Thread: Home insurance increase

Interesting this has happened with AAMI.

We just purchased our retirement home. Made sure its not in any sort of flood zone by checking the council's flood maps. Got a quote from RACQ for $14k! We have 4 policies with them so I complained as a similar house just 4 houses away quoted at $3.5k. Days of back and forth with no change, I lodged a formal complaint but was told by them that they would not reply.

AAMI quoted $1500. Allianz a bit more. We went with AAMI.

Originally Posted by p38arover

Just received our home insurance renewal from AAMI. It's gone up 39% since last year to nearly $5,200!

Way back in '09 our house was half destroyed by fire. Jan was lucky to escape with her life, but that's another story. We were out of it, in temporary accommodation, for 10 months. Under my policy, that is paid out of a percentage of the contents cover.
My fire was a couple of weeks after Black Saturday, so the insurers were, err, busy. but they got on with moving stuff out quickly. A heck of a lot of stuff was saved, but that in itself is costly, both in removal and storage, and smoke remediation.
Thing is, while they prepared a Scope of Works quickly, it was six months before work began. The people providing the temporary accommodation were charging the insurer $165.00 a NIGHT. For a one bedroom B&B. Without the breakfast! In 2009! ( You got a rental? Offer it to the insurers.) So the monies for this accommodation were being eaten into rapidly, and it ran out. So, the insurance officer in charge demanded we move back in. Everything, appliances, beds, furniture, and around 100 boxes, before painting and floor coverings were done. I dug my heels in, and so did the carpet guys. I had been warning them that this very thing would happen.
The actual work took around six weeks. Admittedly, the insurers and their "preferred" builders were under the pump. But, stick to your guns, have more contents cover than you think you need.
Premium didn't go up as a result of this fire, but boy it has in the intervening years. But then, so has everything else, with the possible exception of income.
Another note. The builders tried to prevent me access to inspect the progress. Don't let 'em. My place had some of my stuff in an undamaged section. I insisted that I needed access due to that. A number of issues I saw would have remained unknown if I had stayed away.

We were told we could move to temporary accommodation but we decided not to as no way were we leaving the house empty while the repairers wandered through at will. Our house is full of stuff accumulated over the over 40 years since we built it and you only miss stuff when you need it sometimes after years of having forgotten you even had it
The oxygen waster next door still has tarps and sandbags on his roof where it was damaged during the same storm and no insurance. Good, I'm pleased, as it couldn't have happened to a more deserving piece of human excrement.
AlanH.

Just a segway on that, you raise a great point ATH…

We have lived in our current home for approximately 20 years, when we moved here we downsized a 6 bedroom, 3 bathroom 2 story home into a 2 bedroom bungalow. During this move our original home was invaded, and then later burgled whilst we were at our new home for a week.

At the time we had a clearing out, it is refreshing and renewing.

We worked out what we lost of value and had that replaced (no issues at all with our insurer).

We then decluttered our lives, keeping what we considered added value to our lives. Be it memories (photos, gifts, heirlooms etc) then we rationalised all our remaining items.

The amount of clutter collected over our lives reduced greatly, the quality of what we held onto was the best of our ‘stuff’

I’ve since done similar in my workshop, and the space is so much more enjoyable to be in now.

I cannot recommend it enough!

Originally Posted by ATH

We were told we could move to temporary accommodation but we decided not to as no way were we leaving the house empty while the repairers wandered through at will. Our house is full of stuff accumulated over the over 40 years since we built it and you only miss stuff when you need it sometimes after years of having forgotten you even had it
The oxygen waster next door still has tarps and sandbags on his roof where it was damaged during the same storm and no insurance. Good, I'm pleased, as it couldn't have happened to a more deserving piece of human excrement.
AlanH.

Had my place been liveable we would have stayed also. But it was deemed unsafe by the fire authorities, and the utility companies refused point blank to reconnect. Fair enough I guess, especially the electrickery, which had been the cause of the fire in the first place.

Tip: You know that sort of ozone smell you can get from things like transformers? Don't ignore it. that aroma was present as I was leaving for work. In my defence, where I live there had been an awful lot of smoke, both from the whole Black Saturday conflagration, and also the fires burning on King Island ( yes, it carried ).

Edit: The source of the fire was traced to one power point. Fireies reckoned it was a "hard joint".

Originally Posted by Tombie

Just a segway on that, you raise a great point ATH…

We have lived in our current home for approximately 20 years, when we moved here we downsized a 6 bedroom, 3 bathroom 2 story home into a 2 bedroom bungalow. During this move our original home was invaded, and then later burgled whilst we were at our new home for a week.

At the time we had a clearing out, it is refreshing and renewing.

We worked out what we lost of value and had that replaced (no issues at all with our insurer).

We then decluttered our lives, keeping what we considered added value to our lives. Be it memories (photos, gifts, heirlooms etc) then we rationalised all our remaining items.

The amount of clutter collected over our lives reduced greatly, the quality of what we held onto was the best of our ‘stuff’

I’ve since done similar in my workshop, and the space is so much more enjoyable to be in now.

I cannot recommend it enough!

It's a process I need to go through now. But when the platoons of cartons came back into the house after the fire it was almost dispiriting opening them all to find all the stuff we had completely forgotten about. THAT would have been a perfect time. At the time though, my then undiagnosed ADHD condition prevented me from taking the actions needed. Jan and I were both hoarders.

Starting on a course of Ritalin. Maybe it's time! 🤞

Originally Posted by Tins

Had my place been liveable we would have stayed also. But it was deemed unsafe by the fire authorities, and the utility companies refused point blank to reconnect. Fair enough I guess, especially the electrickery, which had been the cause of the fire in the first place.

Tip: You know that sort of ozone smell you can get from things like transformers? Don't ignore it. that aroma was present as I was leaving for work. In my defence, where I live there had been an awful lot of smoke, both from the whole Black Saturday conflagration, and also the fires burning on King Island ( yes, it carried ).

Edit: The source of the fire was traced to one power point. Fireies reckoned it was a "hard joint".

Also a good point. Actually I do have a sniff inside elec panels before I hit the sack She then gets up & makes a cuppa.. NB. Spud didn't post this BTW.

Never found a hot joint yet & it makes me feel better. It is a bit late when the Smoke & Heat alarms (not quite the same things) are screaming their heads off & one is struggling under pressure to find one's Jocks in the dark.

Fire began here. Most of the damage was upstairs. Because of two earlier false alarms the local CFA were actually already on the truck when the call went out.

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