Heat, air and homeowner's insurance

[sarahperdue]

Hi Everyone,

 

Have any of you who do not have central heat/air had trouble getting homeowner's insurance? 

 

I'm planning to do three through the wall heat pump/air conditioners in the country house, but an agent just told me that "most insurers will not insure a house that does not have central hvac.

 

Sarah 

 

[wayupnorth]

I do know around here, those who heat exclusively with wood have had trouble with getting homeowners insurance because of numerous fires .

 

[pulltostart]

Sarah,

That seems odd.  I've never heard about that one.

 

Who were you dealing with?

 

lawrence

 

 

 

[ea56]

I’ve never heard of such a thing. We don’t have central HVAC and have never had any problems securing insurance. I’d check with another agent.

Eddie

 

[jamiel]

Heating with wood was a disqualifier for Auto Club Group in Michigan, as I recall.

 

[sudsmaster]

 

 

Here's my 2 cents:

 

You might want to shop around for an insurer who doesn't care if the heat/cool is central or distributed as you describe.

 

Here in the SF Bay Area, most homes I've seen don't have central air. At most they have central heating, but even that is dependent upon the year the home was built. My place has central heating, but I think it was added to this 1941 home sometime in the 60's or later. I purchased a stand-alone air conditioner about 15 years ago, but I haven't run it once this year, even though the weather this year has been warmer than usual.

 

But, you're in Alabama, where it can get pretty warm. Even so, I don't see why your individual room approach wouldn't work. Being me, I'd probably contact individual insurance companies to see what their policies require.

 

[jamiel]

exactly---that sounds like an exclusion that is very company-specific and market-share specific. Homeowners' has a lot of individual classifications that can impact rating and underwriting...I'd think ALFA would be slightly more lenient. One thing which is interesting is using proximity of fire hydrant as a proxy for fire response time. Essentially the companies take a standard rate (which may well include things like "no wood heat" or "no over-25 year old asphalt roofs" and add multipliers (out to the fourth decimal point in my experience) for each of their rating conditions.

So you end up with enormous formulae (with factors esoteric and not-so-esoteric) and a final rate is established, then discounts are deducted (things like if you also have auto insurance with the company, whether you have autopay set up, etc etc etc which impact retention) and out the back end comes the rate.

 

[sarahperdue]

The jury is still out

We use an independent insurance broker, and she told us about the air conditioner thing. I've searched and gotten some similar results on the web. I have a friend who is an HVAC contractor/tech college instructor who says he's heard the same thing.

 

I have another friend in the insurance business who is looking into it for me. I'll probably make some phone calls as well. 

 

Mini split systems seem to have more attractive options for interior air handlers now that when I looked a couple of years ago. Floor air handlers are available that would solve both my resistance to having tubing installed on the exterior of my home and ugly air handlers high on the inside wall.

 

Now that this issue has come up, my faithful master carpenter has also expressed support for mini split systems.

 

I suppose I need to start a new thread--mini splits vs through the wall ac/heat pumps. Sigh.

 

My brain is tired.

Sarah