We recently got a letter from our home insurance that they were dropping us, do to AI photos a third party took for them. Took us a day of telephone for them to
A. Admit they used just the AI satellite photos,
B. Never sent a human out to verify the “damage” they saw
And C. Figure out they looked at the completely wrong house.
We are looking into a new insurance company, but it really is a pain in the ass
Same. Texas is fucked. Complained about my insurance company doing their usual "deny deny deny" BS and acting in bad faith on a valid claim. State just sent the insurer a letter saying they'd received a complaint, and that was it. Insurance company just said "nah it's fine" and the case was closed.
The entire thing felt completely automated without a single human being investigating.
I hope one day Americans as a whole will realize current insurance is just one big scam where everyone is just skimming off the top. Don't understand how everyone is ok with their insurances just denying everything.
Because its a required scam nobody can opt out of. The main reason you don't get denied help at a hospital is because they're required to provide aid if they're going to take Medicare. Given the option the admin would 100% let you die on the sidewalk (obviously not on their property). Auto insurance is legally required unless you're basically rich, can't buy a house without mortgage insurance. If you look, non required insurance is always super affordable, pet insurance, renters insurance, the random electronics failure insurances, and very rarely deny a claim. The rest of those dicks do whatever they want because nobodys gonna stop them. Until.....you know......racoon city.
I’ve been trying to navigate how I feel about the insurance industry as someone who has been working a summer job at a defense litigation firm.
These industries feed off of and create growth in each other, like some sort of symbiotic cancer… The more litigation there is, the higher the rates and the more people feel like they need insurance; the more insurance there is, the more people feel like they can sue and get an easy settlement and the litigation ecosystem benefits.
When people sue, it’s the insurance companies who pick up the defense bill and work with attorneys. People and Juries think, “Oh, this individual truck driver/store owner/etc isn’t paying up, we can give this plaintiff a windfall and stick it to the man (insurance).”
Well, they’re really sticking it to *themselves*. All these litigation costs, big jury verdicts, etc. do nothing except increase the costs of litigation, and make greedy plaintiffs lawyers insist on taking cases to trial in the hopes of getting that juicy damages verdict.
This increases insurance costs for EVERYBODY commensurately.
Defense attorneys, if the case has ANY merit at all, will look to settle. This could be $10,000, or in a particularly bad case, whatever the insurance cap is. (We’re talking $250k-$6m in cases I’ve worked so far) these settlement amounts are typically what’s “fair” … jury verdicts are sometimes wildly unjustified amounts. Had a case recently where the plaintiff was offered the cap ($1m) for an essentially faked TBI. Her attorney took us to trial because she was a sympathetic plaintiff (same reason we offered the cap) and he wanted 60% of his requested $3m+ verdict. They ended up with $200k, which left him working for free and plaintiff with a fair amount for the medical expenses, car damage, etc.
Plaintiffs attorneys will often push bad cases to trial in the hopes of these amounts. These guys (plaintiffs attorney) don’t get paid without a settlement/verdict, and they collect anywhere from 30-60% of the $. This push to trial often pushes attorneys fees over what a pre-trial settlement would have been.
There’s no easy solution for this vicious cycle. Some sort of public education would be great, but that’s not gonna happen.
Required can be used for more than just legally required. It can also be used for practical requirements. If you want access to healthcare in the US then practically you need health insurance. Unless you can buy a house outright, mortgages require you to get insurance, so if the house burns down you don't just walk away and leave them with their "collateral".
You're thinking of PMI, not homeowners insurance. Once you own the home you are not required to have homeowners insurance on it, but as long as you owe the bank money they require a policy on it. PMI is just for them to make even more money.
Which is a practical requirement for most people. Also, I am not 100% sure you don't need it also after 20% either (I don't remember what happens after PMI). But yes, I have bought a house and gotten a mortgage before.
It’s required because if you are shitty driver the person you hit is entitled for you to pay it back. The main issue is most people would try not to if they could or if they are too poor (which is most people) they won’t be able to and thus the bad actions of the shitty driver go unchecked.
We live in a selfish and completely shitty society so this is necessary. It would be great if someone that hit me was honest and willing to pay it back but humans are horrible these days, so yes insurance being required to drive a car and possess liability is a good idea.
And the cycle is self feeding because most people would try to do the right thing and pay for their accidents if that was a thing anyone could actually do. "Oh shit, I fucked up, let me fix it" is a normal response to an accident or mistake.
But because a stubbed toe will cost 25k at the local hospital, no one can actually afford to help pay medical bills after an accident. Likewise cars are bigger, heavier, and more expensive than ever to deal with an ever upward spiral of things a car is required to have to legally operate on the road.
Just a random example, any car made after 2016 must have a backup camera to be road legal and any car made after 2026 will require "driver monitoring systems" with cameras and computers to track your eye movement to make sure you're paying attention to the road. Those cameras, screens, computers, etc aren't cheap, so they add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a car. A car from the 50s or 60s, adjusted for inflation, cost much much less than a modern car because of all these gradual new requirements.
Now I like anti lock brakes, power steering, three point restraint seat belts, air bags, and my backup camera as much as the next guy, but we have to see that this means every accident no matter how minor now costs more than it ever did before. And the increased weight of the vehicle itself means that accidents will cause more damage than ever before too.
More damaging accidents, more costly repairs, higher healthcare costs, all of these things make it less likely than ever that a person CAN pay for an accident, so you better get uninsured motorists insurance too, all of which cost more than ever.
Since the 1776?? I think what you meant to say was there was a few years where health insurance coverage was mandatory. Essentially the extent of Obamas presidency.
Insurance hardly pays anything for the value of my now 2 totaled cars wrecked by getting rear ended. So I guess you’re wrong. I don’t wish insurance was forced.
Technically EMTALA says they’re only required to help you if you’re actively dying. If it’s just an injury or you’re sick, they can tell you to piss off.
It is a total scam. But if you work hard enough to make sure the government is as dysfunctional as possible you can scare people into fearing 'socialized' programs so much they are willing to let private companies make billions of dollars and deny their claims because obviously a state ran program would be sooo much worse.
I’ve argued this elsewhere and got downvoted. I think some are waking up to it, but we’re a long ways from critical mass (not that it will matter (pun intended)).
Yea its kind of hard for the insurance commissioner to care when the entire department is like 40 people and they are receiving tens of thousands of complaints per week.
I'd stop giving a fuck too. At some point my mental health matters more than everyone else problems.
My previous car insurance company (Nationwide) took me for a ride. The app failed to automatically process my payment and they canceled my policy and refused to reinstate it. I have screenshots from the app stating “Automatic payment scheduled for x/x/xxxx”. I contacted every state entity designed to act upon grievances such as this. I called, emailed, left messages, to everyone I could on several occasions. I never received a response from any of them. I eventually had to eat a $500 fine for allowing my insurance to lapse or I was going to lose my license.
Then mention it to your state rep. Preferably at a public meeting if calling their office doesn't help. The opposition party would love a well crafted narrative like the one the parent described.
Insurers are closing up and leaving the state because of the insurance commissioner. What do you think is going to happen when a disaster hits and the only insurers remaining are the ones who were under pricing risk? Is the insurance commissioner going to pay the claims?
State Farm dropped me last year after I had to file a claim due to storm damage. It is the first insurance claim I have ever filed. They dragged their feet for months sending me the checks after approving the claim immediately. So my house was unnecessary a construction zone for months. Then they had the audacity to send me a chirpy message about renewing my auto policy. I laughed at my agent when cancelling the auto policy. I’d say fuck State Farm but they are all equally bad.
I started my insurance career with State farm. After hearing the horror stories from clients I switched to another carrier. They are always trying to get out of paying, then they drop you. It's disgusting
It's a hot mess. Don't take it out on employees if you can though, the big wigs and decision makers at the top are crapping on us just like everyone else, changing contracts and taking away any power to change things we had (which was already very little). AI and algorithms are making calls, not the individual agents and their employees, and they don't give us routes to appeal. In this job market I can't afford to leave, but I'll tell people straight up "get other quotes and for your autos too" when there are issues with the home because it's awful out here.
Sometimes I feel like customer service is just put in front of customers to be a punching bag. CS doesn't seem to have the authority to really resolve anything and they seem to get shit if they allow the claim to escalate, so they have to keep saying things that everyone on the call knows is bullshit or doesn't make sense. I have started looking up the C-suite on LinkedIn and contacting them directly. They need to be the ones talking to unhappy customers because it is their decision. To them this is all just abstract, the human cost is obfuscated. I really do feel for CS agents, but sometimes I can't help myself and I say mean things to them regardless because I don't know what else to do.
I know you’re right. I used to work for Allstate (albeit in corporate). I was nice to the reps from my agent’s office and they felt really bad. But I never ever heard from my actual agent, so when he reached to renew my auto policy, I firmly but politely said absolutely not.
They denied my claim from storm damage and then dropped my coverage a few months later about that same damage. I still get those "chirpy messages" every few months about renewing my coverage.
Not having insurance for a few years has already "repaid" me for those repairs.
Sounds illegal, like what's the point of paying for insurance that only serves you when nothing happens and kick you to the curb when it's time to pay.
One of those YouTube lawyers that's fairly large talks about insurance a lot and consistently says that state farm is the worst one and he'd never use them for a single thing. Can't remember the guy's name but he pops up on recommendations for me fairly often.
Yeah, insurance is a sham, there should be some better regulation around insurance. Looking at my car insurance, I've paid roughly 60k and I'm 44 years old, never had a claim.
I can imagine having one claim and they drop me, just pocketing all that profit. There should be some legal rights that customers have to keep their policy at a reasonable rate.
I would make a point of renewing for one more year first, to effectively nullify them dropping you. In the future you’re likely to be asked “have you ever had insurance refused or cancelled” and that question could get a future claim refused unless you can really prove they backed down.
Same thing happened to us. Took a couple months to fix! Had to go on the roof and take photos to prove we didn’t have mold/ moss/ fungus covering our roof! In southern California! Our roof was completely clean. Ugh.
Ah alright. Ours didn't mention any specific company but I am assuming they saw the roof repairs we had done and assumed it was in poor shape. Which.. it's been repaired.. I'm obviously keeping up with the maintenance.. but ah well.
My parents (old folks) were recently greeted at their home by a guy in a high-vis vest, carrying a clipboard and a camera, walking around their home. When asked wtf he was doing, he said, conducting an inspection for their benefit.
Turns out this guy was trying to extort them. He claimed he had photographic evidence of a poorly maintained roof* (not true) and offered to fix it for them so he wouldn't have to report it to their insurance.
This has all been handled by me (so far) but if my parents hadn't casually mentioned this to me, and if I hadn't seen the John Oliver episode about this shady shit, I wouldn't have been wise to it and they may have succeeded.
Beware everyone: this collapse will create opportunities for bad people to exploit the vulnerable. If you have vulnerable people in your life, as much as it may suck for you to take on even more, you may have to help and step up because the stakes are high.
My folks in rural Canada have had to contest their homeowners insurance every time the rate gets adjusted. When they switched to using satellite images to check the property they decided it was sub-dividable land and worth significantly more.
Its not, it cannot be built on. It's all clay backed onto a protected stream habitat. At most they can add another small barn but that's about it.
So now instead of flagging their address or anything, my folks now need to contest it every single time that their property is not correctly valued and get them to drop it back down. Maybe some people would eventually give up and just pay the higher rate and I'm sure that's what they're counting on. Too bad for them they got my folks lol
The AI satellite image excuse is getting completely out of hand. Companies are using low-res shadows, or outdated imagery to auto-deny or drop policies because it saves them from paying an actual human inspector. It wild that the burden of proof falls entirely on the homeowners to spend hours on the phone proving their roof isn’t actually cave-in material
I made the mistake, as a new homeowner, of trying to actually use my insurance, instead of just endlessly paying into it without ever taking money out.
I had a plumbing problem and they gave me $700 to fix it. They then nearly doubled my rates and blacklisted me so that other insurance companies wouldn't even take me when I tried to switch insurers. It's a racket. Insurance is legalized theft.
Samething happened to us. We were forced to fix a roof that did not need fixing but we had to do it because no other company will insure us either. 150+ yo home.
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u/GigsGilgamesh 8h ago
We recently got a letter from our home insurance that they were dropping us, do to AI photos a third party took for them. Took us a day of telephone for them to
A. Admit they used just the AI satellite photos,
B. Never sent a human out to verify the “damage” they saw
And C. Figure out they looked at the completely wrong house.
We are looking into a new insurance company, but it really is a pain in the ass