Xsarus wrote:
why the fuck would you get house insurance that didn't cover the cost of your house? How does that even make sense?
Changes in appraised value since you bought the policy would be the first reason that comes to mind as to
why your insurance doesn't cover the entire value of your house.
For example: Say you buy a house for $500k, and get an insurance policy on it. The policy has a little clause in it that you miss (or figure is irrelevant based on the area's last 10-20 years of home value trends) capping the increase in covered value at 3% annually.
A real-estate "bubble" begins (or it turns out the area has just been chronically undervalued), with 10% annual increases in home prices. Five years later, your house is valued at roughly $805k - but the covered value at this point is just under $580k. At this point, if your house burned down, you'd have to eat nearly a quarter-million in losses just to rebuild the house as it was.
This doesn't begin to take into account the possibility of accumulating enough stuff that you hit the cap on what's covered for item replacement, either.
Moral of the story: read the damn policy closely before buying it.
EDIT to cover:
publiusvarus wrote:
Denham,
Quote:
then your only recourse at that point is a lawsuit to attempt to recover the remaining portion of the replacement costs, especially if it's due to a faulty product.
Or, like most people, you just eat the cost rather than try and find a attorney who's willing to take on the insurance company.
Actually, I was figuring you'd be suing the company responsible for the
defective battery in the example I gave, because it's their product that caused the damage in the first place.
Edited, Jul 21st 2009 2:16pm by MDenham
