How many of you have insurance on your home?
Every year I get an escrow statment from my mortgage company detailing the last years payments. And then I get a letter every year saying my escrow monthly payment is going up again. Escrow pays my homeowner insurance. And property taxes.
My mortgage payment is almost back to what it was before I refinanced to lower it about 15 years ago.
I checked with my insurance company and found out from dec. of 20 to dec of 24 my annual insurance rate has gone up by 48%.
I called my insurance company and the lady came up with some pureass bullshit. I said I was tired of them raising my rates. Her response? This insurance company did not raise your rates. The insurance commission did.
WTF???
I haven't checked on property taxes yet but they have also gone up. But not 48%. By law that is limited, I think to 2%.
And my auto insurance has gone up yet again.
If I could go back in time, I would find everyone who instituted this bullshit insurance crap. And kill them.
Let's see if blogger censors this post because of the word kill.
I'm going Heemeyer crazy I tell ya.
I know it is convenient but why do you still let your mortgage company earn interest on your tax payments? If you haven't done the serial refinance/cash out cycle I will bet you have enough equity to cancel the escrow account and pay your homeowners insurance and property taxes directly.
ReplyDeleteWe financed our first house with a VA loan so even with 100% loan-to-value we didn't need an escrow account, and we purchased our current house with a big enough down payment to escape it too.
It takes a bit of discipline to schedule property tax payments every year but you get in the swing pretty quickly. The week the tax bill shows up I've updated the scheduled payments at my credit union with the new dates and amounts.
I just had to replace a perfectly good, 9 yr old roof because it wasn't wind certified or something. Insurance company wouldn't cover any roof damage or any water damage inside from the roof getting damaged . New roof was $16,000. Guess the new kitchen will have to wait a few more years.
ReplyDeleteMore to the story: Our first mortgage was backed by the VA and I got our insurance thru USAA, of course the loan funded just fine. A few year later the loan was sold to Countrywide (spit) for servicing, but still no escrow account.
ReplyDeleteTheir first gambit was to claim we hadn't paid our property taxes on time. Fine you bastards, here are the receipts from the Assessor's web site for the payments. That went on for a few cycles so they decided to up the ante.
Next they claimed didn't have the right insurance coverages so I sent them a full PDF copy of the current renewal of same insurance policy we got when the loan was funded.
Nope, not good enough they claimed in the letter that stated they would be moving the property coverage to their captive underwriter's (MUCH more expensive) policy and here are your new payments with the escrow included.
My response was to refinance the loan out from under them. We kept the same USAA insurance for the life of the loans on the house, and since we've had auto, umbrella liability, and personal property policies with them too. I pay everything monthly. No more annual lump sums and no escrow BS.
If your home is financed, insurance is required by the lender. Same with your car. If it's financed, the lender requires insurance to cover its ass.
ReplyDeleteMy neighbor in the RGV paid off his home, and was very proud of it. The first hurricane that blew through took out his roof, and the water damage inside was incredible. He bitched about that until he moved away. Both he and his wife drove identical late model Cadillac Sevilles.
USAA is not the glowing group they used to be; especially in insurance, which used to be their strong suit
Less than 10 years ago, our homeowner's insurance was less than a thousand dollars a year. Now, it's $2200 and change.
I'm tellin' ya; the insurance companies, the Big Pharma all has us by the shorts.
If you are pissed at high insurance rates, look to the government who continually forces insurance payments for things not covered by existing insurance because-- fairness. When they pay out more they have to take in more.
ReplyDelete