Geico Homeowners Insurance
Does anybody have experience using Geico for homeowners insurance? I’ve used Allstate for 3 years and just got notie that my premium is going up about 25%. Have heard many homeowners were terminated by Allstate. don’t knw why we weren’t.
Does anybody have experience using Geico for homeowners insurance? I’ve used Allstate for 3 years and just got notie that my premium is going up about 25%. Have heard many homeowners were terminated by Allstate. don’t knw why we weren’t.
Review the coverage closely. We found out that our Allstate policy has a 5% deductible for wind, which is huge. ($600,000 policy limit; $30,000 deductible.) Also, Brownstone agency writes for AIG companies including New Hampshire. Last I checked, their policy form was a modified commercial form called SMP (special multi-peril) and is quite restrictive in its coverage. For example, in my friend’s building, contents were not covered, which she found out after a theft.
We compared State Farm and Liberty Mutual a few months ago when we bought our brownstone, and Liberty Mutual was much cheaper. Ryan Fortier is our agent. His phone is (212) 391-7500 x313.
Original poster here. Based on your comment, I will call Geico again. I’m sure understood them correctly though.
That’s such a weird thing that Geico told you- our house is a ONE family frame in Kings county and is listed as such on all city and tax records, so Geico knows that. We got our insurance through them in May, not that long ago. I’m not pushing you to try and call them again, it’s just strange. If I didn’t already have them, I’d hesitate to go with a company that the agents either don’t know their own policy critera or is following Allstates suit and becoming yet another insurer making it tough for Brooklynites to get reasonably affordable coverage.
Allstate is dropping all customers with one line policy, you need to have 2 line of policy Ex. homeowners and Auto or Life.
Insurance is the biggest racket around. We have a policy on a two family brownstone in Bed-Stuy. Brownstone is the agent we work with (I have to say other than pushing paper I am not sure what value an “agent” adds, they seem to work for the insurance companies more than the client). We just got socked with a 25% increase as well from New Hampshire ($2400 per year)and they reduced some coverage for lead.
Shopping for insurance is nearly impossible. You need a lawyer to understand most policies. I would be interested in knowing how it goes with Geico.
Make sure you have liability coverage and not just minimal coverage for your property. We have a 4 story/2 family in Boerum hill and we got coverage of about $800K in replacement value insurance. It includes the insurance company’s estimate of the costs to rebuild. I am sure the rebuilding cost is too low, but how often would you really be totally rebuilding? If something that catastrophic happens, we are leaving town and moving to the country anyway. State Farm was about $2,600 for a one year policy.
Brownstone Agency sells 3 year policies which are running about $6-7K. We were with them but we had one claim in 9 years and were not renewed. I understand from the brokers we worked with that all insurers are dropping people at the drop of a hat and that experience with Brownstone shouldn’t be blamed on them.
Original poster here. Geico has told me that that don’t cover single family homes in Kings County, so there goes that. Can I ask what other people pay? We’re looking for $900K of dwelling protection assuming that it would cost about $300 per square foot to rebuild our 2,750-3,000 square foot house in the event of diseaster. Do people look at it that way are look just to cover the mortgage?
Geico is currently our homeowners insurance. They really just broker it- it’s Travellers. We were dropped by Allstate in the spring, with many other folks. They said they weren’t renewing the people who most recently signed with them, to eventually phase out all homeowners in this area. Allstate said they were giving some consideration for older policy holders or those that have their other products and not dropping them yet. A big premium increase seems like a way to get people to go on their own.
We have a 100+ yr old frame house and Geico gave us a significant discount because we have their car insurance. For us, it was a better deal than State Farm but it was close. But we did really like the State Farm agent on Coney Island Ave that we got the quote from. Very informative and helpful. Not sure I can track his name down since we didn’t use them.