[Music] Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I am your host Stan McCune realtor right here in the upstate and you can find all of my contact information in the show notes I always put it there assuming I remember to put it there but you can also Google my name Stan mun my name is everywhere my phone number is everywhere I get spam calls all the time because you know all these different Bots out there are scrubbing the web for different phone numbers and unfortunately I have to advertise mine and so guess what I get a lot of calls it doesn't take too many searches to find a way to contact me and however you want to contact me feel free to text call email I have people Facebook message me I have people LinkedIn message me I mean the full gamut I'm available and also just a reminder as always if you enjoyed this podcast please go ahead and subscribe leave a rating and a review I really appreciate when you guys do that really helps encourage me to keep the show going and I appreciate it every time I see one of those we're going to be talking today about some insurance gotas specifically when it comes to homeowners insurance there is a lot going on in the homeowners insurance world and we need to update I need to update all of you guys as to what's happening now I had an episode way way way back I mean like a year ago where I covered a bunch of different aspects of homeowners insurance that I highly recommend you listen to it really covers just a variety of things that I'm not going to cover in this episode I I might overlap a couple things from it but I highly recommend you listen to that but for this episode I want to talk about some of the things that are changing and some of the things that that have changed recently in the world of homeowners insurance that you might not know about and that could be kind of a gotcha moment if you don't know about them and just as a warning you need to always read your policy read your policy so that you know what's in it the language is very specific and I promise you I promise you if you read your homeowners insurance policy you will learn something there will be something in there that is covered or isn't covered that you didn't know and often times you'll find some pleasant surprises in there you'll find some things that's like oh well I didn't know that that would be covered if if if that happened and so it's it's really beneficial to review your policy every now and then to make sure that you know what is actually being covered what you're actually paying your homeowners insurance company for but the homeowners insurance companies the carriers as we call them they exist for one purpose and one purpose only and that is to make money right they are a they are companies they are corporations just like several any others that we know out there and so they exist to make a profit at the end of the day nothing wrong with that they're providing a service to make a profit but guess what happens when things change in terms of the amount of claims that they're getting or in terms of new risks that are posed to them that that end upus cusing them to lose more money they will change how they how they handle things they will change their policies in order to ensure that they are insured against having to spend tons and tons of money and so they will do things that benefit themselves that don't benefit you and so I think it's worth bringing up a few things that I've noticed lately that I think are are particularly important for our area now one thing that is common in the insurance world for places that are near storm centers so for instance if you live on the coast if you live near the ocean it is very common that they will have a percent deductible for hurricanes tropical storms any named storm that's usually how the language is worded in your policy again if you live on the coast look at your policy and and double check that and if you don't live on the coast double check it because I'm about to explain why but they will have a special deductible that is just for named storms and it might be an addition to the deductible that you already have it might be its own special thing often times it is a percent deductible and here's what that means if if your house is worth $500,000 and you have a 2% name storm deductible a named storm comes through tropical storm boa I could barely even say that tropical storm boaa comes through and causes damage to your house your $500,000 house you have a 2% Nam storm deductible guess what you're going to have to pay the first $110,000 2% of 500,000 you're going to have to pay the first $10,000 of your claim before your insurance gets involved so if you have a $115,000 claim your insurance is only going to pay you $5,000 because they're going to subtract the 2% right off the top first before they pay out anything to you well guess what this is starting to become more and more common even in non- coastal areas but specifically here in the upstate because we have had so many wind hail tornado storms in our area and some tropical storms and the not so much hurricanes because usually they're tropical storms by the time they come here but just name storms in general and what we're starting to see is now some of these insurance carriers are actually starting to require for any name storm or even a wind or hail storm now that deductible that you use to have that was like $11,000 now it's a percent deductible and that can be anywhere from 1% to I've seen 10% not in our area but I've seen it up to 10% before it's crazy and and that's a major major change if you get a hail storm you know on a very expensive house and you have a one or 2% hail deductible I mean you could end up having to pay almost the entire roof out of pocket your insurance might not cover hardly anything with regard to that roof now this is a really important development because not that long ago insurance companies in our area would would allow even deductibles as low as $500 and even before that sometimes as low as $250 that was not as common but not that long ago I had a homeowners insurance deductible of $500 that is almost non-existent now almost always at least the minimis a th000 and now we're starting to see that some of these carriers are now on not on everything but on on some types of properties and in some certain areas they're now starting to require special wind hail Nam storm Etc deductibles that are in a different bracket a percent deductible rather than that set okay you just pay the first $1,000 you need to be very careful to make sure that that you know what your policy what your homeowners policy says because they may have made that change recently some of them are starting to make those changes now and that is really significant if you can get a policy I would pay a little bit more per year for a policy that has $1,000 flat deductible more or less across the board versus paying just a little bit less for a policy that has a 1 or 2% or whatever the case may be deductible for wind and hail storms cuz we get a lot of wind and hail storms in the area another important development increasingly insurance carriers are starting to put special exclusions in their policies for roofs that have what we call three tab composition shingles so if you look at a roof you'll see basically two main types of shingle roofs one is the the classic architectural shingle and that's really at this point I feel like in the upstate the majority of our roofs do thankfully have those architectural shingles but the other one is the three tab shingles and these are the ones that are they look like long horiz horizontal rectangles that are just placed throughout the roof and they don't really overlap it's just like a flat type of type of roof well a lot of roofs that have the three tab shingles have just been completely destroyed by windstorms they also don't hold up very well against hail they they really aren't a good roof product to begin with but they're a little bit cheaper than the architectural shingles so you'll see people that are buil not so much Builders anymore although it used to be the case but more people when they get their roof replac sometimes they'll get a little chintzy they'll try to save themselves you know $800 $1,000 by instead of getting an architectural shingle which you know should last for up to 30 years they'll get one of these three tab shingles which is supposed to last significantly less than than that 30-year Mark but regardless of what it's supposed to last for they do not hold up well against the elements they I have seen this cuz I used to be an an insurance adjuster they don't hold up well against wind they hold up terribly against wind they they don't stick very well to to the roof itself and and so you get a a sustained gust of wind you get a tornado nearby those shingles are going to start flapping and what happens then when they start flapping is it can permanently damage the shingle additionally as I already mentioned they don't hold up very well against hail it's not a good shingle if you replace your roof get a 30-year architectural shingle at least I mean you can also get 40 and 50-year architectural shingles if if you really want to but definitely get some type of architectural roof and if you have a three tab sh shingle on your current roof make sure that there isn't some kind of exclusion or special provision in your policy that would hurt you if you get a wind or hail claim or something similar to that for that roof that's something that we're starting to see more of as well here's something that is kind of on the positive I guess end of the spectrit's something to to just keep in mind so due to the fact that there's been a lot of protests over the past couple of years at least I I should say they've been highly publicized I don't know if there's been more protests the past couple of years than in the past but but they're getting a lot of television time and so now some insurance companies are now offering some protection of property coverages so if there is imminent risk of civil unrest in your area you may actually be eligible to protect your property for instance boarding up Windows or that type of thing if you're in an urban environment that is at risk of civil unrest you may be eligible to to do some things and and to protect your property and be reimbursed for that some insurance companies are starting to do that they there may be other aspects of that that are covered really at the end of the day they're they're implementing that strictly because of of the protesting but they can't say that you know that that's not really allowable for them to just say due to an uptick and protest we are now encouraging people to board up their Windows so they'll add language like for instance if you have an excess amount of snow or ice on your roof you can if you show evidence of that and you take Extraordinary Measures to ensure that your roof doesn't collapse because it might have so much ice and snow on it that it might actually be risk of collapsing you take measures you you spend money out of pocket to to get that off the roof to save your roof you could be eligible for protection of property coverage down here there's not a whole lot of options there or or not a whole lot of risk in terms of snow or ice or whatever the case may be but if anything ever happens if you have a tree limb that falls in your house or whatever or if you do have damage to your roof you need to immediately take action to protect your property if you don't then you're liable potentially for any damages so if you ever have that happen if you ever have a storm created opening in your property and the potential for water coming in get a tarp on that call a roofer get that tarped up you know even if you you might want to call your insurance company first I would recommend that but even if you're having a hard time you know getting your insurance company to whatever shoot you straight give you answers that you want if you don't protect your property you are opening yourself up to your insurance company denying you coverage and you don't want to do that by the way while we're on the topic of roofs be very careful when you're up on your roof doing different things there are some companies now that will try to advertise like pressure washing roofs and and sometimes you'll you know people that are have roofs that are under trees sometimes you'll have some little fungal growth on your roof a that fungal growth is a is a bad thing so trim your trees back so that that doesn't happen Okay that you could have your policy have a Homeowner's claim excluded because of that but if you get up there and you start like scraping that you know algae or or whatever Moss off your roof or you pressure wash it or you get one of these companies that are pulling you know that one of these roof extension type of things where they spray something on the roof that is supposed to extend the life of the roof you are taking so much risk that your insurance company will not cover your roof in the event that you have future damage yes even if you're trying to do things to help your roof at the end of the day an insurance company is going to see that as you tampered with the roof the they the insurance is there to ensure a normal roof that hasn't been tampered with if it's starts getting tampered with that gives the insurance company a reason to back out again all they care about is making money at the end of the day that's what they exist to do they're going to try to find ways to get out of paying money so don't give them that out make sure that you don't overthink it make sure that you don't give them a reason as you tamper with aspects of your house keep up with your house but don't do unusual things that could cause your insurance company to say you know what you've tampered with this property and we're not going to cover you now by the way it's also worth mentioning this is not a new thing but and and I believe I covered this on the first one that I that I recorded but we've had a lot of flooding in the past couple of years and flooding as in like a creek floods and floods your house that is not covered by homeowners insurance just FY if you are in a flood plane you get flood insurance from FEMA well through FEMA I shouldn't say from FEMA but through FEMA that is what protects you against a flood your homeowners insurance is not going to protect you against a flood odds are it's also not going to protect you against an earthquake again look at your policy and look at those things that's not something we run into a whole lot here in the upstate flooding is much more of a concern but there are a lot of little things like that that a lot of people don't realize oh I'm not in insured against flooding or earthquakes or those types of things we mentioned civil unrest earlier and and that one's a tricky one as well because there are so many different exclusions that a typical policy has they might exclude for instance terrorism they might exclude for instance insurrection well who defines that insurance companies have a gazillion ways of wiggling their way out of these things and saying well that was actually an Insurrection we're not going to cover you for that that was actually terrorism we're not going to cover you from that damage from war usually Wars are not covered so let's hope that we don't have you know anything like that happening anytime soon so when it comes to if if you feel like you're at risk potentially of civil unrest and damage to property due to that you need to really look into your insurance policy talk to your insurance agent make sure that you're covered see if you need to take any preventative measures to protect your property and what coverage there is for that and do your homework make sure that you are fully prepared for that scenario one more gotcha and then I'm going to be done I'm busy I can barely squeeze This Record recording in this week properties that have been vacant for a long period of time if you go on a on a trip you know a nice long trip to Europe you're out there for for the whole summer your house is vacant for you know three months you get back there's hail damage your insurance company may have something in there that gets them out if your property has remained vacant for a period of time look in your policy it's not uncommon for them to have language in there that says a vacant property that has been vacant for only 2 months we're not talking about like a year two years or whatever it may be a vacant property for just a couple of months that they're able to wiggle their way out of paying any claims during that two-month period look at your policy and see what it protects you against if you're going to be vacant for several months if if you're going on on that long trip or whatever the case may be or you know if you're if you decided I'm going to buy a second home and the home that you've been living in is not going to be a home that you're going to be in all the time that's a conversation you need to have with your insurance agent and make sure that your current policy protects you there the policies are designed in a way to assume that typically that they are always occupied if if you're flipping a house that's its own special policy that's not going that's going to be a vacant house you have to have a special policy that covers you in that instance I had a situation recently where where someone tried to provide coverage on a vacant house as if it were a rented house but it was vacant being flipped that can be a problem okay because at the end of the day you have a claim Insurance adjuster goes out there they're going to be like well this policy says that this is a rental property who's renting this this doesn't even look like it's livable well okay that is a bit of a problem so make sure that you have the appropriate coverage for what you are actually doing with your property if you change the use of the property you probably need to change your homeowner insurance in some way as well that's it for today I hope that was helpful I'm not an insurance agent so if you have any questions about any of this of course you can ask me what my opinion is but go to your insurance agent ask your insurance agent make sure that they are competent to answer the questions go to someone that's competent to answer questions that you may have but that's it for this week's episode of selling Greenville I hope you guys have a great week till next time stay safe [Music]