Aug 02, 2017
We have a dilemma
Not sure if I have mentioned that we are changing our home insurance broker. We want to add overland water to our policy which means flood coverage from lakes, rivers and creeks. Our current broker does not offer this. So I have spent that last three plus weeks comparing apples to apples even though most prefer to compare apples to oranges. I feel like I am ready to write an exam to become a broker. So we finally settled on what we want for a policy and who we want to write it.
Easy, right? Not quite. That fire we had here in Kelowna last Sunday, the one at Knox Mountain has not been cleared by the BC Wildfire people. It is still smoldering on 0.07 of a hectare. That means that the broker cannot write us a new policy. Our policy expires at midnight on Monday, August 7th which happens to be a statutory holiday here in BC, in other words a long weekend and everyone is closed on that date. So in order to be covered from 0001 on the 8th we need to have a policy in place by end of day this coming Friday the 4th of August.
Of course we can continue with our current policy and broker but it is not clear that once we pay for the year that we can change to what and who we want once the fire has been removed from the active status. Lots of fine print and of course we don’t want the current broker to know that we are planning to leave them.
Just another dilemma in our lives as a result of the fire situation.
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Contessa, here on the east coast of the US, we have a similar problem except that your disaster insurance problem is regarding 1) fires and 2) floods which insurance companies like to term as “rising water” and my disaster insurance problem is regarding hurricanes. No insurance company on the coast of the state of South Carolina will write a homeowner’s policy during hurricane season, June-November. You have a bigger dilemma because no set period of time during the calendar year can be determined by an insurance company when they can say such period is low fire risk or high fire risk. However, you have a way out of the fire situation by simply “renewing” your current policy with fire coverage.
Regarding flood insurance (to include both wind-driven flooding and rising-water flooding), we are able to secure a separate policy for this insurance except during the months of hurricane season. The US government subsidizes our flood insurance. Maybe it’s possible that in Canada such a separate flood policy may be written and the Canadian government may provide a subsidy. Possibly check with your local or provincial government to determine if such an “animal” (ha!) exists.
Ask the broker what the penalty for cancellation is (your current one). Usually property insurance has no penalty to cancel and is pro rata (per day) cancellation fee. If that is the case, continue with the current policy then when the other broker is able to bind coverage for you (which might be several weeks yet) then you can switch it. I used to be in insurance but things may have changed, worth asking the question.