Why Insurance Companies Are Evil

Over this past winter, we sustained some water-ice damage to our porch roof. It's sagging quite a bit and we currently have it braced until we get it fixed, "just in case". Dave said we could repair it ourselves, and while I'm all for saving money, I surmised it was going to be a long, drawn-out process until we finally fix it the way we want it (as opposed to the "weekend job" Dave thought it would be). Not to mention, there's plenty of other stuff around here that has to get done, too.

It was my suggestion to call our homeowners' insurance company to come out and look at it. I figured it can't hurt, and if they'd pay for it, then we could get a contractor to do the work. That would free up our time to do other home-improvement projects that need to get done.

Well, guess what? It CAN hurt.

The adjustor came out to the house in April, took a look at it, then came back a week later with a contractor for his opinion. The contractor took pictures, then told us that the sagging was from water damage. When the water froze, it became too heavy and the roof started sagging. OK, I kind of figured that part. Well, insurance won't cover that. They'd cover if the roof actually fell and damaged part of the house, but not the repair of the roof itself. But the contractor said that the water damage was probably a result of an incorrect pitch on the porch roof. The slope (for an asphalt-pitch roof) is supposed to be (whether it's a building code or recommendation, I don't know) a three foot drop for every one foot of projection. Well, we didn't know - that's the way the roof was when we bought the house!

So no biggie, right? We called a local contractor for an estimate for the repair. If it was too expensive, we'd try to take it on ourselves. If the price was reasonable, we'd pay to have it done. I wasn't having a hissy fit that insurance wouldn't cover it.

Then yesterday we get a letter from the insurance company. Cooincidentally, the letter arrived on the same day someone came out to give us an estimate for repair. The letter stated their contractor's recommendation for correct roof pitch was a three foot drop for every foot of projection, which our existing roof did not have. The letter then demanded we repair or replace the porch roof (with the correct pitch) by September 5, after which we should contact them to come out and inspect it. Failure to repair or replace the roof or failure to contact them could "jeopardize our coverage".

What the fuck?

We've had our homeowner's insurance with this company (ERIE INSURANCE, if you want to know) for three years. I've had my car insured with them for 10+ years, and all of Dave's vehicles (present count: 5) are insured with them. If this is how they treat their loyal customers, I need to go shopping for another insurance company.

I do understand some of their point - if the roof falls, then we could claim damage to the house which they'd then have to pay. OK - they're protecting their interests.

Or are there other interests? Specifically, do they have a deal with the contractor that came out to look at the house? (I'm a conspiracy theorist, what can I say?) And just because we put in a claim, does that give them the right to nitpick other things? Are they going to tell us that maybe the slope of our front steps is too steep, or find some other things and demand they be addressed? Will this give them license to jack up our rates?

I just don't get it. They approved us for coverage in the first place. The pitch on that roof didn't matter when we signed on the dotted line. Why now? And why with a deadline? They can shove their deadline up their ass, as far as I'm concerned. And for all we know, the pitch on the porch roof was perfectly acceptable when the house was built. Isn't it then grandfathered or something? Are we supposed to change our home configuration each time the building codes are updated?

The thing that bothers me is rates keep going up and up, and the service consistently goes down. And honestly, I don't think they would have pulled this shit with say, my parents. I think our age (or the age they presume us to be) plays a big part in things - thinking they can screw us over because we're "too young" to know any better. When we were looking at buying this house, the realtor pointed out some area that needed repair (I don't remember what it was), and told us, "it's no big deal, get your parents to help you with it". How condescending is that? Maybe the insurance company is operating on the same wavelength.

So I'm not sure what we're going to do about the insurance. Dave was ready to march down to the State Farm office and see about transferring everything to them, including the cars, and then tell Erie to go to hell. As for the roof, we're waiting for the guy to get back to us with the estimate, so hopefully it won't be too bad.

Insurance companies just suck.

Update: I closed comments on this entry because of an undue amount of garbage I was getting!