Chubb Homeowner's Insurance Agents
I currently have a Chubb city home masterpiece policy for my limestone in Brooklyn. It is pricey but the coverage is excellent. A couple of issues: in the interest of lowering my coverage I’ve asked my agent to look at areas where we can cut down. They say there are none. Chubb is not helpful…
I currently have a Chubb city home masterpiece policy for my limestone in Brooklyn. It is pricey but the coverage is excellent. A couple of issues: in the interest of lowering my coverage I’ve asked my agent to look at areas where we can cut down. They say there are none. Chubb is not helpful since they do not deal with the cost of the policy; it is handled by the agent.
THe appraised value for rebuilding is higher than the market value of the house; which I think is odd. Also I wonder are the insurance agents setting the price of these policies or is it the isurance company? Another Chubb agent has offered to look at it and re-appraise it.
Any advice ? Are there any homeowner advocacy groups that can review policies for homeowners?
Chubb is an excellent company and is great when i comes to paying claims. There are a few things you can do to lower your premium within Chubb, such as increase deductibles or to double check all the credits to make sure you are getting everything that is available. They usually do estimate dwelling replacement coverage to the higher end, which some people do not agree with. There are a few high value home insurers out there that may be more competitive and are also good when it comes to claims and replacing damaged homes to their former glory. If you would like, I can take a look at the policy for you – I am a broker.
William Smoltino
Narrows Insurance Agency, Inc.
(718) 745-1500
to anon 10:49AM
You have no idea what your talking about!
stay with chubb.
allstate, geico, statefarm, ameritrade prudential will all try their hardest to decline any claim you make, wiil only cover replacement with sheetrock and home depot trinkets and will probably drop your policy afterwards to boot.
The insurance should cover the replacement cost to rebuild . Put your auto and home together and you will get a discount for both. If you have a central station alarm you can lower your comp by 10% and feel safe when you leave. If you add an umbrella for liability you can save on all three. Try your major companies allstate, Geico, statefarm, ameritrade prudential. You should be able to save money.
What is the market value of the house? Rebuilding the typical limestone with like materials would cost in the neighborhood of 2 million regardless of the market value of the house.
The reason rebuilding a house built in the last 70 years with like materials is typically cheaper than the market value is because those materials are what is still used to build houses so when it is put on a market that includes new houses built with the same materials it’s price reflects the approximate cost of a similar new house and part of that price is the land which won’t go away in a fire.
Think about the materials in a brownstone, thick brick walls where today we would use steel for support and fiberglass for insulation, thick wood beams where today we would use cheaper steel, plaster and lathe walls where today we would use crappy sheetrock, counterweighed wood windows where new construction typically uses cheap spring loaded Marvin wood windows with vinyl rather than iron hardware, or worse vinyl or aluminum framed windows. Then there are all the little things like the door hardware, the doors, the registers if the building had non-forced air heating, fireplaces, brass or nickel water pipes, etc.
Limestones in most Brooklyn neighborhoods are priced at just 50% to 100% over the cost of a similar sized Fedderers building, but the cost of building one them in today market is greater than that. A cheap insurance policy would rebuild your limestone with sheetrock and Home Depot trinkets, my understanding is that Chubb would actually try to bring your home close to what it was in terms of quality.
Who is the Chubb agent who sold you this policy? I just wonder, because we are in a limestone rowhouse too, and just had the same thing happen. Chubb put the replacement cost for the house at about $300,000 more than the market value of the property. Which seems absurd, not to mention really abnormal. For my house in CA, the insurance company estimated the replacement value for the house at far less than the market value for the entire property. So I would also really like to know if the insurance agent or Chubb is setting the appraised replacement value. Anybody know this?