Anyone else have Fidelity homeowner's insurance? ..or have someone else to recommend?

[x88x]

So, here's the story. When I was going through the process of buying my house, I had to get homeowner's insurance for the mortgage company to approve my loan, so I went ahead and set up an account with Fidelity (GEICO's property insurance sister company for this area) since my car and motorcycle insurance is through GEICO, I've been happy with them so far, and I get a discount on the policy because I have other insurance through GEICO. I paid the first year up-front, standard policy, and everything went along just fine....until last Thursday...

On Thursday, I got a letter from them saying that they're cancelling my policy because they sent an inspector over and there was "excessive unsecured personal items and a trip/fall hazard". :?

Ok, first off, why was their first response to cancel my policy, not contact me to attempt to resolve the issue? That raises concerns, but for now let's just try and figure out what's going on.

So I called them that night (apparently just catching their business hours), talked to a rep, and found out what the problem was. From his description, the "excessive unsecured personal items" was all crap that the previous owners left here, and couldn't have been worth more than maybe a couple hundred all told. Most of it has since been moved...mostly into the back of the truck, waiting for me to take it to the dump, or the burn pile, waiting for me to call the fire dept and find out the local regs for open fires... The "trip/fall" hazard, again, from his description, apparently was a pile of trash that I had outside the back door for a couple days (from cleaning out crap that the previous owners left inside the house), that just happened to coincide with the day that their inspector came by... -_^ ...really? One of the reasons you decided my property in uninsurable is because of a pile of trash? ...that's real permanent, that is. :rolleyes:

Then, to top it all off, he said he would email me all the pictures that the inspector took, and if I emailed back corresponding pictures with the "problems" fixed, my policy can continue on happily. ...I still have not received that email... -_^ ..and they're not open on the weekend...and were closed by the time I got back from work last night... -_^

Overall, I'm not impressed with how they've treated me as a customer. Heck, just the fact that they didn't try and resolve an issue before dropping my policy is enough for me to start looking for a different insurance company.

So, for those of you who are homeowners, any suggestions for a good insurance company? I haven't decided yet if I'm going to drop them, but I am going to start looking (even if I or they do decide to drop the policy, it doesn't die until February 17th).

[mDust]

Tell me they were planning on cutting you a check for the remainder of the year that you paid. If not, that's one helluva racket they are running!

[x88x]

Tell me they were planning on cutting you a check for the remainder of the year that you paid. If not, that's one helluva racket they are running!

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, but if they don't they will be getting a small-claims suit. There's nothing in the letter about it, but I'm assuming the letter is a template that doesn't take into consideration if you're in your first year of coverage or not (after the first year you pay monthly..or, rather, I think I pay monthly into an escrow account...hmmm...anyways, like I said, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it).

[BuzzKillington]

You're buying a house at age 22? O.O

[x88x]

Bought. About two months ago. :D It really is a great feeling not throwing money down the rent-hole anymore.

[billygoat333]

I bought a house at 24 :P now divorced and the house went into foreclosure, but thats neither here nor there lol.

I used American Family Insurance and they were great. pretty good discount with 2 cars on there too.

[diluzio91]

my mom uses state farm without issues, im an apartment renter still.

[msmrx57]

+1 on Am Fam. I've had them since '92 and nothing but good things. I haven't had to make many claims but one time that I did after a hail storm their adjuster pointed out things that I never would have noticed.

[x88x]

Hmm, I might look into them.

[Snowman]

In my experience with insurance it has all come down to how well your rep works with you and how easily you can contact your rep.. lets say I bought a house and insured it with my current State Farm rep. If my house burnt down at 1 am on a saturday she would gladly pick up her home line when I called and have me in a hotel in no time and worry about whose going to pay for it later. Probably not going to get that kind of service out of geico, but I could be wrong. For that factor alone I have not switched insurance even though I could save a little money for a little less bedside manner shall we say.

[d_stilgar]

My parents and I use USAA. Best prices for sure and they really treat you right. They are super honest as well. We were with some other people but the insurance agent came when we had a flood and said, "you know, [these] could have gotten damaged in that flood." He was trying to get us to commit insurance fraud in our favor so we could get new cabinets for free. We reported him. He was fired. We switched to USAA. They've been awesome ever since.

Also, if you ever get calls from other insurance companies, they will tell you (all of them) that they can beat any competitor's price for the same coverage. Whenever we say we're on USAA they say, "never mind."

[Airbozo]

I have had Allied since I bought my house over 15 years ago. Never an issue and the one time I did have a claim (tree branches fell through my roof), they were very helpful and payment was fast.

My rep has been great too. He always reviews our account to see if we qualify for discounts or need to up coverage due to increase in property value.

[x88x]

So I finally got someone in inspections on the phone yesterday, and...yeah, I'm still not impressed. She looked over the inspection report and couldn't figure out why they had a problem with it either. Then, when I mentioned that the inspector was wrong about what kind of siding I have (inspector guessed wood, it's actually a mix of asbestos and concrete shingle), she tried to convince me not to include that in my email showing that the issues were corrected... -_^ ...I understand trying to be helpful and all, but if, by some chance, it were to come up I would rather have been paying a bit higher premiums than have them deny the claim since they didn't have accurate information on that... Those, plus the fact that two outdoor benches (left by the previous owners, but still..) constitutes "excessive unsecured personal property"... I think I might go ahead and look for a different company. First confirm that I'll get a prorated amount of my deposit back though...