Politics And Current Events

[faftorial]

Insurance has sky rocketed in parts of FL and rightly so with the recent weather events there.

[JC2]

Insurance is such a scam at this point.

Instead of paying for ~50% of tv commercials, they should use that money to help people they claim to care about as opposed to fighting tooth-and-nail to pay for any of their coverage.

It's even worse that most kinds are government mandated without any government regulations.

[JC2]

Ah crap, I just posted in the politics thread.

[Orlando Penguin]

Insurance has sky rocketed in parts of FL and rightly so with the recent weather events there.

Oh it's been a freakin joke here. What's worse is that there are a number of companies who either refuse to do business here or they're working on pulling their business out of here. Last year, I got a notice from my insurance company saying they were dropping my coverage when it was up for renewal in April of 23. So I went thru the process of finding someone else and then a month later, they magically came back and said that I was back in. They haven't threatened anything since. However, the number I'm paying now is easily $2000 more than what I was paying just 5 years ago. Of course, if I make a claim, it'll take them forever to do anything about it. Gotta love insurance -- they'll gladly take your money but make you jump through infinite hoops to get any out of them. Oh yeah, and car insurance isn't getting much better. I've had my car 7 years and haven't had one claim on it. You think my rates have plateaued? Not even close. Depending on what happens over the next month or so with job prospects, I might be shopping for a new car insurer.

[count2infinity]

Our neighbors got a message from their insurance company that they have x months (don’t recall how many) to replace their roof or they’d either be dropped or their price would go up. The reason for the note was due to damage being seen on the roof from an aerial photo.

They just had their roof replaced 5 years ago so they called them to explain that. Rather than drop it, the insurance company sent an inspector to examine the area they saw on the photo.

A complete crock.

[NTP66]

What insurance company is that? I'd like to avoid them.

[count2infinity]

I think they said it was Allstate or State Farm. It had state in it.

[Gaucho]

Makes sense.

[King Colby]

Wow. That's a joke

[DigitalGypsy66]

From a satellite photo? Wow, that's ridiculous.

And although it's not homeowner's insurance, trying to collect from my Dad's life insurance policy has been something else.

First of all, the beneficiaries were his parents - born in 1910 and 1914. Long dead, so I had to get death certs from two different states. Now they are demanding it go to my father's estate - which never happened, because my mother died a month later. So the estate is in my mother's name, so we have to send them their will (again). All for probably a $5000 policy his parents opened in 1950 or so.

[MWB]

Our neighbors got a message from their insurance company that they have x months (don’t recall how many) to replace their roof or they’d either be dropped or their price would go up. The reason for the note was due to damage being seen on the roof from an aerial photo.

They just had their roof replaced 5 years ago so they called them to explain that. Rather than drop it, the insurance company sent an inspector to examine the area they saw on the photo.

A complete crock.

It seems strange that an insurance company is allowed to inspect your property without consent like that (assuming they didn’t know about it). I guess I’ve never read my home insurance stuff too closely, but is that a normal thing?

[NTP66]

This is the second time I've seen a story about an insurance company telling a homeowner to replace the roof or be dropped in the last week. First time was on Reddit.

[count2infinity]

I had never heard of it before… I think this was about a month or so ago.

And they didn’t come onto the property without consent. The owners didn’t want coverage dropped and didn’t want to have to replace a perfectly good roof, so they allowed the inspector to come do their thing.

[MWB]

I guess it's not really an inspection, but taking an aerial photo without request or notification and using that as means to press a customer to get a new roof seems very shady.

[NTP66]

At the very least, that would prompt me to look for a new insurer immediately.

[tifosi77]

Taking an aerial photo without request.........???? Insurance companies have been using tools like Google Earth for 10+ years. To me, that's not really shady. Sound? Useful? Effective? I question all of those aspects of the practice. But it isn't shady.

What is shady to me is operating a business model in which consumers are required to purchase your product/service, vending consumers that product/service for x number of years, and then just leaving, while at the same time no new alternative companies step into the void.

The same thing is going on in California with fire insurance. Both of the 'State' companies have ceased underwriting new policies, even as they accept renewals; State Farm is the largest insurer in the state.

[NAN]

I think we talked about it a few weeks ago in this thread. Auto insurance is going up like 25% even for perfect driving records. One of the reasons is, people who have those trackers in their cars, the insurance company is saying while you haven't been in an accident, you are going X miles an hour over speed limits, breaking hard, etc, saying you aren't a safe driver. And if you don't have one of those trackers, they say you need to get one to get a lower rate and show you are a safe driver.

Technology is both good and bad.

[MWB]

Taking an aerial photo without request.........???? Insurance companies have been using tools like Google Earth for 10+ years. To me, that's not really shady. Sound? Useful? Effective? I question all of those aspects of the practice. But it isn't shady.

Yes, using something that isn’t sound, useful, or effective as evidence to tell your customer they have to have work done or be dropped seems shady to me.

[faftorial]

Surprise, surprise:

Former president Donald Trump’s social media company said Monday it lost more than $58 million last year, sending its stock plunging roughly 25 percent only days after a highflying public debut valued it at more than $8 billion.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... a-results/

[tifosi77]

On the company’s first day of public trading last week, Truth Social’s website saw its highest-traffic day of the month, with roughly 277,000 U.S. visitors, the estimates show.

That is a small fraction of most online platforms: On the same day, the discussion-board service Reddit saw more than 32 million U.S. visitors, the estimates show. Reddit, which recently went public and is trading at a similar stock price as Trump Media, generated $800 million in revenue last year, or more than 200 times Trump Media’s 2023 revenue.

And as was noted here recently, Reddit has never turned a profit in nearly 20 contiguous years of operation.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Israeli airstrike kills 7 World Central Kitchen staffers near Gaza. Enough already Bibi, you dim NTP66.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/worl ... -gaza.html

[tifosi77]

Is there a better metaphor for Netanyahu than bombing food trucks

[count2infinity]

Now Hamas is using food trucks as hideouts, those sick sons of dodints...

[NTP66]

[dodint]

TIL who John Foster Dulles was.