I tremble in abject fear every time we get a letter from our insurer. So many people have been screwed by these insurance companies. We’ve done well by our local agent (Dan Burghardt), but I get the feeling the big companies that actually provide our flood and homeowners’ insurance (Fidelity and Lexington, respectively) would like to shake us loose. They’ve raised our rates and reduced our coverage and dropped everybody who’s house is under $500K — unless you’ve been with them for over three years, as we have.
Getting dropped would mean we’d have to go hunting for a new policy, and probably get stuck with something more expensive, perhaps exorbitantly so, perhaps ruinously so. I’ve heard horror stories. Insurance is very tricky here in the disaster zone.
So yesterday my worst fears were realized. We got a Notice of Nonrenewal, indicating that our flood policy will expire on October 1, and it will not be renewed because our Repair Status Questionnaire was not returned.
Thing is, I did return that questionnaire, back on July 10.
I was pretty upset.
But when I called up my agent, she was very helpful and understanding. She straightened things out with Fidelity in short order, and it appears that our policy will be renewed.
Deep sigh of relief. But I will still be nervous each time they send something in the mail.
Over 500K and/or 3 year patron!!? I guess there won’t be many first time home owners moving to the area anytime soon!!
You’re the second person I’ve seen who’s reported this threat. I’m not sure you can actually be dropped from NFIP (Nat’l Flood Ins. Program) by the company that services your policy (Fidelity, though it’s actually probably another company further down the chain – NFIP’s inner workings are complicated). This might be worth a call to someone at NFIP. FEMA’s entire phone list is available online.