Changing Times in Real Estate: Insuring your dream home!

Ken Follis

Compass Real Estate

Imagine the excitement of finding your perfect home in our wonderful community. Our offer has been accepted, and we will now start the process of our inspections, inspecting title and working with our lender for all the loan requirements. All good!

There is another area that most of us used to just assume would be taken care of with one phone call to our favorite agent, home insurance. It can be a much larger monthly and annual obligation than we were anticipating. We have seen insurance premiums doubled, even tripled on some properties for our area. How could that be? Inflation is not that high.

There is definitely a combination of reasons for the raised premiums. The one we all think of initially is the price gouging of the insurance companies. While that may be happening to some extent, there are other more defined factors to consider.

Our area is considered a high fire risk area. That is not a secret. It is just a fact. As such, a lot of insurance companies are simply not insuring homes in our area. Other companies may be raising rates very high to absorb the extra risk associated with the added risk.

As a last resort, some companies will be able to offer coverage through the California Fair Plan to cover the fire risk insurance, and another policy for your contents. That is an available, but expensive last resort that several homes have had to use.

While there does not seem to be an immediate solution to the high insurance rates, there are things we can do as homeowners to mitigate the fire risk for our properties.

One such action has started as inspections are required on home transfers for any home that is in a high fire risk area. The inspections are to ensure the home has the required clear area around any property improvement and that trees, shrubs and weeds or wild grass are trimmed adequately so as to not create more fuel for a fire.

When you are dealing with a local real estate professional, they will be well aware of the added fire risk of our area, and will most likely have contacts to provide for the companies most likely to be able to help you. Also, they will prepare you for the potential of the added cost of the policy, so you will not be so surprised when that cost comes up.

All of us at Ken Follis and Sharon Robinson Group are local real estate professionals. We have a list of service providers for insurance as well as other areas of expertise. If you are searching for a home or own a home and your insurance rates have gone well above your tolerance threshold, we may have a referral for a better option.

In either scenario, give us a call, and we will give you the information we do have to prepare you for the potential rate for your renewal or home purchase, Ken Follis at 760-803-6235, [email protected] or Sharon Robinson at 949-295-1161, [email protected]. Our website is Kenfollisandsharonrobinsongroup.com. We look forward to hearing from you!