All right, welcome back North Carolina
Department of Insurance Commissioner
Mike Causey is here to answer your text,
questions about insurance and things.
This person is asking if a tree falls
on my house due to wind or rain.
Can the insurance company deny payment
because it was too close to my house?
That that depends on those.
I would encourage the consumer to
contact me or contact our office.
We have a consumer division
with people on the phones,
Monday through Friday, eight to five.
They help consumers everyday,
gets these claims,
disputes settled and resolved.
And that's what we'll do here, alright.
And what we'll do is we're going to put
your contact information in our
web story so that people will
have that easily, all right.
So this next question is,
I purchased a new home owners.
Policy for my mobile home.
Today I asked about flood insurance
and was told I couldn't purchase
it because in the age of my
home is there another option?
One option if you if you purchase a
new mobile home on a new mobile home.
Those policies do have flood insurance
automatically covered. There.
They would again I would refer this
consumer to our office to let us
check into it to see if there is a
way of flood insurance is handled
federalista federal program through FEMA.
The Federal Flood insurance program.
But we can work with them and find out.
Can you argue the price of insurance
with the company when they want
to pay out some kind of claim?
Can you negotiate that?
Certainly, and I would again ask you
to contact the Department of Insurance.
We have consumer folks that will
help and they will talk with the
insurance company and they'll
get both sides and try to get a.
Resolution that that both sides
can agree with. I know when I had
my roof done because of hail damage,
the first people that they sent
out and assessed it assessed
it at a certain amount and I
thought to myself, you know what?
I don't think that that is correct.
And I asked for a second opinion
to come out and they said that
that was pretty standard.
That's right,
so it's so sometimes it's just a matter
of asking and the words that they
say is no right. I always get a second
opinion. OK, so.
And I think sometimes as a consumer,
you don't think that you
have the power to do that,
but you do have the power to do that.
And if they do say no,
then you can contact Mike
Causey's office and see if
they can step in and help out.
This person is asking what
if your insurance tells you that
you cannot get flood insurance
because you're not in a flood zone?
Well, what they're referring to there is
the federal and the Federal Flood Insurance
program does have certain zones. Now.
We are working with the insurance industry.
We've already approved private.
Flood insurance policies for North
Carolina were just waiting on the
insurance industry to issue the policies,
offer the policies and set the rates,
and we hope that will happen
within the next year or two, but.
Private flood insurance would be
the only option if the federal
program would not accept you.
So this
person is asking why is there not a
discount for retirees with low mileage.
And really, I guess what my thing is
with that kind of question is when you
call for a quote on your insurance,
you can ask for is there something
for people who only travel 50 miles
from their home? Or only you know,
use their car X amount in a year?
What kinds of things would you
tell consumers to? Ask about,
I'll just again,
I'd say call your insurance agent.
They can certainly call us at
the Department of Insurance,
but different companies offer
discounts and generally.
Seniors are in the lowest category.
Generally there is something you
can contact our office or consumer
folks will go over it with you,
but the easy way would be to
call your insurance agent and
get an answer or shop around.
Look at different companies
and you'll be surprised at the
difference between companies.
Shop around consumers need to know exactly
what they are covered for because you
can go to another company and they can
cut that rate in half, but it may not
be the same coverage.
That's a good point.
You want to make sure that you
you don't have minimum limits.
You want your as high limits
as you can afford and make sure
that if you've got a hundred
$300,000 limit policy that
that's what they're quoting.
Right, OK, thank you so much for
your time and your expertise.
We appreciate it.
We're going to put all of the
information in the two wants
to know section so that it will
be an easy resource for you.