Follow-up: Not being a homeowner, I may not have adequately expressed the importance of knowing what’s on your free CLUE report. For a better explanation, see this MSN article titled “Insurers keep a secret history of your home“. If they decide your house is high-risk, even if you don’t file a claim, finding homeowners insurance may become next to impossible. This is also something to be wary of when buying a house. Link via Consumerist.
Don’t tell your insurer about problems unless you’re sure you’ll file a claim. This last piece of advice is unfortunate, because insurers and insurance agents can be a decent source of counsel on whether it’s worth filing a claim. Since any damage you report could get passed on to the CLUE database, however, it’s smart now to err on the side of caution.
As a new homeowner this information is important to know. Thanks.
It’s getting expensive to be a poor American!
To what extent are home sales being thwarted – like where a buyer can’t get homeowners insurance and therefore cannot close?
Information is power, right? Getting a loan can be easier if you talk to multiple loan officers who deal with multiple lenders. if you talk to, for instance, three LOs, and each of them deal with 3 lenders, you’ve got 9 options available to you. Even if most of them won’t help you, one might pan out.
This is true, make sure to have an insurance agent run a clue report Before you close on the home. Previous claims may show up on the home, and those claims could have been claimed by previous owners or others against the owner, this may affect your premium and/or coverage. If there have been claims on the home, you will want to inspect, and I would also speak with the same agent to run a quote for and make sure they are able to bind the quote for the policy on the home, before you close.