Some time back, Jack and I received a letter from our long-time Allstate broker advising us of an upcoming inspection of our home exterior. We knew abatement wasn’t an issue so we expected our property to pass with flying colors.
The inspection report returned advising us to paint our peeling garage door and add some more fencing posts to our front porch, which already met even today’s building codes. If we failed to comply, our home insurance faced termination.
We suspected — because we saw other issues more dangerous around our home — that the inspection was a red herring, an excuse to drop our policy because of our high fire-risk area.
Jack painted that garage door anyway and fixed some other more important issues but failed to get to the porch. Along the way, our broker’s office assured us the policy would not be canceled and the paint job would suffice to quell the honchos at Allstate.
Nevertheless, like a hot potato, Allstate dumped us. We heard that Allstate no longer wrote new policies up here, but Jack talked to an Allstate contact who admitted the agency didn’t want to keep old ones either.
After more than 26 years without one claim, we found ourselves searching for home insurance again.
In 2006, Allstate dropped 120,000 Florida property policies because of hurricanes. We experience wildfires and earthquakes; the Pacific Northwest, earthquakes; the Midwest, tornadoes and now earthquakes; the eastern and southern states, hurricanes and also tornadoes. Floods occur where it rains. Where might Allstate be comfortable insuring homes?
Now, every time I see Dennis Haysbert in an Allstate commercial stating, “You’re in good hands with Allstate,” I wonder who he’s talking to: The stockholders?
Becky Clark,
Editor
