California Forest Fires change the way we look at Insurance

This is episode number 309 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us. for another live episode here in the studio. Got a full house tonight, Kev.

We sure do. We sure do, man. It's gonna be a fun night.

Yeah, yeah.

Listen, we wanted to— the California fires is just nuts.

Oh, dude.

And so we— oh, look at that. We wanted to put together a special episode to kind of COVID some of this. And one of the big issues that's coming up with this is the insurance issue.

Yeah.

And so we brought in some guys that we know and that we trust to help guide us in informing us as to what's going on. But before we do that, one, we got, you know, we're gonna be doing some reviews. We got some cool reviews coming up.

Yeah, we do.

We got a Westinghouse generator that we're gonna be reviewing. We got the Shark AI vacuum cleaner that we're gonna be reviewing. And then this Thursday, Uh, we're gonna be doing a live episode from Moonshine Deck with Annette. Um, and I think these guys are actually gonna be there with us. Yeah.

Yes, sir.

Okay, sweet. Um, and while we're there, I mean, just to get you guys in the door, uh, if you guys remember our episode last week with Steve, the CEO of Crazy Clean, we're actually gonna be giving away a couple of these live.

That's right.

Uh, if, if you don't know what this is, I mean, just find the ads. I mean, like, it's crazy what these things can do. Kevin and I have both been using 'em in our house. They're fantastic products. 10-year warranty will keep your toilet clean without having to clean it.

It's awesome.

So, and they didn't even pay for that.

No.

So, but we do have sponsors for tonight.

We do. We absolutely do. And the first one we're gonna talk about is True Texas Solar.

True Texas Solar, man. Listen, like these, these guys, what I love about these guys is how they are trying to change the industry to be an ethical industry.

Yeah.

Because I think people hear solar and they think scam.

Sure.

You know, and now they've added roofing to the lineup. And so like you can, you know, stern to— how's that say? What's the saying? Stem to stern.

Oh, I've got no idea.

Fantastic.

You're using terminology I've never heard before. Stem to stern. I don't know. This sounds like a funny—

That is, that's the way it goes.

Okay.

So one of the problems that you have with solar sometimes is that the roof, you know, gets penetrated and then you can have leaks and different things like that. And so like, but if you have a company that already knows how to address the roof and the solar at the same time, you're not gonna have those problems.

Yeah.

But if you are looking for a company that's gonna encompass all of your energy needs and potentially even make you energy independent, now you're not gonna be able to get off the grid.

No, you still gotta be there.

You gotta be on the grid. But if you want a generator, That's, you know, back, you know, not backfeeding, but that is supplying power to your whole home battery that is also being charged by your solar panels. They can have a whole energy system in place for your home so that when things go down, and they're gonna go down.

They are.

You have a plan in place. Yeah.

And the other thing to think about here is that one of the things that's not fixed in life is how much you pay for your energy.

Right.

It's gonna go up like everything else. I mean, goodness gracious, you just picked up a grocery order on the way to the show today. Like, I don't even wanna know what, how much that cost because it's just—

It took 10 years off my life. Yeah.

I know it did, man, because everything is going up. Well, when you buy a solar system, it locks you into the price that you're gonna pay.

Right.

And, and you're, you're only paying for the system at that point because if you're, if you're getting 100% of your power supplied buy a solar system and through, you know, generator, all that kind of stuff, then you don't have to get it from the grid.

Right.

You don't have to buy it from the grid. Um, and so because of that, your energy costs, you know, you can budget. It's gonna be this much money every single month for the next 20 years. And then once you pay for that thing, you'll never have to pay for it again.

Right.

I mean, you may have to update some panels here and there, but they can take care of all of that for you. Give them a call. The best way to get them is at 936-286-8325. You can also visit them on their website, truthtexasolar.com, fill out a form, and they will get back with you.

That's right. And this episode is also brought to you by Lone Star Appliance Repair. Listen, if your appliances are in the post-apocalypse of the holidays fatigue—

Still there.

Yeah. Which, because it's like the first time you've turned them on in like 9 months.

Sure.

You know, maybe they need a, maybe they need a good scrubbing.

They probably do. They probably do because they do maintenance. They do maintenance as well as repairs.

That's right.

Yeah.

So, I mean, or maybe like you just, you just abuse the ever-living hell out of them and they need, they need some love and care.

Yeah.

So like appliances are the lifeblood of your home. Like this is how your family eats. This is how your family preserves their food. This is how you make your dishes sanitary so that you don't get horrendous diseases.

That, that is the most common problem. But I will say this, um, if you have little boys like you and I do, uh-huh, yeah, the clothes that go through that washing machine—

Listen, most of them aren't even dirty. No, well, really? It's like you send them to get laundry, they just pull stuff off the hangers.

That's true, that's true.

Look, I got it, I made a full load for you.

Yeah, right.

No, that's true.

It's like, and I'm, I'm kind of wondering, like, You— I just did laundry yesterday. Why do you have no more clothes? Yeah, you know, it just is what it is.

And then he's naked and he doesn't care.

No, he didn't care. None. Nope, not at all. In fact, I was, uh, I went to, uh, tell my son good, good night because we were leaving. I was leaving to come over here, uh, and, um, he's sitting naked in the, uh, middle of the floor, like, reading a book.

Awesome.

And I was like, dude, Just as God intended. Yeah, I was like, you do know that like your shower is running for you to get into. He's like, oh yeah, I guess it is. And he's like, can I just finish this page? I was like, finish the page, bud.

Finish the page.

It's just the way it goes.

In all your naked glory.

That's exactly right. Well, listen, seriously, Lone Star Appliance Repair, great, great company. I actually was able to very easily refer them to a friend today who had a sensor go out on one of their appliances. And it was super easy for me to say, hey, contact Lone Star Appliance Repair. It's 936-647-2364. Call them, text them, or get on their website as well and tell them you heard them at the Homeowner Show.

That's right.

That's right.

Yep. And they'll be out there with us Thursday night as well.

Yeah.

So definitely Sarah will be wrangling guests for us as per usual.

Yeah.

That's part of the reason we love them. So Before we get into everything, let's, let's go ahead and introduce everybody. Obviously, I'm Craig and you're Kevin. Yeah. Um, who, who we got with us tonight? Let's, let's start over here.

Yeah. Name's, uh, Seth Cox with, uh, Vinco Insurance Group. We're a local independent agency, uh, right here in Montgomery County. We service the whole state of Texas for all your insurance needs.

All right.

Excellent.

And your vest game is on point.

Thank you. Thank you.

I tried hard.

All right.

What do we got over here?

What's up, gentlemen? Chris McDaniel with Summit Insurance Brokerage. Uh, been in the business, uh, been in the insurance business for about 15 years. Uh, we're commercial agency in the Woodlands, Conroe area. And yeah, glad to be on the show with you.

Awesome. Thank you guys. But before we get real serious, I wanted to ask if, and I don't think I even talked to Kev about this, have any of you guys heard about the Enron egg?

The Enron egg? No.

Enron egg? No?

No.

So this went viral, I think early last week. I mean, we're in the Houston area. You guys have clearly heard of Enron.

Oh, of course.

Right? I just thought of what you're talking about.

Oh, you know about this?

Yes.

Okay, so tell me.

So hang on, refresh my memory a little bit, 'cause I saw like a small clip of it.

Okay.

And it's like a reactor, right? Like it's a, not a, go ahead.

Yeah, you're on the right track. Yeah. So—

It's wild.

Oh, well, so here's what I need everybody to know right off the bat. It's fake. The whole thing is fake.

Are you sure?

It is a parody.

Okay.

Right?

We'll see.

Like, we know, we know that it is.

Okay.

Like, for certain it is. But like this guy, let me back up a little bit. I don't remember the guy's name, but there is a parody artist that bought enron.com, and I think he was able to buy it for like $375.

Oh my goodness.

And so he bought enron.com, and then he began to make social media accounts through that domain name for enron.com.

As he should have.

As he absolutely should have. And then was able to get ahold of their logo.

Oh.

And proceeded to make a video announcing the comeback of Enron.

Oh my goodness.

And that the comeback of Enron is going to be this Enron Egg, which is going to be the first micro nuclear reactor for homeowners.

Oh, wow.

And like, it is, It is such a parody on the way that Apple used to introduce products.

Oh, man.

And he's got this egg with the E on it up on the stage. And he's like, guys, this is going to be such an amazing, world-changing thing because this egg can power your entire home. And not only can it power your entire home, but when disasters happen, we can drop these eggs into those places and begin to power these homes. And it looks Legit.

So he spent some money on this. Like, he, he did.

I don't know that he spent that much.

Okay.

I don't know that he spent that much, but it looks legit.

Okay.

Because it's, it's pretty much like black background and then it's like ceramic egg on the stage with him. And then he's dressed up like some Steve Jobs looking character. And he's just telling everybody how great this product's gonna be. And like, people bought it.

Oh, sure.

for a long time. And like, I've seen people still now sharing it online being like, have you guys seen that Enron's coming back?

There was that company, uh, Theranos, that, uh, that did something similar with that, um, where the, uh, the lady had, uh, created a way to test your blood.

Oh yeah.

And then she had fooled like, like upwards of like, like got valued at like a billion dollars.

Oh my goodness.

Yes, because then, yeah, she had like investors. I remember that.

It's like a starter pack. You just, you Put on the black shirt and speak in a like a robot voice.

Oh my!

And then name your company something that sounds like a robot, and then when you're good, people will buy it.

I remember that thing. I think they made a movie about her. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was like a huge scam. But like, but like that almost almost as big as Enron. Almost as big as Enron. But like she was like, but she was trying to sell it as like a legit thing.

Yeah.

This guy, I mean, like it like it was always intended to be parody. But if people buy it, that's their problem, as far as I'm concerned. But I literally saw people like, oh, hell no. I ain't buying nothing from Enron.

I mean, seriously. What world would someone go, Enron produced it? I'm in.

Right.

You know? Like, seriously. Whatever. Anyway.

Uh, so anyway, that was my big, uh... That was my big social media thing from the week.

That sounds fun.

I can't believe you didn't send that to me. Like, come on, man.

I think I did.

You may have just missed it.

I think I did. Anyway.

I'm too busy being excited that Mike McCarthy got fired today.

So. Who's that?

Exactly. Cowboys head coach. He's gone.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Really? They're just not gonna like all blame it on Dak?

Well, that's what I'm gonna do, but, but that's—

He's a sacrificial lamb? Is that what's going on?

No, he's not a sacrificial lamb. He dug his own grave.

All right.

But Mike McCarthy, he, he, he's just a perpetual problem.

So, yeah, I also, I also like in football news because I don't get to espouse sports knowledge all that much. I am very ecstatic to be 100 and completely percent right about Texas.

Oh, well, I called it. Yeah, but, but they— I will say this. They, they definitely showed better than what Expect probably what you expected.

Against Ohio?

No. Well, yeah, for sure against Ohio State.

And that's kind of what I expected.

But you didn't think they would get that far?

No, I thought— no, based off who they played, that's exactly how far I thought they would get.

Okay.

Like, even though they won the previous game, I didn't think that other team was anything.

Well, they almost lost against Arizona State.

Well, like, look, they lost against Arizona State, And the Arizona State's— what is it, their quarterback?

Mm-hmm.

Got the offensive MVP of the game.

No, that was their running back.

Was it the running back?

Yeah. Well, he got— yeah, he got the offensive.

Okay.

It's the first time in 26 years that's ever happened in that bowl.

I mean, I think it's the first time it's ever happened. That's really all you needed to take away from that game. The losing team. The losing team gets the MVP, the offensive MVP.

Right.

I mean, that's all you really needed to know.

Sure.

I mean, like, that was the thing. And like, my whole thing— I mean, I'm sorry if you guys are Texas fans, Um, no, I'm waiting for, uh, waiting for the, uh, NCAA basketball tournament where I can root for my Houston Cougars.

There you go.

Okay.

Yeah, it's gonna happen. Yeah. Well, you know, Craig's an Aggie, so yeah.

But look, I, I, I look, I try and keep that out of it. Like if they, like, I'm, I'm happy to root for like a Texas team, but like when everyone was like, oh, they're gonna go all the way. I'm like, guys, they haven't played anybody.

Yeah.

They didn't play anybody.

No.

Other than A&M and Georgia. And both times they played Georgia, They lost.

Yeah.

And it was like, I don't understand the hype.

Like, yeah, I mean, you know, they had it. They had some decent wins, but not, not anything big.

And then Georgia loses to Notre Dame, which nobody thought Notre Dame was that good.

No, I think Notre Dame surprised some people. And I'm— look, I'll tell you straight up, I would wish nothing more in life than Notre Dame to lose every game they've ever played. And from now on, for them to lose every game they could play in the future. But, um...

What's your beef with Notre Dame? You like anti-Catholic?

Well, maybe. But beyond that, uh... Beyond that, uh, no, I just don't like the fact that they're not in a conference and that they get to survive without being in a conference. And not only that, they get, like— it's just this privilege that they've got that I hate.

There's big talk about them getting into a conference.

Yeah, I mean, it won't happen. They don't have to.

They have no incentive.

They have no incentive to. They don't have to. They've basically got, like, privilege and rights to not get in.

Sure.

It's all precedent. They got precedent to not be in one and they're not going to get in one. It pisses me off.

Yeah. So anyway.

Yeah.

Are y'all more strength of schedule or do y'all think the playoffs should come, come into play a little bit more?

I mean, for— I don't, I don't care about strength of schedule. Like, I'm, I'm more interested in like equalizing the conferences. so that those conference championships actually mean something. I think that would make— I would think that— I think that would make the entire NCAA way more fun. Yeah.

Well, the thing that would— the thing that it would do is it would take the, the ambiguity of the voting out.

Right.

Which is what I think needs to happen. Forget strength of schedule, forget conference championships for a moment, and let's just go— if we could figure out a way to do a little bit equalization like you were talking about, which will never happen. But if you could, there's too much money in it. There's just too much money in it.

Yeah, there's too big of brand names out there.

That and, you know, the bowls and the whole thing, there's too much money in it. But if you could figure out a way to equalize it, make the conference championships actually matter, then the voting system goes away, which is completely biased. It's the only reason Texas is where they were to begin with. So, you know, and honestly, had Alabama won one more game, they would have— if Alabama would have beat OU, they would have been in.

Right.

So there's, there's like these little things. I mean, OU was terrible this year.

Yeah.

And Alabama lost to them. So like, there's little things here and there that could, that could shift. Um, and they also need to go to 16 games instead of 12. It's so stupid.

Are you talking about the playoffs?

Yes. There's so many things that need to change.

Yeah, but it's better. It's just hard. It's way better. 16 games would be really hard.

It happens in D2 and D3 every single year, and it has for years and years and years. So they figure it out. These little bitty schools who don't have any money, they figure out how to do a 16-game, uh, it's all about money.

Yeah, but then 100%— I know, I know it's about money. What I'm, what I'm thinking is like for the D2 schools, they don't have to worry about televised games.

No, but that doesn't matter. What?

No, it does, because like there's a contract. Well, that's where a lot of the money comes from. It's all money, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, no, like the, the networks don't want that for sure.

No, of course they don't, especially the SEC Network. You got the Longhorn Network, you got all these little micro networks that are making beaucoup of money off of this stuff. They're, they're never going to make it work the way it should.

Well, I mean, it, I mean, it could potentially change if like the networks see a windfall after this year from all the playoff games.

Well, I mean, it's, it's possible. It's possible because of that. But I, I still think that there's still, I don't, I don't think there's enough of a windfall. I mean, if some, like, if you can have a scenario where a, a, a a network like Bally Sports can come in and basically make every person in the DFW area subscribe to Bally Sports because they will not get on a major network system.

What's Bally Sports?

Bally Sports is, is, it's the network that, that hosts the Rangers and other, and other sports events as well. But like during, during the year, 2023, when the Rangers won the World Series, none of their fans could get them on Comcast or Dish or DirecTV or any of these, you know, AT&T U-verse. None of those carried Bally Sports because, and even including like YouTube TV and Fubo and all these different places, like they wouldn't carry Bally because Bally was too expensive. So you had to purchase a Bally subscription just to watch.

Uh-huh.

a baseball game. Like, this is the problem that we're in. And it's, it's, it's going to— I don't know what's going to have to change in order for it to be different because the subscription life is in.

Yeah.

And it's just, it changes everything.

So, I mean, listen, everybody could just follow my philosophy. Just stop caring about sports. Well, stop watching it.

That's about what's going to happen in college sports if they don't get contracts in here with this NIL and the portal stuff and change the portal date to like after the bowl games. make them play through the bowl or they don't get their contract money. Like, unless some of these things don't change, like, nobody's going to care about college football because it's a subpar professional sport at that point.

Well, I mean, it already is that. It is. Yeah.

All right. So I have— I don't know if you think I have opinions, but I have a comment.

Well, listen, I'll advocate for just, you know, you take your time back.

Well, But it's not a bad idea. Not just the time, it's frustration too, you know? It's like these, you know, you put your heart into stuff.

Yeah. So listen, we've had a major, I mean, like what they're calling the most expensive natural disaster in American history is these California fires now. And one of our former guests, David, from—

Applebaum.

Yeah, David Applebaum, who actually is an Aggie. Oh, is he? Yeah, he went to A&M. I didn't realize that. Resided in the Palisades, lost his entire house.

Even his motorcycle.

Yeah, I mean—

And that motorcycle, seeing that motorcycle standing there, nothing left but a frame, it was sad. Did you see the picture?

I did, yeah.

Oh, it just broke my heart, man.

Yeah, so we've been following that and he does have a, we should put up in the show notes later on the link to his support page. to help him rebuild his house. But one of the major issues that's coming up that a lot of people are talking about is insurance.

Mm-hmm.

And I think both of y'all's industries are probably gonna be affected by this, not necessarily directly to y'all, but like the insurance industry. And one, I mean, like, let's just be honest, like the insurance industry has kind of been on the hot seat, not in like necessarily a bad way, but like in some ways it has. I mean, you have the UnitedHealth CEO getting assassinated in the street. I mean, that's, that's an insurance company right there. I mean, like, United, does it do anything other than health?

As far as I know, they— I think it's just health insurance.

Just health insurance.

I think so too.

You know, and, and there was like this weird cultural thing happening where like people were like, well, killing's bad, but like that guy, and then he was a jerk. Yeah. And like, people were like, no. And like, there was also like these, these women out there that like that that guy's hot, the one that assassinated the guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, which was like a weird thing, man. Like, they were like—

weird flex.

I mean, like, I'm not saying the guy's ugly or anything, but it was like a weird thing to be like attracted to the assassin that murdered a guy who was a family guy in cold blood in the middle of the street. So we have that going on. And so like, but, and I think a lot of people's perception that even though that United only does health insurance, that kind of gets wrapped in this whole insurance bubble. And now we have the, the California stuff, and there's a lot of conspiracy theories going around where these guys are like, hey, did you guys know that like the insurance companies like canceled policies like 3 months or even 3 weeks before the fire

started? What the hell? And, you know, and I, I think a lot of people want to, want to hear like, what the hell?

Yeah.

You know, I'm an expert on the conspiracy theories.

Okay, cool.

You're in good company then.

That's right. Craig does like himself a good conspiracy theory.

I do like me a good conspiracy theory.

Not as much as his mom, but, uh, but he does.

I learned it somewhere.

Yeah, I see a second podcast channel coming.

Okay. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Well, I mean, let me ask you guys this. As you guys were watching the news or hearing about this, what was, what was going through y'all's head?

It's just, you know, it's a sad situation. And one of the things that I first thought of is, number one, you know, there's, you know, what, hundreds of thousands of people without homes that may or may not have insurance. And like, to be honest, we don't really know what the situation is there because a lot of these carriers moved out, you know, 3 months ago, but they've been moving out for like the last 3 or 4 years. Yeah.

years.

And the situation there is that these carriers are moving out and California is assuming those insurance policies through their California Fair Plan. We have something similar to that with Texas Fair Plan that we do a lot of business here in the Houston area.

Is that the plan where they cap the rates and then force the companies to exist within that framework?

They don't cap the rates, but they will assume the insurance if as a lender of last resort.

Okay.

And, and so if these carriers pull out, then California assumes all of these premiums. And so you're kind of in— you're kind of set in the debate of, you know, whether states should be, you know, providing these types of plan or maybe like tax subsidies on insurance premiums that, you know, maybe, you know, carriers will provide, you know, say instead of $3,000 premium on a home insurance, you know, if they need to raise coverage to $6,000, maybe there's, you know, subsidies on those premiums. Because, you know, what I'm looking at right now is how many of those homes are on that California State, California Fair Plan. If that's the case, I mean, you're looking at an even further catastrophic

area to that specific plan that they have. And that's kind of the only plan left that they have to go to outside of these other insurance companies.

Yeah, because it's A, too expensive not to go onto it, right?

Yeah.

And B, there's, there's a lot of insurance companies that aren't covering it without that. Am I right about that?

Yeah. The, uh, the, this, you know, 1988, um, they signed into law a, uh, a, they signed into law a, a, a piece of legislation that, uh, that if a carrier wants to increase rates, they have to go through an approval process. And if it's above 7%, they can just decline. that rate increase. Now then the carrier is, you know, whatever the carrier that is, is left to make a judgment of if they're going to do business in a certain zip code or area or even state. You know, state is kind of a large area to have.

Sure.

Yeah.

You know, here in Harris County, there's several companies that left, you know, Harris County zip codes. And so, you know, What that means is that, you know, you're kind of, you're kind of faced with this conversation of, you know, what is, you know, the state is saying, you know, this is climate change. Insurance companies may look at this as, as, you know, forest management. There could be other things that—

That was the big claim by the companies that did pull out. That's what they cited was lack of forest management.

Yeah.

That like they, they, they saw potential forest fires on the, on the horizon and said like, we've paid for this before. We don't want to pay for it again. You guys aren't doing anything to mitigate this. So rather than take it in the keister—

I mean, that's what they've done around here with insurance being completely taken away because of hurricanes.

Well, specifically like flood insurance here.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like we've not just like the, where I work, the insurance policy wasn't just the flood insurance went away. It was the entire policy went away.

Right.

We couldn't get insurance any longer. And they— and, and the problem is they said it's because of all the rate— I mean, all of the, um, claims that have happened. And we're like, we have never— we— this place has been in existence in this location since 2007, never had one claim related to a hurricane. Not one. And, and yet it gets completely denied, uh, from, you know, canceled. Not denied, canceled.

And you're talking about your workplace? It would be like commercial policy.

Commercial policy.

Yeah.

And so, but, but I'm assuming it's similar problem here where they're, you know, they're can't, they've canceled these policies because, oh, we might have a problem. So we're going to not cover it any longer. Right?

Yeah.

You should be able to get a flood policy. I'd be kind of, I'd be curious to get the information on that. But the GL coverage or the property, the property coverage is really the, the big thing. That's, that's a conversation piece with a lot of insurance carriers because of the the wind and the wind and roofs out here are becoming an issue. And that's kind of, it's also a national problem in general with profitability with these carriers. It's not just Texas, Florida, California. I mean, we saw average rates in Texas of 30% increases over the last 2, 2 and a half years. Nationwide, it's been somewhere similar. They're actually, you know, you talk to some of these major carriers, they don't like, they don't

have green areas where they're profitable in, in the US in the last like 2 or 3 years.

Yeah. I mean, so I, and honestly, I'm not sure about flood. I don't even know if we had flood insurance where we were. I don't even know. Probably did, but I have no clue. But I know our main policy, that's the one that was canceled. But I am curious about what you said there, you know, specifically with wind and roofs and those sorts of things. Do, does it matter what kind of roof, whether it's a flat roof or a metal roof or a shingle roof or anything like that?

You want to take that one?

Yeah. Um, roofs are a, a big deal right now with, with home insurance, especially in our area. Um, just kind of like you said, the, the material is huge.

Yeah.

Um, but the most important thing that I've seen right now is the age. Um, the age of your roof is, is going to determine a big factor, um, in your, in your insurance premiums. Um, we have companies right now, I mean, we get updates weekly on, you know, changes that they're making to home insurance policies moving forward. Um, and effective at renewal, like your policy's gonna be changing no matter whether you like it or not. And here's your notice that it's gonna be changing.

Hmm.

And when I say change is what they're doing is they're taking the coverage of your roof from a replacement cost policy. So they're going to— versus us giving you the money to put a new roof on in, you know, today's dollars.

Yeah.

They're going to depreciate it based off of its age and condition at the time of the loss. So with that, they're going from— I just got an email the other day that if your roof is over 6 years old, so 2019, if your roof was put on before 2019 with this specific carrier, um, your roof is no longer covered at replacement cost value.

And so, I mean, like, which, which by the way, doesn't seem unreasonable. Honestly, it's 6 years.

If your, if your roof isn't lasting more than 6 years, you got issues.

I, that's, I think that, I think that's fair. But at the same time, like, we can't, because we've had so many catastrophic events, just Like with hurricanes and, and all, you know, like, I mean, like we had a fricking tornado.

Yeah.

Go down the corridor.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, like, all these things like eventually become unprofitable for insurance companies to cover this many homes in this area. And so like 6 years doesn't seem unreasonable to me before you start depreciating the, the cost of the replacement of the roof.

Yeah. What was the, uh, what was the previous depreciation timeframe? Do you remember?

It's state— the carriers started doing this about like 5, 6 years ago. Uh, Allstate was one of them that, uh, that started placing, uh, roofs on a, uh, schedule, um, starting at year 15. Year 15 is like across the board probably.

Which seems— that seems reasonable to me. Like if you, if you put a, if you put a 20 to 25 year roof on, which is what most of them are saying, right? Then I even, even around year I, I'd say year 10 to 12, I could see something, you know, at some point going, okay, now we're starting to see some deterioration. It's been there for a little while, you know, those sorts of things. But if you, if you tell me it's a 20, 25-year roof and it's year 6, I start to see depreciation. To me, that's, that's unreasonable. To me.

It, it really depends on the area. Um, so carriers, in just in my opinion, they've used, because You know, we have a similar thing here in Texas. If they, if they're taking rate on homeowners policies or premium, they have to submit that to the state of Texas.

Yeah.

But they can change their underwriting practices. They can make it, you know, a little bit tougher on post-bind inspections. They can make their carrier platform, their calculations a little bit tougher to get through the final underwriting piece in order to get firm terms. And another part of that is the, the roof scheduling. And so if they have that already in place, that helps them mitigate the overall risk that they're taking in, in certain zip codes. And so, you know, certain carriers will have the availability to endorse the policy to get full replacement costs on a roof. You know, if it's, you know, 10, 12 years old in certain areas, even if that roof is 15, you know, even if the roof is 10 or 12 years old or

under, they might force the policy to have a That roof schedule on there. So that's kind of, you know, that's, that's some of the things that I've seen within the last couple, you know, last year or so that has helped them mitigate risk so that they're able to come back into profitability. Another key component of that is like the reinsurance costs that they've, they've seen. They had a couple of major companies, you know, lose the reinsurance within the reinsurance market go away that they had access to for the last 10, 15 years. I think some of that is coming back from what, what I've read and heard. Auto insurance markets are in profitability. That's, that's essentially what I'm hearing from, from all carriers. And

commercial markets have, have been in profitability for the last 2 or 3 years. So that is—

That, that kind of helps that they were like unoccupied for almost like a year and a half.

I mean, yeah, right.

You know, they gave away a lot of money in 2020. Yeah. You know, the And, you know, you might have saw that or not, but, uh, they did give a lot of money away. I saw it. I saw those checks going out.

Yeah.

Um, no, they also— it's, it's a business. They forecast a lot of this stuff well in advance. You know, you go from, you know, 2018 models, 2019 models, and 2020 hits, and then it completely changes almost.

You can't forecast anything.

2 or 3 different industries. They also take that money they invested into other commercial real estate. and things like that to help with their profitability. So it's, you know, commercial real estate's been, been down. And, uh, and so it's just, it's a complicated, um, industry that's, that operates on a really low profit margin.

So I wanna, I wanna stay on roofs for just a second though. Sure. Um, and, and I may have cut you off, but before we get off of that, especially for residential, cuz that, I mean, and you know, the commercial is important too. But I know a lot of our listeners are, you know, homeowners. So when it comes to roof material, what, what is the, the best bang for your buck? I mean, I mean, whenever it comes to this so that you can get a longer life out of your roof. I mean, I know that a metal roof is gonna be one of the best roofs you can get, but I know it's also gonna be 2 or 3 times as much as a shingle roof. And you've got other types of

roof material.

On replacement costs.

On replacement costs.

Yeah.

But Does that make a difference in the insurability and maybe any of that? Does it matter?

No, the material of the roof doesn't necessarily make you, make a difference. I would say if anything, having a metal roof is probably more expensive from what I've seen.

On the insurance side?

On the home insurance, yes.

Really?

And so having a metal roof is, from what I've seen, a little more expensive than, you know, having, you know, architectural—

Which is crazy because it's more expensive to buy to begin with.

Right.

You know? Yeah.

So like, if you had to, like, if you had to grade it, because we have, you know, metal and we have tile. I mean, I guess you could throw slate in there if you really wanted to.

Right.

And then shingle. Am I missing one?

Yeah. Solar.

Well, it's not a roof.

It is. You can get solar shingles.

Well, solar shingles.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, so like, if you, if you had to like, you know, like sort of grade them as to like most expensive, least expensive from the insurance perspective.

From the insurance perspective?

Yeah.

Yeah. I would, I would have metal roof up there at the top. Um, most expensive, most expensive from home insurance premiums.

I would not have guessed that.

Yeah. You wouldn't think, right? Because of how durable.

Is that because of the replacement cost?

Yes. Okay. Um, replacement costs.

So more expensive than tile?

The metal roofs, they, they look at the cosmetic damage. So there's some endorsements in there because of hail. When, when a hail hits and you have a metal roof and you have those bumps on top, you know, sometimes you're looking at full replacement costs just based on that cosmetic look, even if the structural integrity is not, uh, interesting.

And a lot of, a lot of policies are excluding the cosmetic damage from hail. Sure. For metal roofs.

Well, if it, if it's not really affecting like the integrity of the roof, I, it would truly have to— I can kind of understand that.

Yeah. It would truly have to like puncture a hole in the metal roof in order for them to—

and honestly, the hail around here is not that bad. I mean, in comparison to some places I've lived.

Yeah, no, I get it.

I get it. But I mean, seriously, in comparison, I mean, I would've said the same thing about tornadoes. I mean, even, you know, a couple of weeks ago we had some bad tornadoes around here, which is really unseasonal if nothing else. But, you know, I've lived in West Texas. I've lived in, you know, Little Rock, Arkansas, and there's some bad tornado areas. Uh, you know, you think about, you know, central Oklahoma and some of those sorts of places. Still, I, I mean, these, these insurance companies are regional in the way they do their thing, their, their estimating and their forecasting and all that stuff anyway, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The, you know, as far as, you know, what they're looking at, at least from, from what I've seen, I mean, you've probably seen something similar, you know, these city centers, Harris County, Dallas County, the only areas that they've, they haven't really changed a whole lot is like Austin and San Antonio areas. There's carriers still fairly competitive in those areas.

Oh, really? Yeah.

Okay.

But Houston—

Is there a reason why? Or I mean—

Dallas, I'm not sure. Dallas is an interesting one to me. Um, I'm thinking just because of the hail.

Yeah, from my understanding, hail over there.

And they've, they've, I mean, like that, they're pretty prominent tornado areas.

But definitely, definitely hail is, I mean, it's a big deal there. Lightning and hail. Yeah, pretty bad up there.

I mean, I would imagine Austin, San Antonio, most of those are not prone to like hurricanes. I mean, San Antonio is kind of, you know, insulated from a lot of that just being north of Mexico.

Yeah. No, I mean, you know, we're Harris County, very close to the coast, and it's a huge, like, metropolitan area. So that's, that's, that's one, that's kind of the feedback that I've gotten.

Yeah. Yeah.

Some of the, from what I've seen, and Chris has probably seen this as well, but, you know, 2, 3 years ago, you could get a 1% wind and hail deductible on a new home policy.

Yeah.

Nowadays, if you go to shop for new insurance or if you're buying a new house, you know, especially in Harris County, you're— if you can find a wind and hail deductible under 3%, you know, that's good. But the chances are if they're going to offer a 2% deductible, they're going to charge for that 2% deductible.

Right.

So going back to the roofs, you know, you have these larger wind and hail deductibles. And, you know, on a $500,000 house at 3%, you know, do the math on that. Is that really going to cover your roof? You know, you have to pay that deductible before the insurance company pays a dime.

I mean, it depends on if your cousin owns the roofing company.

Right.

I mean, look, I mean, like, I don't, I mean, I'm not saying that that's good behavior, but that happens.

Sure. And I went and bought my my nails at the hardware store.

I had a, uh, I had a client that, uh, it was after Hurricane, uh, Ike. They, uh, this is with, uh, when I was with the, uh, the big blue company.

And, uh, not to name names, right?

Yeah, the, uh, they, they, uh, they had bought, uh, roofing material, so they got paid out by, uh, the company, and, uh, their brother-in-law did the work. I think next major rainstorm, shingles are down the street.

Oh, gosh.

All, you know, big blue company paid out again.

Really?

For that same house.

Wow.

That's insane.

Brother-in-law did it again.

Oh, gosh.

They, they got paid almost, I think, 3 times on that house.

Oh my goodness.

Kudos to them for getting paid.

Well, and that's, you know, and that's where a lot of these carriers have started to make adjustments.

Well, that's, that's, yeah. I mean, I think that's the problem is like they've been, very generous, I think, over the years on a lot of these policies.

Don't check the comment section here.

Look, I mean, like, that's not gonna be the sentiment right now for sure. But like, look, there, there, at least around here, right? There is a reason that you can find, like, just driving down the road, you're gonna pass like 5 trucks that have like a roofing signage on the side of the truck.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a profitable business to be in the roofing business.

Now you have to be licensed to do it.

You know what I'm saying? So, look, and I'm not, I'm not disparaging roofing companies. I mean, good on them. Most of those, if they've been in business for any amount of time, they've probably, you know, built a good business. They're doing a good job. I'm not taking anything away from them, but there's a reason those guys have been able to grow so quickly.

Yep.

And be a suc— and most of that has been built on the backs of insurance money, you know?

For sure.

And I think that's one of the realities that's gonna be coming home very, very quickly to— and I, I think the roofing companies are gonna be the ones that get it the quickest.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, I think in personal opinion is, uh, I think the roofing companies are gonna need finance, uh, financing.

Yeah.

I think, I think they're gonna be in, you know, in getting introduced to guys like our friend David really quickly.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

We got a, we got a solution for you.

Yeah, that's right. So, so what are the, uh, what is the strategy as a homeowner? So year 7, do you start bringing 'em out and going, hey, do I need a new, new roof? Like you get people out so that you can go, hey, does it look bad enough to get a new roof at year 7? You know, like what, what are the, what are, how do you game the system? And not, not in a, not in a, a bad way, just like literally, how do I, how do you protect yourself? How do I protect myself?

You know, protect yourself is the, is the key component there. You know, you have, and tell me, tell me if you have some additional, you know, whenever you have a, a roof that has had a recent incident where there's a claim, whether that's hail, whether that's wind, You'd had a major rainstorm. Call your insurance agent, talk to them about the process, get your deductible. If you don't know your deductible right now, go look at your policy, understand what that wind hail deductible looks like. You know, is it $12,000 or $15,000? You know, get a plan together.

Know your number.

Know your number. Yeah. When you have that claim, call your insurance company, have your insurance agent go through the claim with you, get you, you know, maybe 2 or 3 roofers to go take a look at the roof. When they look on the roof, have them take photos, have them, uh, give you a weather report, and, uh, and, and then have them get in contact with that adjuster to possibly meet at the same time.

Yeah.

Um, and if the roofer isn't willing to go the distance with those conversations, if you're having to hunt them down to have those conversations with the adjuster, you got the wrong roofer.

Yep.

There's— I got, uh, I got, uh, 2 or 3 guys that, uh, that are in my orbit that have, uh, that are public adjusters. Um, you know, they do the, they, uh, they do umpire, they do, uh, they've been in the claims process before. Uh, so if they're local, they should have, they should know to do all of that stuff for you. And, uh, and so that's, that's kind of my input.

What? Yeah. I mean, to protect yourself when it comes to your roof, one, like I said, this is something that's kind of going on right now. Right. So there's not many policies out there that are automatically going to depreciate your roof after 6 years.

Mm-hmm.

Right. This is something that was just, you know, brought to our attention within the past month. Now, as a homeowner right now, is what I would recommend is pull out your policy or call your agent. If you have one and ask them, how is your roof covered? Is it replacement costs? Is it actual cash value? When is it going to go to actual cash value? Because if you have a policy that you've had for a long time, um, you know, you may be fine, you know.

Right. Um, well, and however, real quick, real quick.

Yeah.

I mean, for people that don't know, when you, when you're asking your agent, what's, what's the cash value? Like, what does that mean for them?

Yeah, so the cash value, there's generally any home insurance company that's going to depreciate your roof, they're going to have a scale and it should be in your policy documents. And it's going to say the age of the roof and the percentage that they're paying you based off the age of your roof.

Okay.

When you file that claim. And it gets down to the 20% and 15% very fast.

Okay.

So, but most policies, you know, They're going to cover you at least 10 years. But like I said, they're, they're all so different and they can all be set up different. You know, you can start a new policy and not even have replacement costs on it at all.

And that was going to be my next question is, yeah, like, I know that like in Texas, I know there's talks about making roofs like a whole separate thing.

I, I, I would kind of like that if it's, if those coverages are, you know, adequate. Because that would, that would open up the market for a lot more carriers to come in.

Yep.

And compete on the, uh, the fire and the liability and the pro— and the personal property.

And so, this is, I mean, but this is what we did with flood insurance essentially, right? Uh, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, well, the flood was for here.

Yeah.

Yeah. Flood, flood is, I mean, it's, flood's been a flood, flood insurance policy since I've been in business.

So, and it's a little bit different because it's regional.

Yeah.

Whereas roofs aren't regional. Right? Everybody's got a roof. I mean, I say everybody, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

If you have a home, you have a roof. And so that may make it somewhat different. But what I do think might could be interesting though, is if you, like you said, if more people could come onto the market and get into the space, then that helps with the spreading out of the opportunity to save money.

I think right now we have Texas Fair Plan in coastal properties. So if, you know, a lot of those carriers might compete in those areas for everything else except for roof coverage. I mean, you get into kind of like the Friendswood area where, I mean, a lot of those homes are Texas Fair Plan.

Yeah.

You know, if you open, if there's more options for consumers is way better.

Always better.

So, I mean, if these, if these carriers can can curate these policies in that way. I, I think it's a good thing. Um, and then there's gonna be carriers that have the full policy, you know, including roof coverage. But you're gonna need to, uh, you know, again, talk with your insurance agent, run through the policy, and, you know, just make sure you have a plan together for it.

Yeah.

But like, but here's, here's what I'm asking about this is like, if I go buy a house in Kansas, right? And I buy a homeowner's policy for my new home in Kansas City, Kansas. I, I'm guessing that it has flood insurance attached to that policy. I'm guessing that it has a roof policy attached to that policy. You know, you know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's sort of baked into the cake. Whereas here, like, not so much, right?

Yeah.

Because I, I remember when flood insurance used to be the norm for Houston and Texas homeowners. I mean, I've, I've been here a long time and I remember when those things started getting peeled away. So I'm, I, and I could be wrong. I mean, that, that, that could be something that just happened nationwide. But I would imagine if I'm in a place that's flat like Kansas or Nebraska or something like that, that like flood insurance is probably, you know, like with certain stipulations put in the policy, you know, because I mean, like people's homes flood other than just like waters rising, you know? Um, one of my big bugaboos is I don't understand why they put like water heaters in the attic.

You know, like—

That's the stupidest thing ever.

I mean, it's the easiest way to flood a house.

So that's, that's coming up on insurance questions. like on, uh, home applications now.

Right.

Um, it's becoming, you know, the, the age of your hot water heater is becoming an issue.

I've had, I've had carriers ask clients to go take a picture of their water heater.

Yeah.

Really? Inside the home. You know, it's, yeah, that's, you know, if they, if you got carriers that are doing post-bind inspections and asking you to do internal—

Look, I don't, look, that, that makes total sense to me.

I mean, like, well, going, going back to your question, when you say flood insurance, you're meaning like internal pipe Sure.

Yeah.

Okay. So flood insurance—

But I mean, I think that traditionally that used to include rising waters.

Yeah.

I've been in the business since 2009, 2010. I've always sold flood separate, you know, from that time.

So that makes sense to me.

I don't know pre-2009.

I've been here since '93.

You've been purchasing flood insurance since '93?

Well, I mean, yeah.

I thought you were my age.

Who says I'm not?

He's, he's a lot older than he looks.

Yeah, the, uh, but there, there's still companies that actually write flood insurance on their policies. American Risk Insurance is a local—

For like rising waters? Really?

Yeah, it's a, it's a local Houston company.

Is it wrapped up in—

In the home insurance.

In the home insurance. Really?

It's actually really cheap too. The, uh, the— but it's— they're very selective and—

Okay, that's, that's—

yeah, the, the Not the, they're not the easiest on the front end to work with, but, uh, I love American Risk when we can write those policies. Uh, only carrier I'll call out because they're local and, uh, oh, they're a local company.

Yeah, that's cool.

They're here in Houston. Um, I had a client actually go to, uh, go to the, go to the office asking for, uh, premium relief. They called me direct. It was a, it was an interesting, uh, situation, but the, uh, they, they still, they have flood insurance built into their policy. There's a couple of them that do it. it's probably a good thing that it's separated.

I think so. It makes sense. I mean, like, I mean, like, look, if you're gonna— if you're in Houston and you buy a house on Buffalo Bayou, I mean, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. You should expect to be paying a premium on a separate policy for rising waters.

Yeah.

I mean, and that's even if you can afford it.

You made a choice at that point.

Right.

Like, you— it's almost— you purchased specifically in a flood zone that is not just any flood zone, you know?

Well, and look, I'm, I'm, I'm saying that as my sister had a house on Buffalo Bayou. Now she was a renter, but like still, like it flooded. She lost everything. Wow. You know, and like, but she had renter's insurance that covered her belongings. Yeah. You know, but other than that, the, the person, The person that owned the house basically said, well, we're not rebuilding it.

Yeah.

Because they didn't have a policy that covered that. And so the house was—

Did the, did the, did their landlord, did they have a flood policy on their personal property?

No.

Okay.

No.

So their, their, their carrier paid out on the personal property. That's good.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

The carriers in certain situations will, you know, will do things that's in the best interest of the client. I've seen them, you know, just like that client, they got paid 3 times. You know, I've seen that. And then I've seen someone that basically has a floor like this where a section is, is, is damaged and they won't replace the full, you know, antique floor. Oh gosh. I mean, it's just, you know, there's, it's, it's very hit and miss with the lease claims. That's why having a good insurance agent that can help walk you through it, walk you through it is good.

Yeah.

The other side of that with flood insurance is, you're probably seeing this too, is the independent flood.

Yeah.

Companies that are, that are, uh, joining the fray. So I think 2 or 3 years ago they started increasing rates on, on, uh, mm-hmm, through NFIP. So independent, uh, flood companies are coming out and being a little bit more competitive too.

Well, that's good. I mean, I, I think that, uh, the, the good news is that we still have insurance because I, I think that there's, there's kind of this weird thing, but I, I, with whether or not we're gonna have insurance on, on our homes. And I, I think it's one of the things that it often goes overlooked is like, look, the, the idea, uh, is similar to this. It's like you probably should have been preparing to put new tires on your truck. And all of a sudden you need new tires and $1,000 to put new tires on your truck. Nobody's ready for it. And it's like, you've been driving this truck for 70,000 miles and you didn't think that you might need some new tires from time to time?

It's like, no, I never thought about it.

Well, I think it's a similar type of situations. Like at some point, I think that as a homeowner, you've made certain choices of what you're going to have to do with your money and what you're not going to get to do with your money. And so unless you're, Unless you've lived in your house long enough where you're going to be able and, and, and can take out a HELOC, a home equity line of credit to pay for some of these things, then you need to start saving some money every single month or something to be prepared for a moment where, look, your roof might not get covered and that might be a $25,000 problem for you.

Yeah.

And so you better be prepared on some level. It's why we're gonna have to get probably some sort of, you know, uh, financing available for it because, um, you know, not everybody's just in a position to be able to do that. So I, I guess the thing that, that I'm hearing from all of this is don't get caught with your pants down. Like, you know, like, like do something.

Sound advice, Tim.

Uh, you know, to, to protect yourself, you know? And that's why I asked the, the protection question earlier, but I just think it's ever-present right now to be thinking about, don't get yourself in a position where you can't pay out.

Yeah. And I commend you guys for having the conversation because it's, I mean, I started in 2009. The industry's changed so much since then. I mean, it's just within the last 3 or 4 years, it's changed a lot. And consumers are are not going to be up to date with all of these changes. It's just no way that everybody knows the different key components that these carriers are changing their policies. And this is starting to become on like a year-by-year basis that they're putting in some type of exclusion here or roof, you know, schedule here, or, you know, we're no longer doing the 2%. Some carriers that will renew with a higher percentage on wind hail deductible without a tremendous amount of

conversation with the client.

Yeah.

And sometimes, You know, we're having to really be proactive with reviewing side-by-side comparisons with, with last year's coverage. There's not a lot of agents out there that are doing that. Because especially with this last couple of years, we're seeing tremendous amount of phone calls with rising rate increases from current clients, with clients that are looking to shop.

Yeah, especially right now with the way the market is for, for home insurance. There's no denying it's, it's crazy. Um, if you haven't looked at your policy or if you have an agent, they haven't talked to you at any point of your renewal within the past 3 years, make it a priority to set aside some time and, and take a look. Find out what's going on.

Yeah.

Find out what's going on. Um, 'cause just like you said, you don't want to get caught with your pants down. Yeah.

Which is going to happen.

Are you, are you seeing with these, uh, because like the, the real estate market's starting to kick up a little bit. You know, are you seeing some of these where they're not going to be insuring the home unless they replace the roof?

Yes.

Yeah. What, what, what is, what is the, the decision-making that's happening there? I mean, like, what, so like, what I mean by that is when people are going out shopping for a new home, that's, that's an expense they ought to be on the lookout for.

Yeah.

I mean, if you're, if you're going shopping for a home and the, the roof is 15 or, or even 20 years old, I would be fighting to get a new roof because at that point—

So the seller pays for it?

Yes. Yeah. Because your home insurance is going to be high. Right. You know, whatever they told you on Zillow that your Zestimate would be, just go ahead and triple it. Yeah. Because we have a lot of people running into that issue when it comes down to closing. Right. They're, they're, they can't get through closing because the home insurance is 3 times the price of what they were told.

it was supposed to be.

Um, and, and then you're fighting the battle of trying to, you know, get them into the price point where they are and all they're worried about is closing and they don't care about the coverage.

No, it's a problem because I mean, you now what, you know, I was talking to a friend just, just today. They've got their house on the market for $250,000 and her comment was, if you have a 6, to $700,000 house, it'll sell all day long. But at $250,000, no one wants to buy it. And it's weird.

Yeah.

Because when we moved here in 2017, you know, I'd already been married for 10 years, already had, you know, a home that we had sold. And so we had a little bit of equity and our, my, my price was $200,000 and we went way over and above and got a home for $230,000. And then 5 years later, we sold it for $340,000. So the, the price of, of homes has gone up so significantly.

Yeah.

And now the insurance to cover the replacement cost of the home, let alone the roof, right? We're talking about the replacement cost of the home. Now we're, I, I mean, everything is exponentially different. It makes me also wonder, like, um, you know, does that mean that people are going to start escrowing a lot more because now they've at least got a little bit of a, I'm paying monthly just so I can, you know, not get that big hit at the end of the year in order to pay all my property taxes and all those sorts of things. So I don't know. I think it's something that you have to consider as you're buying a house these days.

I was reading that, uh, I think it's like 7% of all California homes fall out of escrow because of, uh, because of insurance costs.

That's not surprising.

The, uh, A couple points on that. I'm glad, I'm glad you brought that up because if I could yell this from the rooftops to real estate agents, because I don't think they know, you know, this back end of the conversation. You go through post-buy and inspect, you get, you get the insurance policy, it's paid for by the escrow. You go by, you go through post-buy and inspection and they come out and see shading. And then the insurance company is going to force you to get that roof replaced or go with another carrier.

Yep.

All right.

And, you know, if you're a real estate agent, you don't know that you've set your client up for potential failure because we're looking at cost in the beginning.

Yeah.

The other side of that is let's say that you buy a home that the roof is maybe like 2 or 3 years old. You might get the, the insurance, you know, the upfront insurance cost on that. But the— if you don't get those paperwork, if you don't get the paperwork on that, like the invoice from You know, when that was replaced, if you go to shop that, you know, maybe like the next year or a year from then, you might not get, be able to get coverage from another carrier without those invoices or some type of proof of replacement.

Interesting.

Yeah, we're running into that right now. You know, people who have shopping for their home insurance, they're getting these huge rate increases and their home was built, you know, 30, 40 years ago and they've their roof was replaced 10 years ago, but they bought the house 5 years ago, right? They don't have any documentation, you know. Um, so there's 2 ways they can get it. It's either going to be in the seller's disclosure, um, at closing. Um, keep track of that document. Um, or 2, you can get a roof inspection from a certified roofer to go out there and give you an inspection report, and you can submit that. And the insurance companies will take an

inspection report from a licensed roofer.

So what's a licensed roofer in Texas?

I don't think you have to be licensed.

Or so yeah, just like a home inspector kind of a deal.

No, no, it has to be from a roofing company.

A roofing company.

Yeah.

Okay, you have to have like an LLC maybe.

There you go. Letterhead is what they're looking for. Letterhead.

Yeah, because that's all it really takes. Any guy with a hammer can. put up a roof in 5 years.

Look, for $1,000, I'll be a roofer. That's exactly right.

But even, you know, on the flip side, they're requiring that document. And if you can show proof of that and take advantage of the savings on the policy, they usually charge you $100 to $150. Worth it to do it.

Worth it.

Um, and so don't be afraid to, to do that inspection or shop your insurance just because, you know, you don't have proof. that your roof has been updated.

If you're getting the 6, 7, 8% interest rates as they are right now, you know, get that, get, have your real estate agent try to get you the new roof on there, especially if you got an older, older house.

Yeah.

I mean, uh, older house, you're close to Harris County zip code. Um, you know, if you're, if you're getting good costs on insurance upfront, you know, it, it just be aware of that post-bind inspection because real estate agents, especially newer ones that haven't gone through that process a lot, don't know that back, the back end side of how that process works.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is one of the things that I was very pleased with. And our friend, I'll give him a shout out, Connor Mack really helped me on this. He, uh, when we sold that house, uh, in 2022, um, it needed a new roof. In fact, it's a whole story. We've told it before about how I tried to change, uh, insurance policies and then they denied the roof. And so I was, I was lucky and got my old insurance policy to take me back, but it was a, it was a little bit of a dicey situation. But, um, he was able to get me a new roof. Um, and, and back then, you know, I still had a decent policy and it was still 1% deductible. And so, uh, you know, it

made my house a whole lot easier to sell at that point, you know, because it had a brand new roof on it. I mean, that made a difference.

When this, uh, when this, these rate increases first started, started and, uh, these carriers are pulling out, I had a client that, uh, we were able to find him some really good coverage. I think we saved him like $1,000 overall. Roof was like 3 years old.

Right.

Um, went through, so we wrote his home auto, uh, umbrella. And, uh, I want to say we wrote a motorcycle as well. And, uh, you know, fast forward 1 month, the carrier sent me a, uh, an, a post-bind inspection. They found a 4x4 patch that was underneath shading in the back, uh, in his backyard, uh, on his roof. Their solution was a brand new roof build. And so you have a client that has a 3-year-old roof, 4x4 patch of, uh, it was, it was mold growth.

You know, you can power wash it.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, And so, you know, it's getting tough. You know, it has been tough the last couple of years. And that was a pretty extreme example.

Sure.

But that pushed me to have a lot of conversations with clients about post-buy inspection, saving, you know, going to another insurance company to save like a couple hundred dollars when they have good coverage to begin with.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's, that's been the, that's been the, you know, the the, the industry in a nutshell the last couple years.

Well, and I, I, one of the things I wanted, I wanted to emphasize with people is like, like that we're not here to dog on insurance companies. No. But the reality is, I mean, like, you look at like places like my, my home state of Florida where you have elderly couples that are being nickel and, not nickel and dimed, but like they're, they're literally being priced out of their own homes that they've been in for like 30 years because all of a sudden they You know, you, you, you plan for retirement and you, you, you look at your, your, your cost as being fixed. Well, all of a sudden, like, their, their insurance costs are doubling and

tripling and then property taxes. They can't afford—

yeah.

And the property taxes because they have an influx of people and then, you know, the market, you know, adjusts the value of the home. The value of the home goes up so much, then the cost of the value of the home to replace it. All these things go into that equation and, and then all of a sudden they can't afford their home. Because the, the cost of insurance is now more than their mortgage.

Yeah.

And it, like, that's, that's weird to think about, but it, it's the reality for some people. And the, the problem is, is like the, the insurance companies are adjusting to the market.

Yep.

You know, and, and, and they have to, and it's either that or they pull completely out of the state because it's like, to your point, they haven't been profitable for a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think like 4 or 5 of 'em were like $3 billion in losses.

Yeah.

In the last like 4 years in, in California.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Well, and like, we don't have much battery left, but like, let's at least pull it around to California for just a minute.

I mean, what—

a lot of these people that have experienced these fires had their homes burned down without insurance. I mean, that's just the reality. I mean, do they have any sort of recourse in the coming months?

I'm curious to see what the federal government comes in with Either loans or, you know, just like with the, you know, after Harvey here in Houston, I think it was something, something like a crazy number, like, like 15 or 20% of all Houston had flood insurance coverage. I mean, it was like 80% of the area didn't have anything. And so what ended up happening was FEMA came through, they passed, you know, they passed a bill to give us funds.

Right.

And it was basically a first come, first serve. I think something similar has to happen there. And then, you know, the other side of this is just, you know, we have, you know, just my personal opinion is, you know, they, there has to be a bigger picture plan there for the entire area.

Yeah. The, you know, and that doesn't bother me. I mean, to, to a certain degree, right. But like, at the same time, I want to like, one, it irks me that like FEMA would need to come in and do that. because I think that California's local government has been negligent.

Yeah.

And I don't— I don't— like, I as a taxpayer don't want to have to pay for their stupidity, you know? Because like, I think, I think most Americans can look around and say like, look, the insurance companies have been telling you for years the neglect of forest management in the state of California is sitting at the feet of these forest fires. Like, that's— we know why they happened, because you didn't do the things that you need to do to mitigate these situations. And so like, why should— and like, I'm not picking on you, you know, but like, why should we all have to pay? And I feel bad. And like, you know, we have our buddy David over there. He's suffering right now. But like, why should the federal government come in

and take money out of my pocket to pay for the people that you elected to make this horrible choice in managing your state? You know?

I'll say this, you know, if it goes directly to the consumers, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm okay with that.

Um, I, I can, I can get on board with that.

In terms of like, you know, one time. But if, if we're seeing every year these fires taking out hundreds of thousands of people, or even like here in Houston, if we're, if we're not getting on the ball and buying flood insurance where, you know, we had, again, like, this is like only like 15% at that time.

Yeah.

Um, you know, FEMA did record, you know, Duke some somewhat of a course correction. At that time, flood insurance here in Houston was like $350. Oh yeah, it's cheap. The, the now, you know, in some cases you're looking at like $1,500.

And I actually heard somebody the other day say that it cost them $18,000 last year.

Oh my goodness. So they've, they, you know, they did the flood 2.0 in '21. They revamped how that works. And so if federal government's going to come in and do something like that, there has to be legislation that follows both on a state level and a federal level. And then on the federal level, it should be some, you know, it should be some, something that, you know, incentivizes that state to get some of those things done.

Should. And I think that's, I think that's kind of the, I think that, I think that's a lot of people's frustrations is like, we're going to give you the money and make you do nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think, you know, I think that that's, that's somewhere around what needs to happen is, you know, we, you know, we work to, you know, FEMA comes in and produces some type of funds with incentives for something to happen. Because, you know, you want to get into the conspiracy side of it, you talk about the water flow coming down. I mean, I don't know how much of this stuff is true, but I mean, apparently—

Sure.

There's water flow from Canada that can come down, you know, protecting like a little fish or something like that. I don't know.

Oh, the dams and stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's true, but the, uh, you know, the, is, is the forestry properly managed?

You know, that's, I think that's the big issue.

Yeah. You know, even out here when we have a minor rainstorm, you know, Hurricane Beryl, is our forestry managed out here? Who's, who's, uh, you know, who's, who's coming in?

Dams.

That's the big one.

That's, that's what everybody gets so mad about. You know, the dams, are they being managed correctly?

Which the big one, I don't know if you guys know, the big one's like right here.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's right across the highway right here.

Yeah.

Um, so I mean, the good news is like there is one, it's just going that way. Yeah.

So I have no idea where we are right now. I think I went through, uh, 4 or 5 back roads and I had to stop and ask a guy playing a banjo.

Yeah, there you go.

That's my cousin. And he was wrong.

Well, here's the deal, and I think, uh, we'll kind of wrap it up here. I think the thing that that I'm learning and just hearing all of this is make sure that you, whoever you are, wherever you're at, wherever you live, whatever type of home you have, make sure you have an insurance agent that is advocating for you, that cares about you, that is willing to explain your policy, willing to step through the options that you have.

Yeah.

To walk through that with you. And, you know, I, I'm, this is probably gonna, you know, step on some people's toes, but, you know, having someone that, that is a broker that can look at multiple different options for you and, and, you know, get locked into this, oh, we only have this product or this product. And, you know, we can look at different options. I think that, that you as a homeowner have to be smart and savvy right now.

Yeah.

And you, you can't just sit back and assume that your insurance agent is doing you any favors. You need to make sure that they're doing you favors. You have to make sure that they're checking on, on your policy and, and everything that's going on with, with your roof and your, you know, replacement costs. And, you know, I, I, it's, it's just one of those things we can't sit back and, and wait on. So, um, take action. Make sure that you're not, you know, just being, you know, taking it on the chin here.

Yeah.

I mean, I, my insurance agent called me not too long ago. He's like, look, I'm sorry. You know, we're calling everybody. Everybody's insurance went up $1,000, $1,500, $2,000. And I'm sorry. And then it's like, well, okay. Uh, you know, what can we do about it? You know, we had a really good conversation. So make sure that you're, that you're having those conversations. And so, uh, with that, um, you know, let, let's, let's talk about how people can get ahold of each of you and, and, uh, if they have questions or want to just chat. Yeah. If you have any questions or just, you know, these guys are knowledgeable, so that's why we brought 'em onto our show. So, uh, Seth, we'll,

we'll start with you. How do they get ahold of you?

Yeah. Um, best way to get ahold of us, we're in the office every day besides, uh, Saturday and Sunday. You can give us a call. Phone number's 936-286-3303. You can go to our website, vencoinsurance.com. Um, there's a form you can fill out to, to reach us if you, if you're interested in a quote. Um, you can find us on all social media platforms. Um, we are literally anywhere you can imagine. Just type in our name and, and it'll take you to us. Um, how do you spell that? It's V-I-N-C-O, Vinco Insurance. Got it. Um, but yeah, I mean, especially right now, you know, you, you don't, you don't necessarily have to, to give our office a call, but call somebody. You know, a lot of people

think it costs money to do business with a broker. It doesn't. Um, at least not with our office. Some, some brokers might charge a fee. We don't charge a fee. Whatever the carrier charges, um, is what you pay. So, and a lot of people think we have a fee or a charge that's on top of their policy and that's not true.

So.

Yeah.

My name is Chris McDaniel and you can, uh, you can find me at, uh, tsibt.com, the Summit Insurance Brokerage of Texas. Um, 281-935-7190. You can call or text that line anytime, uh, just to have a conversation. You know, if you have a good insurance agent, you just want to keep them on their toes. I'd love to have a 20, 30-minute conversation with you over insurance coverage or however long you'd like to have a conversation for.

Mm-hmm.

Um, we, uh, we cater to clients that are in need. And so, uh, I'll be the first to tell you if your insurance policy is sufficient. Especially on the homeowner's insurance. I generally won't even make a recommendation on it unless there is an absolute need on it, unless we can find better coverage. We, I specialize in commercial products and we have a team that, that goes after personal lines and life insurance.

Okay. Awesome.

All right.

Well, I really appreciate you guys jumping on the show tonight. I know it was kind of last minute, but I appreciate you guys being willing to get on.

Thanks for having us out.

Yeah.

Thank you. Great conversation.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you everyone also for listening. We're gonna, we're gonna link a couple things up here, including an opportunity to help out our friend David and just being prayerful for all of the people who've lost their, their homes and their property. Please go like our channel, subscribe to all the places, leave us a rating review on Apple Podcasts. Be wonderful. Until time. We'll see you later.

See ya.

See ya.