Report: Home insurer uses solar panels as justification to revoke coverage – IOTW Report

Report: Home insurer uses solar panels as justification to revoke coverage

American Thinker:
By Olivia Murray

After two decades spent as loyal customers to Liberty Mutual, a California couple recently discovered that the insurer had decided to cut ties, sending Janice and Anthony Coleman a “non-renewal” letter when solar panels on the roof were mistaken as moss, mildew, and algae growth. Here’s the story, from a report via Yahoo News:

Janice and Anthony Coleman, longtime homeowners in Fairfield, California, were shocked when Liberty Mutual, their home insurance provider of 20 years, sent a non-renewal notice. The reason? An aerial photograph from space, supposedly showing the roof, was used as justification.

Liberty Mutual claimed the roof had moss, mildew and algae growth, but the Colemans insist the alleged damage was simply their solar panels.

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17 Comments on Report: Home insurer uses solar panels as justification to revoke coverage

  1. Two can play that game. They want to drop customers on flimsy reasons, customers can drop them too or simply not consider them in the first place. I don’t use them, but right about now I have no inclination to ever use them.
    So I guess I’ll just call it Liberty Biberty Mutual Fuckery

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  2. My experience with Liberty is they require absolutely prompt payment on that premium but if you have a loss, well then there that’s going to take some figuring out, some cogitating, thinking, considering, you know several -strike that- numerous months to pay. Not a fan.

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  3. In GA, my insurance agent told me that insurers were rejecting any new business if the home had a roof that was 15 years old or older. If I wanted to change insurers, I would have to have a new roof installed before competitors would even consider taking my money. I’m grandfathered in with my existing company for now and despite large premium increases the last couple of years, the premiums from competitors weren’t low enough to warrant switching (they all increased greatly as well). Like everything else these days, it’s a rigged game where “the house” always wins.

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  4. After watching the neighbor have endless trouble, awful wires hanging, extra smart meter, and holes in the roof…we decided no way. Instead, painted the house a lighter color, spray urethane foam under the entire roof, seal all the terrible ‘vents’, and then replace the ancient AC unit with an oversized (5 ton) high efficiency variable speed unit. Summer power bill dropped from $450 to $220.

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  5. A bald good-looking guy walks into a bar and hollers, “OK LADYS” and while rubbing his head with his hand asks, “Do any of you know what this is?” One gal pipes-up and answers, “Yeah, it’s a bald head” to which the guy retorts, “No, it’s a solar panel for a sex machine.”

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  6. We know a young couple who had to get out of Portland. Sold their house for less than market value, leaving them with very little equity. Desperate, they found a fixer-upper they could move into until they were able to save enough money to make repairs. Uh, not so fast. They can’t get a loan on a house with a roof over 15 years old. Why bother investing in a 50 year roof?

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  7. What a ploy by politicians and insurance companies alike—

    Force homeowners into re-roofing their homes sooner than needed, (under threat of insurance cancellation). That, in return, will require a hell-of-a-lot of roofers, which the illegals will be more than happy to accommodate, for a tidy sum of course.

    3
  8. My sister bought her new house in Cali in 2021. She was paying about $700/year in homeowners insurance. The company cancelled because they were pulling out of Cali. Her ins. broker found her the cheapest policy he could at $2500. A year later that company left Cali. Now her policy is $5,000/year. The state has a plan in case you can’t get insurance. She checked that. It was $20,000. It may get so expensive she has to sell the house.

    When she bought she had to pay an extra $35K for solar. That’s not solar on her roof, but it will supposedly go toward building a big solar plant somewhere, someday. Of course money is a fungible asset so it really pays for illegal alien healthcare. Then she had to get a tankless water heater. The unit is about $2500 and so is the install. All this to save about $200/year. We are in our 60’s, it will never amortize.

    There’s a mountain community not far from where she lives. Nobody will write policies there. Period. Consequently, you can’t get a mortgage and if you have a mortgage with no insurance you are in violation of the contract. People can only sell their houses to cash buyers who are willing to forgo insurance. Houses that were $450-$500K in 2019 are lucky to sell for $225K now.

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  9. Our friends were served a notice from their insurer that their coverage would be cancelled in 30 days due to a tree limb touching their roof. There was no such limb.

    The insurer got the info from a company that flies drones over neighborhoods and sells the footage to insurance companies.

    They got the insurer to cancel the cancellation but her’s the weird part: Shortly after, a realtor approached them and offered to buy their house for a very attractive price. They didn’t bite. The guy would have torn down their house and built a much larger one on the site to sell in the millions. The neighborhood has become a hotspot for uberlux homes and multiacre lots are selling for $200,000 – $300,00 per acre.

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