even more personal information over to a company. Have none of them learned from the NS Power breach?<\/p>\n
And why is it your insurer\u2019s business who you owe money to?<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t agree to it in principle because I figure whatever the outcome \u2014 even when your credit score is fine \u2014 it\u2019s just another excuse for them to find a way to raise rates.<\/p>\n
The explanation given to me is that someone who has a lot of financial stress isn\u2019t taking care of their house.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re getting into some very dangerous thought police ground here with this kind of judgement call.<\/p>\n
And is it really fair to people?<\/p>\n
I just find this particular scenario stomach turning.<\/p>\n
Someone who is earning a modest income could very well be doing everything in their power to maintain their home. They could be handy. They could have family members or friends who are tradespeople.<\/p>\n
They might spend every single weekend working on their home and every spare cent.<\/p>\n
Even on a higher income with high costs of everything, they may be on paper \u201cstretched.\u201d But they could be a tradesperson with lots of buddies in other trades to help with necessary upgrades.<\/p>\n
So how is this \u201crisk assessment credit check\u201d supposed to determine what kind of homeowner a person is?<\/p>\n
And is it not discriminatory, particularly to seniors on a fixed income who don\u2019t have a gold-plated pension?<\/p>\n
If there are no payment issues and there was an initial credit check, that should be good enough.<\/p>\n
If there are concerns about how people are maintaining their home, isn\u2019t that the job of inspectors and adjustors?<\/p>\n
Paying your premiums, passing your insurance-mandated home inspections \u2014 enough said.<\/p>\n
I think we\u2019re sliding ever more down a slippery slope of home ownership being the sole privilege of the wealthy with this kind of strategy.<\/p>\n
A single mother or father with a modest income? An older person trying to get on their feet after a divorce. Two parents with a combined modest income who have scraped a down payment together?<\/p>\n
Well the insurance company probably doesn\u2019t like that risk. So no insurance, no mortgage.<\/p>\n
And I think where the insurance industry is concerned, they\u2019ve got a \u201cDon\u2019t like it, well too bad. We\u2019re just going to do what we want\u201d attitude about their customers.<\/p>\n
Housing affordability<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that I can\u2019t afford the extra insurance payment. It\u2019s those alarm bells that are ringing in terms of affordability for everyone if this kind of logic holds up in setting rates.<\/p>\n
Ever since the pandemic we just seem to be on this course of the price of everything has to skyrocket.<\/p>\n
Well the pandemic was six years ago and that excuse seems to be the hard and fast rule that\u2019s stuck around.<\/p>\n
And I am one of the more moderate people. I don\u2019t agree with the conspiracy theorists blaming prime ministers for \u201ccontrolling\u201d the price of groceries.<\/p>\n
As if the prime minister is on the phone to the grocery companies, barking out an order: \u201cWhack the prices up b\u2019ys because I\u2019m feeling particularly evil this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always shopped by flyers and what\u2019s on sale. So unless I\u2019m wanting to splurge on something special I haven\u2019t any real stress in that regard.<\/p>\n
But I feel for families who struggle with prices on necessities, all the while juggling all their other expenses.<\/p>\n
Sometime or other this insanity has to stop.<\/p>\n
And maybe that takes some independent scrutiny into the policies \u2014 pardon the pun when it comes to insurance \u2014 that these companies employ with their customers.<\/p>\n
Because the cram it down your throat, take it or leave it approach is gross.<\/p>\n
And so is the longer-term prospect of homes for the wealthy only.<\/p>\n
Barb Sweet is the editor of the Advocate and has more than 35 years of\u00a0 experience as an award-winning journalist in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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