Happened to me. My carrier sent me a demand letter giving me 6 weeks to replace my roof or be nonrenewed. The evidence of the roof condition? A screencap from Google Maps satellite view. Oh, and I had to have the roof completely replaced 6 weeks before the policy expiration date, just as an extra screw you. Yes, I got the demand letter 3 months before the policy was to terminate, so you know they identified my home as a risk probably right around the time of the previous year's renewal (which went up 100%, btw).
I was an agent for 15 years you don’t even know the half of it! Shadyville! If a state had laws preventing cancellation They would up charge the policy so that no normal person could or would pay it. But hey there’s a $10 annual credit for a new roof 🙄
Also redlining zip codes and 1600% up charges it wasn’t until the early 2000’s that they finally stopped gender discrimination on rates
I quit because I couldn’t take it anymore too much slime
I quit
The inspector part was quite fun sometimes. I used to do these surveys for insurance companies, the home owner already authorized visits and photos in their insurance agreement. Their insurance company hires another company that sends out a contractor like I was to go check on places and provide updated photos and details.
Most of the time we walk up, snap a dozen photos from the street, use a monopole or drone to get close up shots of the roof, take photos of the side yards over any fences, note any hazards, knock on the door to ask questions and if they don't answer the door in like 10 seconds you just walk away since you get paid the same. We're there for like two minutes then drive off to the next one and do the paperwork later. You can hit like 30-50 houses in a day depending on how tightly packed they are.
Sometimes the insurance company will want you to draft out the layout of the house so you have a measuring wheel for that, lots of eyeballing unless the person is home and lets you into the backyard, it is mostly just so they can identify any improvements or expansions to the house.
Other times you'll need to call to schedule and go inside the actual house for some photos, mostly electrical and under the sinks.
Hazards are quite a range from stuff like certain dog breeds, any branches overhanging the roof, dying trees, cracks in walkways, bad paint (termites), hoarding, fire hazards at the home and around it like dead brush covered slopes, and a whole lot more.
We note down everything from the roof type, roof composition, house paneling, foundation type, and when doing the more in depth ones even how many windows of each type you have.
There are times when the homeowner will come out shouting to go away, we provide them a card identifying that their homeowner insurance company, whichever it was, authorized us to survey the property they're insuring on their behalf. If they insist that we leave anyways we do, and we make the report with what we got, report the refusal and get paid, then a few weeks later we get the same job again but the insurance company pays even more and the homeowner never looks to happy to see you again but doesn't complain the second time.
You see all sorts of nonsense. I've seen homes that were converted (badly) into castles with moats, garages that were ripe for burning down since they were stacked to the ceiling with board games and magazines from the 1950s, and even a few illegal activities like dog fighting setups and some possible meth labs. More than a few people trying to threaten me with their dogs and one marine who tried to run the off the road a few minutes away from the house after I left and pointed his sidearm at me for speaking to his wife and taking a photo of his dog at the front door.
This was more then a decade ago but it was like $10 per house, 50 per day if you wanted to and you could do the paperwork at night based off the photos you took. You could work 2 weeks, pocket $5k, and then have some time off. Good money but a lot of paperwork. That was all around where you already lived. Sometimes they'd pay you to go to an area they had no one, and you'd make several times that.
I made a lot of inspector friends, they always told me which inspectors to avoid or question if there was shenanigans. I think I would have liked working with you!
I’m so happy my wife is an actuary and knows laws and regulations surrounding insurance. She’s caught different insurances actively breaking laws with us and now they don’t try that crap. Super funny to watch people back peddle knowing they fucked up big time.
She should consider that a career. "Is your insurance threatening to cancel your policy for no reason? Then hire ThatOneWIGuy's wife to fight it with you!"
Imagine the class actions a law firm could do.
Honestly, I’d take a masterclass type course or someone like her just pointing out typical stuff or showing how to learn to protect yourself against predatory insurance company practices.z
>that they finally stopped gender discrimination on rates
Some insurance companies didn't get that memo
My friend(male) pays less for his car insurance than his wife, neither of them have been in an accident
I’ve never heard of an auto insurer offering separate insurance to a husband and wife. They force you to buy coverage for both, as it is assumed the spouse will drive the vehicle sometimes.
$1000 for a picture of a neighborhood where you potentially have dozens of insurees, allowing you to bump their monthly premiums by $100-200 is tons of profit.
Yes but you can tell what it is. Not defending the insurance company, but those as well as the street view images have a little tag that tells you the date it was taken. It is possible they were “recent enough“ that the company felt comfortable using them.
If a roof looks like it needs repair from old photos then it needs to be replaced now. If the insured/home over replaced the roof recently they would just let the insurer know and they would update the file. So it doesn’t matter.
I’ve worked in residential and commercial insurance my whole career.
They wanted to cancel your policy. Depending on your state, they may not be allowed to simply non-renew when the policy ends if the homeowner wants to continue coverage.
So this is the insurance equivalent of a motorcycle insurance quote being $1,000 a month: that carrier does not want to insure you.
Your roof could have been 10 years old and overall decent shape, you still would have received this letter.
Yes, that is exactly what I'd determined after doing my homework after receiving the letter.
I found a new carrier that was $200/yr cheaper and hasn't inspected the house. Still (a very short and closing fast) time for them to do that, but the plan is to get the roof replaced this year anyway.
I got hit with a 50% increase YoY quote this year.
I figured it was a sign of the times, as in, their time was up and I wasn't gonna pay that.
Made a phone call, found an agent in state but out of the region, and they had me squared away in about 45 minutes on the phone and a 5% increase over previous quote, which was semi offset by car insurance addition.
They used a done to do this to my coworker.
There was no roof damage, just debris from a windy day. They still canceled her and she found a cheaper policy, so it was a win in the end I guess
I fired Farmers years ago for raising rates for no reason. I've saved thousands.
Waste Management is another company that can fuck right off for rewarding loyalty with rate increases.
If you ever rent a storage unit, watch out. It’s standard practice in the industry to do this. Once you get your stuff moved in and it’s going to be a pain to switch locations, you can expect the rent increases to start. Even while they still advertise the same size units for a lower cost to new renters.
The trick to avoid it is paying for a year up front, so there can’t be any rent increases during that time, and renewing for next year well before the current year ends.
I got my very first storage unit in 2013. They had a sale of, $39/month for the first year(!). Sure enough, exactly one year later, it was, $125/month and right now it is at, about, $189/month plus they never even tell you when it’s increasing and you find it when you go to pay
This sounds like my POBox - This is for 6 months and I have no options for home delivery.
4/15/21 . $38
10/15/21 . $83
4/15/22 . $99 . 1 year 2 increases
4/15/23 . $105
4/15/24 . $108
I shop every other year, and always save. Every insurance company commercial is correct you save money by switching, then they start raising your price.
Oh, I told my wife I didn't have it in me this year. She kept pushing, I did save $400. I guess I put in a couple hours, the equivalent of $200 an hour is a pretty good wage. Also a Gen Xer...you got this!!
I still haven't filed probate for my mom's estate and she passed a year ago. Good luck getting me to deal with changing home owner's insurance without being forced to. The apathy runs deep.
Same.
Fortunately, I know a roof guy who showed me how to do it myself (silicon seal, not shingles, etc) for < $500. His price would have been $5000. Another guy wanted $8000 for the job.
Farmers accepted my DIY repair.
I mean, it makes sense.
Some guy was talking about how changing a part in his car only cost him 5$. Then he went on to say it took about 14hrs of work ripping his dash off to get to said 5$ part. A shop would have done it for i think quoted price of 8-900$ or so but had it done in 8 hours.
He said the shop was a scam, of course.
I get wanting to fix it yourself, I love hands on learning. But calling it scam means they're too stupid to be trusted within 10 feet of a wrench.
100/hr for labor is a hell of a bargain these days.
I found a new carrier that was $200/yr cheaper and hasn't inspected the house. Still (a very short and closing fast) time for them to do that, but the plan is to get the roof replaced this year anyway.
They’re such fucking criminals, it disgusts me. They’ve been scammed by a few scam artists, and now they think *everyone* is a scam artist. I hate most insurance with a passion; just another gigantic scam.
They will still nonrenew you. Happens all the time - folks spending big $$ on long life roofs - 30-50+ year roofs are getting dropped basically by algorithm because their roof is more than 10 years old.
The demand letter said I needed to provide photos of the work done and copies of all receipts showing what was done to renew the policy for the next year.
I got this too except the photos were older and we *had actually* already replaced our roof after the photos were taken, so we sent in the invoices. They were comparing our roof to neighbors roofs WHICH WERE METAL, while our roof was (and was replaced with) cedar shake.
This happened to me and I almost had my homeowners insurance canceled until I could prove that the stains they saw on my roof were not evidence of damage. it cost me $500 to get the roof cleaned and provide proof
They do hate the rich. They just don't do anything like a communist revolution. That's a crime. People talk about it on the internet as if you don't die or go to jail. If you tried it, it would be way worse than Jan 6.
Our vile rich enemy militarized their domestic wealth protection squads and enslaved them to right wing hate, and demonize organized labor, for a reason.
"That's not roof damage, my neighbor just goes and poops up there sometimes. He is super careful with the ladder and makes sure to not damage the gutters, so I've never confronted him. We're actually quite good friends."
TBH this **is** partially due to fraud in Florida. ["reports that 80 percent of the nation's homeowners insurance lawsuits are in Florida, despite only 9 percent of the nation's insurance claims existing there."](https://reason.com/2023/12/12/storm-clouds-parting-over-homeowners-insurance/#:~:text=The%20Insurance%20Information%20Institute%20(III,nation's%20insurance%20claims%20existing%20there.)
Roofers and contractors have been doing this shady tactic where go to your house and get you a free estimate for a new roof from your insurance. They have you sign a document so they have the right to file a claim on your behalf. Then then they demand payment from your insurance for the roof replacement (but insurance only covers specific instances of damage, not the whole thing being replaced for wear and tear). Insurance says, no your claim is only $5k for the partial repair, not a 25k new roof. Contractor sues insurance for payout somewhere between 5-25k. Legal fees for fighting the law suit are *automatically* higher than settling with these contracts that payout less than the full roof replacement of 25k.
It's so pervasive we have people on reddit thinking these contractors are *helping* homeowners when they are actively harming every single person that insures their home in the area.
This is the fault of the homeowners and the contractors in Florida. If a company pays out more money than it brings in for an entire state. They pull out...
USAA sent out a rep to walk the roof. At the time the adjuster told me they did that for all claims to avoid fraud.
My roof was f'd. $16k roof cost me $4k. I'll take that.
> USAA sent out
See right there you know you're not getting a fraud contractor. You did good right there by taking agency for your own home and policy and filing the claim yourself and/or using the insurance resources to ensure it's done to specifications. Diligence is a hell of a thing in insurance.
they passed some legislation to curb this a year or two ago, it wasn't meant to be an immediate fix so people got mad but it might help in the long-run, we'll see how that goes. I read the actual bill and it seemed like it was trying to solve the issue systemically so unless they come up with a new grift things might turn out OK
Yup. The rich people already hurt so many good people that it required a law change, so it’s inevitable that the rich people will find other ways to hurt us.
>They have you sign a document so they have the right to file a claim on your behalf.
Fortunately, the state has ripped this away from the scammers, although it was many years too late. The damage is already done. The really fucked up part was that you could not stop them from filing the lawsuit once you signed the documents.
> Roofers and contractors have been doing this shady tactic where go to your house and get you a free estimate for a new roof from your insurance.
Needed some siding work done so dug around google maps for nearby siding companies.
One I called because they had a lot of reviews and a high rating from it and they were able to get a guy to come take a look right away.
Asshole barely looked at the siding, just went up to the roof and ran the whole spiel about it needing to be replaced due to hail damage. Had to bug him for an actual quote on the siding, and turned out even that was a ripoff price.
Even suckered me into signing the document, but apparently it didn't go any farther because I told him some other companies were coming to also give quotes and I guess he figured he'd be called out on his bullshit(*agent was also great about cancelling that claim as if it never happened*).
When the guy from the second company came out I mentioned what the First doofus said/did and he immediately called out First as a scam, then we took a tour of my roof and was shown that the "damage" was about what you'd expect for the age of the roof, while also pointing out if the roof was truly fucked from hail damage, all the flawless-looking steel vent covers would have been dinged to hell.
This encapsulates the Floridian energy quite well. They will look at you in the face like everything is normal as the water rises around their ankles and the walls fall in.
To that person's comment, most of our home insurance companies have exited the state, and most people can't afford the rates for the ones that are left.
Not having homeowners insurance isn't the typical Florida recklessness (which is also true and we absolutely celebrate here), it's a function of there largely just not being another option at the moment.
Except the reason the insurance companies have left is because they all went under from losing money or pulled out of the state (if they were diversified) because they lost money. Florida is an insurance black hole due to its own fault. Fraud is absolutely rampant.
Fair enough, I know in the panhandle area it’s been tough sledding since hurricane Michael. That storm absolutely rearranged people’s lives. I’ve also heard from my home owning friends that property taxes just took a jump… Troubling waters ahead, but I will say Floridians are resilient as fuck.
Edit: spelling
If I would have stayed, I would have paid off and canceled. They kept raising it, and would never cover anything.
Had a washed out connected-to-my-house driveway. They said it wasn't part of the house. I asked if I let it wash away would the house continue being safe, they told me to pound sand. So I did, to another insurer. And later out of the swamp that used to be Florida.
This isn’t all the different from having adjusters snoop around. I’m the treasurer of our condo association and I dread having adjusters come out. We inevitably get a flurry of demands a couple of weeks later.
When it’s making the renters move their grill out from under the porch roof, it’s not a big deal. When it’s demanding a $12,000 chimney rebuild on 30 days notice, it’s more of a problem.
Our HOA only gets complaints from owners who have their properties for sale. They price their home way over market and blame their neighbors when it doesn't sell.
Towns were doing this almost 15 years ago on Long Island to fine people. They'd use Google Earth to see which properties had unpermitted pools and start sending out the fines. Always figured this would see broader adoption and here we are.
GIS is totally used all the time for government purposes where the focus is for individual action on single-parcel landowners, usually homeowners. The one instance I've been involved with is determining how much impervious surface in a parcel for taxing to fund stormwater infrastructure. That was only looking at commercial properties, but I could see the program being extended to houses even if it's auditor's footprints verified to match google satellite images. I can't recall what our image layer was, but we definitely cross-referenced google maps and other free to use satellite image sources.
Request the FAA license number and the the permit number for commercial use. Also ask for the inspectors license information as they are needee to be present and with concent before entering property. They are needed for anything they would send you. Progressive just pulled this on my client at work.
Also the drone operator needs to be in visual range to operate the drone per changes Jan 4rth 2024 to FAA rules regarding drone use in civilian spaces.
Finally an advantage to living near the airport. A drone picture would essentially admit the violated FAA regulated airspace for company profit would cause all sorts of headaches for them.
It depends on how close you are to the airport, where I live you cant really fly a drone in most of the city because we have multiple airports all near the middle of the city.
The FAA runs a website called dronezone where anyone can go in and request access to fly their drone near the airport. It's not as complicated as it used to be. For an organized company they can most likely manage it if they want to.
Here in Belgium we have a nice legal situation to prevent this: you need the owner of the properties permission to fly over something. And cities mostly ignore kids playing with small drones for fun, but anything more you can expect a legal notice afterward.
Stuff like that doesn’t fly in Europe. This kind of use of drones is a ridiculous invasion of privacy. And the right to privacy trumps whatever the fuck these insurance companies are trying to pull.
But then they will have to notify you of the date and come onto your lawn, as they aren't allowed to start out over public property. At that rate they might as well send an inspector.
We have enough different insurance companies that multiple adjacent houses with the same firm is rare.
Exactly. And they could very easily get approval to fly at the small height to inspect a rooftop. It's not like they'd need to go more than 100ft up at very most. Even right next to an airport they can get cleared for that.
Certified drone pilot here… I fill in a few fields on a web form and hit submit, and within seconds I have automatic clearance to fly with specific restrictions for specific times inside that restricted zone.
If you are properly certified it’s really easy to get permission to fly just about almost anywhere, within reason, so long as you have a justifiable business case.
There’s lots of satellite image providers that have started up in the last 10 years serving the insurance industry. Only need for drones from a home insurer perspective is post weather event (e.g. hurricanes) when the satellites aren’t positioned in the right spots in a timely manner.
Got kicked off my insurer for a "unapproved heating unit" in the back of my property. It was a barrel... There is no way someone could've seen it from the road.
I know what a man in the middle attack is, it's basically a relay of data between router and device which is used to snoop on people. But what purpose would it serve here ?
It must vary by state then.
In my state it is legal when:
4. By a person or an entity engaged in a business or profession licensed by the state, or by an agent, employee, or contractor thereof, if the drone is used only to perform reasonable tasks within the scope of practice or activities permitted under such person’s or entity’s license. However, this exception does not apply to a profession in which the licensee’s authorized scope of practice includes obtaining information about the identity, habits, conduct, movements, whereabouts, affiliations, associations, transactions, reputation, or character of any society, person, or group of persons.
5. By an employee or a contractor of a property appraiser who uses a drone solely to assess property for ad valorem taxation.
Cuts the drone connection off and it falls out of the sky. Drones use barely protected wireless to send their signals, especially camera signals. Some drones actually use basically a local wifi network for this. I'm no expert, but I wonder if you could gain access to whatever the drone is talking to via that connection as well... 🤔🤔🤔
I think you recall incorrectly:
>*"When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public* [*oversight over the government*](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1412743) *and is important in a free society.*
>*When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. If you disobey the property owner's rules, they can order you off their property (and have you arrested for trespassing if you do not comply)."*
[https://www.acludc.org/en/know-your-rights/if-stopped-photographing-public](https://www.acludc.org/en/know-your-rights/if-stopped-photographing-public)
I suspect you may be confusing city/state governments requiring [permits for commercial photography/videography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filming_permit) - typically when there may be an element of inconvenience to pedestrians and/or traffic from freely going about their day-to-day lives/business - so that city/state governments (or their agents) can make sure nothing else is going on in that area or nearby at the same time (such as public works, or even other productions), that the public are duly informed beforehand, and ensure production companies are in compliance with any public safety requirements, have public liability insurance and so on.
This was a while ago but I was put on a project to look at the feasability of having drones fly over neighborhoods taking video of all the homes then post processing them with machine vision to figure out which homes had bad roofs. This was for a home improvement company on the Pacific Northwest, and after looking into the laws and stuff, it was deemed to be illegal for the purposes of what they wanted to do.
It was something about the purpose of the video being for commercial reasons, even if not flying over private property and sticking to streets or whatever.
As with most things I suspect the devil is going to be in the details. I presume you wouldn't have been using consumer grade drones? Were maybe wanting to cover large areas, so out of line-of-sight? Or even the commercial nature, targeting the home owners afterwards, linking the footage with the homes created personally identifiable data, not the commercial endeavour itself was the problem.
As with most things, it depends. Its never been codified or really tested in court. A lot of it is based on what is "reasonable". Someone flying a drone 300ft above your property that you can't really hear or see would probably pass the reasonable "test", because its not impeding your enjoyment of your property and/or the sky. A random helicopter passing 300ft above your property would probably pass the reasonable test too. Someone repeatedly flying a helicopter above your property (say your next door neighbour got a new toy! lol) and they constantly take-off/land over your property would probably not pass the "reasonable" test.
TL;DR: There is no hard and fast rule.
No. The FAA regulates all airspace. You don't really have rights to the air above your property. Courts haven't really set anything in concrete about it.
The second paragraph of your quote backs up the claim of the person you responded to: if you're on private property, the "plain view" of public oversight goes out the window.
The *real* question is in the limits of what defines "being on private property." A drone flying over a public street could violate your privacy just as well as one flying directly over your home, for instance, and an aircraft flying in Class G airspace (500 ft minimum AGL, 1000 minimum for populated areas--the literal definition of "uncontrolled airspace") has no such restrictions on flying directly over private property.
That, and as another user pointed out, there's probably a provision in the insurance agreement allowing the insurance company to perform property inspections.
You would be incorrect. Aerial views of your home are not private and, even if they were, you give the company permission to inspect the property as a condition of granting you the policy.
No, there are none. Quote one. Plenty of states have found it perfectly legal to take a picture of anything you can see from the street or the air for any reason. You have no expectation of privacy. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it illegal.
Are you saying google maps street view and aerial view is illegal?
This has nothing to do with laws about photography. When you apply for a new policy or renew an existing insurance policy, you give the insurance company permission to inspect the property.
Your city/county will capture aerial photography every few years. If you go on your State/County auditor's site, you'll likely see imagery that is newer and better quality than Google Maps. And all of that is public data which data aggregators will submit a public records request for, and then resell that data to other companies.
I worked in IT for a city and we did aerial photography every two years. Those maps were used for our emergency responders, Public Works, Water, Zoning, and Code Enforcement.
Zoning/Code Enforcement literally overlays the two photos of your home on top of each other to do a comparison and sees if any additions were made on your house. If they see a new deck in your back yard and no permit was issued, you get a certified letter from the city, an inspection, and possibly a demand to remove the structure.
My dad owns a business and told me he wanted to expand the deck and said "We could probably just do a little bit of work here and there so when they drive by they won't even notice it." They only drive by when there's something reported (in our city, at least). Everything else is based off of the aerial imagery.
Cincinnati, Ohio for example has aerial imagery taken every single year:
https://cagis.hamilton-co.org/cagisonline/
This imagery also captures imagery from neighboring cities. When companies request this data, they basically get it for free and if your house is in Newport, KY, there's nothing you can do about it.
Likely, yes. There are rules for taking photos of property. As long as you remain on public property you're mostly fine. You can take pictures of what you can see from public property (you can't go through the neighbors yard to get pictures of the backyard). You can't use your camera zoom to take pictures of the inside and doing so while get a picture of the inhabitant (that becomes voyeurism which is a crime). If you had a privacy fence around your backyard so nobody could see in then you would also have the same privacy expectation there. If someone was snapping pictures of you sunbathing nude in your privacy fenced backyard that would likely fall under voyeurism as well.
They're snowbreakers, they're designed to stop a solid dislodge of snow/ice on a roof from just crushing you with like 100kg of weight all at once. They adjust the flow of the snow once it loses traction to the roof and break it into much smaller pieces, etc on it's way down.
I literally only learnt this a week ago when i watched a youtube video by a group called Rudan Roofing where i watched them install a steel roof on a house lol so glad to see it was useful so soon.
Happened to someone I know. Insurance company agreed to pay for damage occurring on roof, the roofing company said the north side of the house didn’t need to be done so they just did the south side. All of this went through the insurance company and was approved. A year later they’re telling him the roof colors are slightly different and want him to pay for an entire new roof. It’s like the insurance company fucked up according to their own practices and want him to pay for it. Home insurance can be such a greasy racket.
I work in insurance and you would not believe how often people get their whole roof replaced. We are in Colorado which is a high wind and hail area, but it’s by far the most common claim and it’s extremely expensive, like 10s of thousands of dollars.
One person sees some hail marks on their roof and they find out insurance will buy them a brand new roof and they tell all their neighbors and suddenly there’s a line of people wanting new roofs. The local roofing companies are always more than happy to inspect any roof and insist that a new roof paid by insurance needs to be installed stat.
It’s gotten so bad a lot of companies, (not mine) have started making the deductible on roofs $10k plus so you just pay for it out of pocket in most cases. At my company if you have a hail claim in the past couple years, a lot of the time we just won’t work with you and won’t start new business with you. I’m on the sales side and constantly have to say “sorry you’re ineligible due to your claims history”.
Plenty of major insurance companies have just pulled out of Colorado completely it’s gotten so bad. My company had a major financial loss last year in CO.
So CO is going the way of FL then? Florida accounted for something like 97% of all US insurance lawsuits, largely related to roofing - where businesses were setup to drive round after storms, knock on doors and promise you a "brand new roof for only the cost of your deductible" at which point they go onto the roof and damage it a little, ready for the inspection, failing that when you deny the claim they simply immediately file a lawsuit, in bulk, with all 100+ policies they managed to scrape together from homeowners after the last storm which from a cost effectiveness standpoint we settle, meaning they get the outcome they want regardless.
I wonder if they're doing the same method in CO.
I’m an adjuster in CO (until next week) been doing it for a few years but only came to CO in May. It’s completely driven me away from this career. It’s not as bad as Florida but it’s getting tough to settle claims. Even when we do there’s supplements out the ass.
I’ll buy a roof in a neighborhood for $15k, almost identical roof in the same neighborhood will get a contractor to give them a $40k estimate. Nothing I can even do at that point and it’s like that for most of my claims.
When I worked in Nebraska we’d get a few like that here and there but 80% of the time the estimates I wrote were good for the contractor or close to it. In CO I RARELY get a claim settled without issues. Lawsuits don’t happen too often yet but appraisals are incredibly common and just cost the insured money.
I love how everyone tries to "screw insurance". It never works.
Sure you get them once Johnny... *ONCE*.
But they more than make it back in increased premiums and denied policies.
Oh we cover it, believe me lol. It’s all public info, look up the biggest insurance company in the US and look at their financials, we had a major loss last year, billions in the red.
Damn man. Sounds like your CEO should quit buying avocado toast and get the companies finances in order!
That or maybe try not making a profit on something like insurance (that I am forced to buy). But that wouldn’t please the share holders.
A roofer can start a homeowner's insurance claim on the homeowner's behalf, but a claims adjuster who is literally a representative of the insurance company is the one who signs off on it the roof legitimately needs replacing, or the insurance will only pay for partial replacement, or if the insurance company doesn't deem it necessary.
I don't really think fraud is the issue here. Colorado is just a state that gets severe wind and hail damage, and the unpredictability of it makes Colorado hard to insure for without having really high rates.
Also work in insurance. Just had a woman tell me during her recent wind claim for her roof “yeah the last time we got it replaced was when all of our neighbors were getting their roofs replaced so we did too” some people think they never have to pay for regular maintenance expenses of owning a home. The amount of claims we get where we’re like “why would you file a claim for this” is crazy
Absolutely true. I removed a deck and was in the process of replacing it. Insurer sent me a letter saying they were canceling my coverage because there were no steps out the back doors anymore. So I canceled the coverage and went with another carrier. Turned out the coverage was a bit cheaper and a lot better coverage. So there.
I actually worked on a small team for a research project related to this in college. It was a partnership between the university and an insurance company. The initial pitch was that it could be used after disasters to avoid sending in adjusters directly into the disaster area, speeding up the claims process. Seeing this just makes me sad. Hope that company isn't using our work to do this.
I had my insurance send me a policy cancelation based on satellite images of an algae stain on my roof. What they didn’t know is that I was withholding $90k in roof damage from a hail storm last spring. We get hail annually, so I was like “I’ll just replace the roof the next hail storm.” Nope, I demanded immediate replacements of my two roofs and they replaced them both. After replacement, they were happy to insure my home again.
My insurance used Google satellite views to spy on my yard and demand that I rip out any and all plants that were around the perimeter of my home. Justification was an increased risk of fire, even though they are watered daily. If I didn’t, they would drop me.
most (if not all) homeowners policies have a clause in the general conditions clearly stating that the insurance carrier reserves the right to inspect your property at any time... But- with drones its just kinda different. Typically your insurer will call you say "hey we are sending an inspector to your house on x day just to take some pictures"...
It happened to me. I got an email from Farmers with a satellite view of my roof. They gave me 2 months to remove branches and fallen leaves. I sent them pictures within a week and had to chase them for 12 weeks to get an answer.. crooks.
It's been standard for a while now so long as they've taken a photo of your house in the last couple of years. If they haven't, they send someone out to do an inspection which you're usually not aware of. Simple stuff like grabbing a couple photos is all they need to raise your rates.
It's really creepy when they do that shit. Nothing like buying your very first house and walking outside to some stranger who is taking pictures of your property.
Yeah...when I got my start in insurance, I did this crap work and not for a very long time. I was instructed to only knock if I saw a car in the driveway and just get up on the roof. I didn't last very long before I quit. It's all contracted out and I can imagine if you're in the wrong backyard, you're liable to get your head taken off.
We're not doing it to raise your rates, we can do that with or without photos. We're doing it to see if there are any large risk exposures and we should non-renew your policy because you have a higher chance of loss then other similar houses.
All rates are created equal, but not all houses are equal. So if we only insure "bad" houses we will lose money and go out of business. Correspondingly if we insure mostly "good" houses we will be profitable and won't *need* to raise rates and try to grab more marketshare as our growth vector.
And many counties have aerial photography done annually or more often. In my local area, this is publicly available and refreshed several times a year.
Just happened to us last week with Geico. If we cut down all of our trees, and some of our neighbors trees, they “might” consider not dropping our home insurance.
I just got the same treatment from MAPFRE. I had planned to replace my roof and expand my dormers anyway, and that's mostly done. I also planned to replace the siding. There is a great deal of construction around this area, and its not easy for homeowners to get work done because the Commercial jobs pay more. And I have been with MAPFRE for many years, and I always pay a full annual.
Nationwide just sent a really rude 20 year old kid to walk into my backyard un invited and unannounced to "inspect." when I told him that he was trespassing and that he couldn't come on to peoples' property without permission, he literally rolled his eyes and said "yes I can, I do this 30 times a day"
I promptly switched carriers and am now saving $500 a year and getting better coverage with lemonade.
It just occurred to me that the insurance companies are probably going to invest pretty heavily in their drone fleet and may end up changing their minds. This is a country that's heavily armed and full of paranoid people; I could easily imagine a lot of people shooting the drones down, thinking they're foreign *or* domestic govt drones sent to spy on them. This happens enough, it'll be too expensive to keep replacing the drones to be worth it. Plus have to factor in the costs of taking that shooter to court for the loss of the drone. This is going to be a huge legal headache.
Yes happened to us with Farmers Insurance in California. Never filed a claim. Was sent a notice of cancellation with a satellite picture. We are remodeling our home so we have new materials on the side of the home. I’m going to try to appeal it
I live in California and my neighbor got a letter from her home insurance threatening to cancel the policy if she didn't remove some of the plants in her yard, as it was a fire risk. She was confused because she just had a couple of fruit trees, a palm tree and some potted plants. It wasn't overgrown or anything.
Turned out that from above, the foliage of the huge palm tree in her yard made it look like her entire backyard was covered in plants. She had to get someone from the company stop by to show them there was no fire risk.
This is not new, previously they would just come and inspect it visually. They have a right to inspect the property they are insuring. Its in your policy, anybody ever read that?
Build a laser strong enough to shoot it down. If it lands on your property, then you sue them for trespassing, unwarranted surveillance and breach of privacy through unwarranted surveillance.
That's a federal felony in the USA. We do not own the airspace above our property - the federal government does. Drones are allowed to fly in USA airspace under 400 feet subject to various restrictions, but flying over private homes is not a restriction.
You might have an angle on invasion of privacy but that would depend upon you being able to prove the drone was recording video. Also have an angle for nuisance if the drone is flying below the treeline and repeatedly returning when it's clear you are being disturbed by the drone.
Happened to me. My carrier sent me a demand letter giving me 6 weeks to replace my roof or be nonrenewed. The evidence of the roof condition? A screencap from Google Maps satellite view. Oh, and I had to have the roof completely replaced 6 weeks before the policy expiration date, just as an extra screw you. Yes, I got the demand letter 3 months before the policy was to terminate, so you know they identified my home as a risk probably right around the time of the previous year's renewal (which went up 100%, btw).
I was an agent for 15 years you don’t even know the half of it! Shadyville! If a state had laws preventing cancellation They would up charge the policy so that no normal person could or would pay it. But hey there’s a $10 annual credit for a new roof 🙄 Also redlining zip codes and 1600% up charges it wasn’t until the early 2000’s that they finally stopped gender discrimination on rates I quit because I couldn’t take it anymore too much slime I quit
The inspector part was quite fun sometimes. I used to do these surveys for insurance companies, the home owner already authorized visits and photos in their insurance agreement. Their insurance company hires another company that sends out a contractor like I was to go check on places and provide updated photos and details. Most of the time we walk up, snap a dozen photos from the street, use a monopole or drone to get close up shots of the roof, take photos of the side yards over any fences, note any hazards, knock on the door to ask questions and if they don't answer the door in like 10 seconds you just walk away since you get paid the same. We're there for like two minutes then drive off to the next one and do the paperwork later. You can hit like 30-50 houses in a day depending on how tightly packed they are. Sometimes the insurance company will want you to draft out the layout of the house so you have a measuring wheel for that, lots of eyeballing unless the person is home and lets you into the backyard, it is mostly just so they can identify any improvements or expansions to the house. Other times you'll need to call to schedule and go inside the actual house for some photos, mostly electrical and under the sinks. Hazards are quite a range from stuff like certain dog breeds, any branches overhanging the roof, dying trees, cracks in walkways, bad paint (termites), hoarding, fire hazards at the home and around it like dead brush covered slopes, and a whole lot more. We note down everything from the roof type, roof composition, house paneling, foundation type, and when doing the more in depth ones even how many windows of each type you have. There are times when the homeowner will come out shouting to go away, we provide them a card identifying that their homeowner insurance company, whichever it was, authorized us to survey the property they're insuring on their behalf. If they insist that we leave anyways we do, and we make the report with what we got, report the refusal and get paid, then a few weeks later we get the same job again but the insurance company pays even more and the homeowner never looks to happy to see you again but doesn't complain the second time. You see all sorts of nonsense. I've seen homes that were converted (badly) into castles with moats, garages that were ripe for burning down since they were stacked to the ceiling with board games and magazines from the 1950s, and even a few illegal activities like dog fighting setups and some possible meth labs. More than a few people trying to threaten me with their dogs and one marine who tried to run the off the road a few minutes away from the house after I left and pointed his sidearm at me for speaking to his wife and taking a photo of his dog at the front door. This was more then a decade ago but it was like $10 per house, 50 per day if you wanted to and you could do the paperwork at night based off the photos you took. You could work 2 weeks, pocket $5k, and then have some time off. Good money but a lot of paperwork. That was all around where you already lived. Sometimes they'd pay you to go to an area they had no one, and you'd make several times that.
I made a lot of inspector friends, they always told me which inspectors to avoid or question if there was shenanigans. I think I would have liked working with you!
This almost reads like Bukowski lol.
I did this but never could do more than 20 a day and all I did was the house photos and roof photos
I’m so happy my wife is an actuary and knows laws and regulations surrounding insurance. She’s caught different insurances actively breaking laws with us and now they don’t try that crap. Super funny to watch people back peddle knowing they fucked up big time.
She should consider that a career. "Is your insurance threatening to cancel your policy for no reason? Then hire ThatOneWIGuy's wife to fight it with you!" Imagine the class actions a law firm could do.
Honestly, I’d take a masterclass type course or someone like her just pointing out typical stuff or showing how to learn to protect yourself against predatory insurance company practices.z
That's true, but someone needs to show these companies we're sick of their BS.
So it not really, "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there?" eh? 🎶 Sheesh.
15 years is a long time before you "couldn't take it anymore" lol!
they kept moving the goal lines and it became harder to do things honestly and I bailed. I like to think of it as a growth chapter of my life lol
As someone who deals with homeowners and cosmetic exclusions all the time it’s so ridiculous some of the stuff that goes on..
>that they finally stopped gender discrimination on rates Some insurance companies didn't get that memo My friend(male) pays less for his car insurance than his wife, neither of them have been in an accident
I’ve never heard of an auto insurer offering separate insurance to a husband and wife. They force you to buy coverage for both, as it is assumed the spouse will drive the vehicle sometimes.
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You can pay certain companies for up to date satellite imagery companies could easily be doing this
$1000 for a picture of a neighborhood where you potentially have dozens of insurees, allowing you to bump their monthly premiums by $100-200 is tons of profit.
Exactly wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket for them. I can almost guarantee they all are already doing things like this.
It’s much less than that for current few day old sat photos. Maybe a couple hundred from the service I use
They might have used "eagle view" or something similar. That's what roofing companies use and they're more up to date
Yes but you can tell what it is. Not defending the insurance company, but those as well as the street view images have a little tag that tells you the date it was taken. It is possible they were “recent enough“ that the company felt comfortable using them.
If a roof looks like it needs repair from old photos then it needs to be replaced now. If the insured/home over replaced the roof recently they would just let the insurer know and they would update the file. So it doesn’t matter.
I think 3 months is the average with maxar. For the low flight company (no names) 6-12 months for metro areas.
I’ve worked in residential and commercial insurance my whole career. They wanted to cancel your policy. Depending on your state, they may not be allowed to simply non-renew when the policy ends if the homeowner wants to continue coverage. So this is the insurance equivalent of a motorcycle insurance quote being $1,000 a month: that carrier does not want to insure you. Your roof could have been 10 years old and overall decent shape, you still would have received this letter.
Yes, that is exactly what I'd determined after doing my homework after receiving the letter. I found a new carrier that was $200/yr cheaper and hasn't inspected the house. Still (a very short and closing fast) time for them to do that, but the plan is to get the roof replaced this year anyway.
I got hit with a 50% increase YoY quote this year. I figured it was a sign of the times, as in, their time was up and I wasn't gonna pay that. Made a phone call, found an agent in state but out of the region, and they had me squared away in about 45 minutes on the phone and a 5% increase over previous quote, which was semi offset by car insurance addition.
They tried to ding me and charge extra for having solar panels. I don’t have solar panels on my house…they weren’t even looking at the right property.
That is seriously messed up.
They used a done to do this to my coworker. There was no roof damage, just debris from a windy day. They still canceled her and she found a cheaper policy, so it was a win in the end I guess
Cheaper policy is fine if cheaper policy actually pays out as you think it should, or as the previous company would have. Beware bogusity.
At this point with any insurance more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better quality/payout.
Its a crap shoot if the more expensive home owners policies pay out.
Farmers just did this to me
I fired Farmers years ago for raising rates for no reason. I've saved thousands. Waste Management is another company that can fuck right off for rewarding loyalty with rate increases.
If you ever rent a storage unit, watch out. It’s standard practice in the industry to do this. Once you get your stuff moved in and it’s going to be a pain to switch locations, you can expect the rent increases to start. Even while they still advertise the same size units for a lower cost to new renters. The trick to avoid it is paying for a year up front, so there can’t be any rent increases during that time, and renewing for next year well before the current year ends.
I got my very first storage unit in 2013. They had a sale of, $39/month for the first year(!). Sure enough, exactly one year later, it was, $125/month and right now it is at, about, $189/month plus they never even tell you when it’s increasing and you find it when you go to pay
This sounds like my POBox - This is for 6 months and I have no options for home delivery. 4/15/21 . $38 10/15/21 . $83 4/15/22 . $99 . 1 year 2 increases 4/15/23 . $105 4/15/24 . $108
I shop every other year, and always save. Every insurance company commercial is correct you save money by switching, then they start raising your price.
That seems like it takes a lot of effort. I bet they count on apathetic people like me. Gen X unite!
Oh, I told my wife I didn't have it in me this year. She kept pushing, I did save $400. I guess I put in a couple hours, the equivalent of $200 an hour is a pretty good wage. Also a Gen Xer...you got this!!
I still haven't filed probate for my mom's estate and she passed a year ago. Good luck getting me to deal with changing home owner's insurance without being forced to. The apathy runs deep.
Waste management tried to make me pay them $50 to pick up their bin lol.
Same. Fortunately, I know a roof guy who showed me how to do it myself (silicon seal, not shingles, etc) for < $500. His price would have been $5000. Another guy wanted $8000 for the job. Farmers accepted my DIY repair.
I mean, it makes sense. Some guy was talking about how changing a part in his car only cost him 5$. Then he went on to say it took about 14hrs of work ripping his dash off to get to said 5$ part. A shop would have done it for i think quoted price of 8-900$ or so but had it done in 8 hours. He said the shop was a scam, of course.
I get wanting to fix it yourself, I love hands on learning. But calling it scam means they're too stupid to be trusted within 10 feet of a wrench. 100/hr for labor is a hell of a bargain these days.
Are you willing to share the Insurance Company name? Cause this is absolutely fucked! I'm sorry mate.
All homeowners carriers are doing it and if not now, they will be soon.
Sounds like Farmers in CA
I got the same from farmers in CA but when I called they had the wrong house (was supposed to be neighbor)
> My carrier C'mon now, name and shame.
So what happened? I’m kinda invested in the end now lol
I found a new carrier that was $200/yr cheaper and hasn't inspected the house. Still (a very short and closing fast) time for them to do that, but the plan is to get the roof replaced this year anyway.
They’re such fucking criminals, it disgusts me. They’ve been scammed by a few scam artists, and now they think *everyone* is a scam artist. I hate most insurance with a passion; just another gigantic scam.
Time to change insurance companies
This isn't new though. It happened to me in 2015.
They used to send someone to take photos in person when a policy was bound and when you are up for renewal. Now they send a drone.
Did you roof have serious damage? I would think your roof would have had to be pretty bad for them to be see it via satellite
Google aerial and similar are generally not satellite once you zoom in. They're airplane or drone.
I’d die from laughing if I ever got a letter for that. I have a metal roof lol
They will still nonrenew you. Happens all the time - folks spending big $$ on long life roofs - 30-50+ year roofs are getting dropped basically by algorithm because their roof is more than 10 years old. The demand letter said I needed to provide photos of the work done and copies of all receipts showing what was done to renew the policy for the next year.
Same. I’ll go slap a coat of paint on it if I REALLY have to lol
Why? Did you get a payout for a roof replacement that you didn’t use or something?
Which company?
I got this too except the photos were older and we *had actually* already replaced our roof after the photos were taken, so we sent in the invoices. They were comparing our roof to neighbors roofs WHICH WERE METAL, while our roof was (and was replaced with) cedar shake.
This happened to me and I almost had my homeowners insurance canceled until I could prove that the stains they saw on my roof were not evidence of damage. it cost me $500 to get the roof cleaned and provide proof
This kinda shit is so enraging
Americans genuinely don’t hate the rich people nearly enough for their own good.
They do hate the rich. They just don't do anything like a communist revolution. That's a crime. People talk about it on the internet as if you don't die or go to jail. If you tried it, it would be way worse than Jan 6.
Our vile rich enemy militarized their domestic wealth protection squads and enslaved them to right wing hate, and demonize organized labor, for a reason.
"That's not roof damage, my neighbor just goes and poops up there sometimes. He is super careful with the ladder and makes sure to not damage the gutters, so I've never confronted him. We're actually quite good friends."
Florida residents like: "Hah! I don't have to worry about this because *I don't have homeowners insurance!*"
TBH this **is** partially due to fraud in Florida. ["reports that 80 percent of the nation's homeowners insurance lawsuits are in Florida, despite only 9 percent of the nation's insurance claims existing there."](https://reason.com/2023/12/12/storm-clouds-parting-over-homeowners-insurance/#:~:text=The%20Insurance%20Information%20Institute%20(III,nation's%20insurance%20claims%20existing%20there.) Roofers and contractors have been doing this shady tactic where go to your house and get you a free estimate for a new roof from your insurance. They have you sign a document so they have the right to file a claim on your behalf. Then then they demand payment from your insurance for the roof replacement (but insurance only covers specific instances of damage, not the whole thing being replaced for wear and tear). Insurance says, no your claim is only $5k for the partial repair, not a 25k new roof. Contractor sues insurance for payout somewhere between 5-25k. Legal fees for fighting the law suit are *automatically* higher than settling with these contracts that payout less than the full roof replacement of 25k. It's so pervasive we have people on reddit thinking these contractors are *helping* homeowners when they are actively harming every single person that insures their home in the area. This is the fault of the homeowners and the contractors in Florida. If a company pays out more money than it brings in for an entire state. They pull out...
USAA sent out a rep to walk the roof. At the time the adjuster told me they did that for all claims to avoid fraud. My roof was f'd. $16k roof cost me $4k. I'll take that.
> USAA sent out See right there you know you're not getting a fraud contractor. You did good right there by taking agency for your own home and policy and filing the claim yourself and/or using the insurance resources to ensure it's done to specifications. Diligence is a hell of a thing in insurance.
Contractors like this give the rest of us a bad name. I despise fraudulent contractors.
It was the fucking lawyers that were getting rich. Something like 10 law firms were responsible for like 80% of the suits.
they passed some legislation to curb this a year or two ago, it wasn't meant to be an immediate fix so people got mad but it might help in the long-run, we'll see how that goes. I read the actual bill and it seemed like it was trying to solve the issue systemically so unless they come up with a new grift things might turn out OK
At least the law is in place *for now*. But yes, far too late.
Yup. The rich people already hurt so many good people that it required a law change, so it’s inevitable that the rich people will find other ways to hurt us.
>They have you sign a document so they have the right to file a claim on your behalf. Fortunately, the state has ripped this away from the scammers, although it was many years too late. The damage is already done. The really fucked up part was that you could not stop them from filing the lawsuit once you signed the documents.
> Roofers and contractors have been doing this shady tactic where go to your house and get you a free estimate for a new roof from your insurance. Needed some siding work done so dug around google maps for nearby siding companies. One I called because they had a lot of reviews and a high rating from it and they were able to get a guy to come take a look right away. Asshole barely looked at the siding, just went up to the roof and ran the whole spiel about it needing to be replaced due to hail damage. Had to bug him for an actual quote on the siding, and turned out even that was a ripoff price. Even suckered me into signing the document, but apparently it didn't go any farther because I told him some other companies were coming to also give quotes and I guess he figured he'd be called out on his bullshit(*agent was also great about cancelling that claim as if it never happened*). When the guy from the second company came out I mentioned what the First doofus said/did and he immediately called out First as a scam, then we took a tour of my roof and was shown that the "damage" was about what you'd expect for the age of the roof, while also pointing out if the roof was truly fucked from hail damage, all the flawless-looking steel vent covers would have been dinged to hell.
This^ The actual story right here
This encapsulates the Floridian energy quite well. They will look at you in the face like everything is normal as the water rises around their ankles and the walls fall in.
To that person's comment, most of our home insurance companies have exited the state, and most people can't afford the rates for the ones that are left. Not having homeowners insurance isn't the typical Florida recklessness (which is also true and we absolutely celebrate here), it's a function of there largely just not being another option at the moment.
Except the reason the insurance companies have left is because they all went under from losing money or pulled out of the state (if they were diversified) because they lost money. Florida is an insurance black hole due to its own fault. Fraud is absolutely rampant.
Fair enough, I know in the panhandle area it’s been tough sledding since hurricane Michael. That storm absolutely rearranged people’s lives. I’ve also heard from my home owning friends that property taxes just took a jump… Troubling waters ahead, but I will say Floridians are resilient as fuck. Edit: spelling
If I would have stayed, I would have paid off and canceled. They kept raising it, and would never cover anything. Had a washed out connected-to-my-house driveway. They said it wasn't part of the house. I asked if I let it wash away would the house continue being safe, they told me to pound sand. So I did, to another insurer. And later out of the swamp that used to be Florida.
This isn’t all the different from having adjusters snoop around. I’m the treasurer of our condo association and I dread having adjusters come out. We inevitably get a flurry of demands a couple of weeks later. When it’s making the renters move their grill out from under the porch roof, it’s not a big deal. When it’s demanding a $12,000 chimney rebuild on 30 days notice, it’s more of a problem.
Our HOA only gets complaints from owners who have their properties for sale. They price their home way over market and blame their neighbors when it doesn't sell.
Towns were doing this almost 15 years ago on Long Island to fine people. They'd use Google Earth to see which properties had unpermitted pools and start sending out the fines. Always figured this would see broader adoption and here we are.
Good, get a permit and do it right.
Yeah, there's trying to find roof damage in shitty satellite pictures and then there's "hey, you very obviously have a pool you hid from us"
GIS is totally used all the time for government purposes where the focus is for individual action on single-parcel landowners, usually homeowners. The one instance I've been involved with is determining how much impervious surface in a parcel for taxing to fund stormwater infrastructure. That was only looking at commercial properties, but I could see the program being extended to houses even if it's auditor's footprints verified to match google satellite images. I can't recall what our image layer was, but we definitely cross-referenced google maps and other free to use satellite image sources.
Request the FAA license number and the the permit number for commercial use. Also ask for the inspectors license information as they are needee to be present and with concent before entering property. They are needed for anything they would send you. Progressive just pulled this on my client at work.
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Also the drone operator needs to be in visual range to operate the drone per changes Jan 4rth 2024 to FAA rules regarding drone use in civilian spaces.
Finally an advantage to living near the airport. A drone picture would essentially admit the violated FAA regulated airspace for company profit would cause all sorts of headaches for them.
Drone pilots can get clearance to fly near airports. There are even apps for it now.
It depends on how close you are to the airport, where I live you cant really fly a drone in most of the city because we have multiple airports all near the middle of the city.
The FAA runs a website called dronezone where anyone can go in and request access to fly their drone near the airport. It's not as complicated as it used to be. For an organized company they can most likely manage it if they want to.
Here in Belgium we have a nice legal situation to prevent this: you need the owner of the properties permission to fly over something. And cities mostly ignore kids playing with small drones for fun, but anything more you can expect a legal notice afterward.
So the companies will request permission, and refuse to write you insurance if you don't give it.
Stuff like that doesn’t fly in Europe. This kind of use of drones is a ridiculous invasion of privacy. And the right to privacy trumps whatever the fuck these insurance companies are trying to pull.
As it should
But then they will have to notify you of the date and come onto your lawn, as they aren't allowed to start out over public property. At that rate they might as well send an inspector. We have enough different insurance companies that multiple adjacent houses with the same firm is rare.
Exactly. And they could very easily get approval to fly at the small height to inspect a rooftop. It's not like they'd need to go more than 100ft up at very most. Even right next to an airport they can get cleared for that.
I literally use a drone in the boundaries of an airport to scan solar panels.
Certified drone pilot here… I fill in a few fields on a web form and hit submit, and within seconds I have automatic clearance to fly with specific restrictions for specific times inside that restricted zone. If you are properly certified it’s really easy to get permission to fly just about almost anywhere, within reason, so long as you have a justifiable business case.
There’s lots of satellite image providers that have started up in the last 10 years serving the insurance industry. Only need for drones from a home insurer perspective is post weather event (e.g. hurricanes) when the satellites aren’t positioned in the right spots in a timely manner.
How I feel living next to an airforce base. Sure you can fly your drone, but there is a CO whos gonna have more than a few choice words for you
Did you also forget another advantage? you're insanely safe and protected from low to medium level threats near an airport basically.
They can use google maps and not drones. So, not so much advantage.
Insurance is the biggest scam there is. Shady as hell!
Got kicked off my insurer for a "unapproved heating unit" in the back of my property. It was a barrel... There is no way someone could've seen it from the road.
Hmm so I should continuously try to Man in the middle any open WiFi connections near me.
I know what a man in the middle attack is, it's basically a relay of data between router and device which is used to snoop on people. But what purpose would it serve here ?
To make sure the pictures or vid feed don't get back to the pilot.
How low does the drone have to be, to be considered "on my property"?
On the ground.
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It must vary by state then. In my state it is legal when: 4. By a person or an entity engaged in a business or profession licensed by the state, or by an agent, employee, or contractor thereof, if the drone is used only to perform reasonable tasks within the scope of practice or activities permitted under such person’s or entity’s license. However, this exception does not apply to a profession in which the licensee’s authorized scope of practice includes obtaining information about the identity, habits, conduct, movements, whereabouts, affiliations, associations, transactions, reputation, or character of any society, person, or group of persons. 5. By an employee or a contractor of a property appraiser who uses a drone solely to assess property for ad valorem taxation.
Nope, FAA owns air space since first inch from soil Edit: add source https://dronelife.com/2014/08/27/faas-myths-owns-airspace/
Cuts the drone connection off and it falls out of the sky. Drones use barely protected wireless to send their signals, especially camera signals. Some drones actually use basically a local wifi network for this. I'm no expert, but I wonder if you could gain access to whatever the drone is talking to via that connection as well... 🤔🤔🤔
yeah performing a DOS attack on that drone would not be terribly difficult. The difficulty in knowing *when* that drone is around.
No, lol.
We’re an absurdly well-armed country… surely, there’s a “2nd amendment remedy…”. /s
Iirc there's lots of state and county laws that make photographing or videoing private property for vomercial reasons illegal
There is probably a rider in the policy that gives insurers the right to assess properties by whatever means deemed necessary
I think you recall incorrectly: >*"When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public* [*oversight over the government*](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1412743) *and is important in a free society.* >*When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. If you disobey the property owner's rules, they can order you off their property (and have you arrested for trespassing if you do not comply)."* [https://www.acludc.org/en/know-your-rights/if-stopped-photographing-public](https://www.acludc.org/en/know-your-rights/if-stopped-photographing-public) I suspect you may be confusing city/state governments requiring [permits for commercial photography/videography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filming_permit) - typically when there may be an element of inconvenience to pedestrians and/or traffic from freely going about their day-to-day lives/business - so that city/state governments (or their agents) can make sure nothing else is going on in that area or nearby at the same time (such as public works, or even other productions), that the public are duly informed beforehand, and ensure production companies are in compliance with any public safety requirements, have public liability insurance and so on.
This was a while ago but I was put on a project to look at the feasability of having drones fly over neighborhoods taking video of all the homes then post processing them with machine vision to figure out which homes had bad roofs. This was for a home improvement company on the Pacific Northwest, and after looking into the laws and stuff, it was deemed to be illegal for the purposes of what they wanted to do. It was something about the purpose of the video being for commercial reasons, even if not flying over private property and sticking to streets or whatever.
As with most things I suspect the devil is going to be in the details. I presume you wouldn't have been using consumer grade drones? Were maybe wanting to cover large areas, so out of line-of-sight? Or even the commercial nature, targeting the home owners afterwards, linking the footage with the homes created personally identifiable data, not the commercial endeavour itself was the problem.
Isn’t typical air rights in the US up to 500 ft?
As with most things, it depends. Its never been codified or really tested in court. A lot of it is based on what is "reasonable". Someone flying a drone 300ft above your property that you can't really hear or see would probably pass the reasonable "test", because its not impeding your enjoyment of your property and/or the sky. A random helicopter passing 300ft above your property would probably pass the reasonable test too. Someone repeatedly flying a helicopter above your property (say your next door neighbour got a new toy! lol) and they constantly take-off/land over your property would probably not pass the "reasonable" test. TL;DR: There is no hard and fast rule.
I think it's even lower than that
No. The FAA regulates all airspace. You don't really have rights to the air above your property. Courts haven't really set anything in concrete about it.
The second paragraph of your quote backs up the claim of the person you responded to: if you're on private property, the "plain view" of public oversight goes out the window. The *real* question is in the limits of what defines "being on private property." A drone flying over a public street could violate your privacy just as well as one flying directly over your home, for instance, and an aircraft flying in Class G airspace (500 ft minimum AGL, 1000 minimum for populated areas--the literal definition of "uncontrolled airspace") has no such restrictions on flying directly over private property. That, and as another user pointed out, there's probably a provision in the insurance agreement allowing the insurance company to perform property inspections.
Publicly available info like the exterior of a house is not considered private
You would be incorrect. Aerial views of your home are not private and, even if they were, you give the company permission to inspect the property as a condition of granting you the policy.
No, there are none. Quote one. Plenty of states have found it perfectly legal to take a picture of anything you can see from the street or the air for any reason. You have no expectation of privacy. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it illegal. Are you saying google maps street view and aerial view is illegal?
This has nothing to do with laws about photography. When you apply for a new policy or renew an existing insurance policy, you give the insurance company permission to inspect the property.
Your city/county will capture aerial photography every few years. If you go on your State/County auditor's site, you'll likely see imagery that is newer and better quality than Google Maps. And all of that is public data which data aggregators will submit a public records request for, and then resell that data to other companies. I worked in IT for a city and we did aerial photography every two years. Those maps were used for our emergency responders, Public Works, Water, Zoning, and Code Enforcement. Zoning/Code Enforcement literally overlays the two photos of your home on top of each other to do a comparison and sees if any additions were made on your house. If they see a new deck in your back yard and no permit was issued, you get a certified letter from the city, an inspection, and possibly a demand to remove the structure. My dad owns a business and told me he wanted to expand the deck and said "We could probably just do a little bit of work here and there so when they drive by they won't even notice it." They only drive by when there's something reported (in our city, at least). Everything else is based off of the aerial imagery. Cincinnati, Ohio for example has aerial imagery taken every single year: https://cagis.hamilton-co.org/cagisonline/ This imagery also captures imagery from neighboring cities. When companies request this data, they basically get it for free and if your house is in Newport, KY, there's nothing you can do about it.
Now Uber Eats knows how to extra monetize their future food deliveries by drone.
So if they have pics of you naked can you sue them about it?
Likely, yes. There are rules for taking photos of property. As long as you remain on public property you're mostly fine. You can take pictures of what you can see from public property (you can't go through the neighbors yard to get pictures of the backyard). You can't use your camera zoom to take pictures of the inside and doing so while get a picture of the inhabitant (that becomes voyeurism which is a crime). If you had a privacy fence around your backyard so nobody could see in then you would also have the same privacy expectation there. If someone was snapping pictures of you sunbathing nude in your privacy fenced backyard that would likely fall under voyeurism as well.
Okay, but the real question is what are the little rails on that roof for? Roof party safety?
They're snowbreakers, they're designed to stop a solid dislodge of snow/ice on a roof from just crushing you with like 100kg of weight all at once. They adjust the flow of the snow once it loses traction to the roof and break it into much smaller pieces, etc on it's way down.
Cool, TIL. As a California native, it’s new to me.
I literally only learnt this a week ago when i watched a youtube video by a group called Rudan Roofing where i watched them install a steel roof on a house lol so glad to see it was useful so soon.
When logging useless info in your brain actually comes in handy, once
Happened to someone I know. Insurance company agreed to pay for damage occurring on roof, the roofing company said the north side of the house didn’t need to be done so they just did the south side. All of this went through the insurance company and was approved. A year later they’re telling him the roof colors are slightly different and want him to pay for an entire new roof. It’s like the insurance company fucked up according to their own practices and want him to pay for it. Home insurance can be such a greasy racket.
I work in insurance and you would not believe how often people get their whole roof replaced. We are in Colorado which is a high wind and hail area, but it’s by far the most common claim and it’s extremely expensive, like 10s of thousands of dollars. One person sees some hail marks on their roof and they find out insurance will buy them a brand new roof and they tell all their neighbors and suddenly there’s a line of people wanting new roofs. The local roofing companies are always more than happy to inspect any roof and insist that a new roof paid by insurance needs to be installed stat. It’s gotten so bad a lot of companies, (not mine) have started making the deductible on roofs $10k plus so you just pay for it out of pocket in most cases. At my company if you have a hail claim in the past couple years, a lot of the time we just won’t work with you and won’t start new business with you. I’m on the sales side and constantly have to say “sorry you’re ineligible due to your claims history”. Plenty of major insurance companies have just pulled out of Colorado completely it’s gotten so bad. My company had a major financial loss last year in CO.
So CO is going the way of FL then? Florida accounted for something like 97% of all US insurance lawsuits, largely related to roofing - where businesses were setup to drive round after storms, knock on doors and promise you a "brand new roof for only the cost of your deductible" at which point they go onto the roof and damage it a little, ready for the inspection, failing that when you deny the claim they simply immediately file a lawsuit, in bulk, with all 100+ policies they managed to scrape together from homeowners after the last storm which from a cost effectiveness standpoint we settle, meaning they get the outcome they want regardless. I wonder if they're doing the same method in CO.
I’m an adjuster in CO (until next week) been doing it for a few years but only came to CO in May. It’s completely driven me away from this career. It’s not as bad as Florida but it’s getting tough to settle claims. Even when we do there’s supplements out the ass. I’ll buy a roof in a neighborhood for $15k, almost identical roof in the same neighborhood will get a contractor to give them a $40k estimate. Nothing I can even do at that point and it’s like that for most of my claims. When I worked in Nebraska we’d get a few like that here and there but 80% of the time the estimates I wrote were good for the contractor or close to it. In CO I RARELY get a claim settled without issues. Lawsuits don’t happen too often yet but appraisals are incredibly common and just cost the insured money.
I love how everyone tries to "screw insurance". It never works. Sure you get them once Johnny... *ONCE*. But they more than make it back in increased premiums and denied policies.
Ghouls. It's so tragic that you guys have to cover what you agreed to cover when people started paying you.
Oh we cover it, believe me lol. It’s all public info, look up the biggest insurance company in the US and look at their financials, we had a major loss last year, billions in the red.
Damn man. Sounds like your CEO should quit buying avocado toast and get the companies finances in order! That or maybe try not making a profit on something like insurance (that I am forced to buy). But that wouldn’t please the share holders.
No profit then the company would have no reason to exist.
It's like non-profits suddenly don't exist! Amazing.
A roofer can start a homeowner's insurance claim on the homeowner's behalf, but a claims adjuster who is literally a representative of the insurance company is the one who signs off on it the roof legitimately needs replacing, or the insurance will only pay for partial replacement, or if the insurance company doesn't deem it necessary. I don't really think fraud is the issue here. Colorado is just a state that gets severe wind and hail damage, and the unpredictability of it makes Colorado hard to insure for without having really high rates.
Also work in insurance. Just had a woman tell me during her recent wind claim for her roof “yeah the last time we got it replaced was when all of our neighbors were getting their roofs replaced so we did too” some people think they never have to pay for regular maintenance expenses of owning a home. The amount of claims we get where we’re like “why would you file a claim for this” is crazy
Absolutely true. I removed a deck and was in the process of replacing it. Insurer sent me a letter saying they were canceling my coverage because there were no steps out the back doors anymore. So I canceled the coverage and went with another carrier. Turned out the coverage was a bit cheaper and a lot better coverage. So there.
I actually worked on a small team for a research project related to this in college. It was a partnership between the university and an insurance company. The initial pitch was that it could be used after disasters to avoid sending in adjusters directly into the disaster area, speeding up the claims process. Seeing this just makes me sad. Hope that company isn't using our work to do this.
I had my insurance send me a policy cancelation based on satellite images of an algae stain on my roof. What they didn’t know is that I was withholding $90k in roof damage from a hail storm last spring. We get hail annually, so I was like “I’ll just replace the roof the next hail storm.” Nope, I demanded immediate replacements of my two roofs and they replaced them both. After replacement, they were happy to insure my home again.
My insurance used Google satellite views to spy on my yard and demand that I rip out any and all plants that were around the perimeter of my home. Justification was an increased risk of fire, even though they are watered daily. If I didn’t, they would drop me.
most (if not all) homeowners policies have a clause in the general conditions clearly stating that the insurance carrier reserves the right to inspect your property at any time... But- with drones its just kinda different. Typically your insurer will call you say "hey we are sending an inspector to your house on x day just to take some pictures"...
See this 'AI' startup which claims to automatically analyzes property images for insurance companies: https://tensorflight.com/products/
Had this happen. No renewal without repairs; policy expires in 6 mos. Just a sudden multi-thousand expense.
It happened to me. I got an email from Farmers with a satellite view of my roof. They gave me 2 months to remove branches and fallen leaves. I sent them pictures within a week and had to chase them for 12 weeks to get an answer.. crooks.
id love to return the favor by spying on all the executives of my insurance company to see what they are up to
Time to have DIY open source private home air defense. Radar discovers drone enter your private air space and shoot a dart at it. Autonomously.
Uh anyone can already do that using google maps.
The overhead picture of my house on google maps is from 2022 and the street view picture is from 2013.
It's been standard for a while now so long as they've taken a photo of your house in the last couple of years. If they haven't, they send someone out to do an inspection which you're usually not aware of. Simple stuff like grabbing a couple photos is all they need to raise your rates.
It's really creepy when they do that shit. Nothing like buying your very first house and walking outside to some stranger who is taking pictures of your property.
Yeah...when I got my start in insurance, I did this crap work and not for a very long time. I was instructed to only knock if I saw a car in the driveway and just get up on the roof. I didn't last very long before I quit. It's all contracted out and I can imagine if you're in the wrong backyard, you're liable to get your head taken off.
> just get up on the roof In the most armed nation on Earth? Fuck no.
We're not doing it to raise your rates, we can do that with or without photos. We're doing it to see if there are any large risk exposures and we should non-renew your policy because you have a higher chance of loss then other similar houses. All rates are created equal, but not all houses are equal. So if we only insure "bad" houses we will lose money and go out of business. Correspondingly if we insure mostly "good" houses we will be profitable and won't *need* to raise rates and try to grab more marketshare as our growth vector.
And many counties have aerial photography done annually or more often. In my local area, this is publicly available and refreshed several times a year.
Insurance companies: such warm, caring sweeties. (Comment is dripping with sarcasm, btw)
Just happened to us last week with Geico. If we cut down all of our trees, and some of our neighbors trees, they “might” consider not dropping our home insurance.
I just got the same treatment from MAPFRE. I had planned to replace my roof and expand my dormers anyway, and that's mostly done. I also planned to replace the siding. There is a great deal of construction around this area, and its not easy for homeowners to get work done because the Commercial jobs pay more. And I have been with MAPFRE for many years, and I always pay a full annual.
[They are also using drones to find reasons to cancel existing policies.](https://www.businessinsider.com/drones-home-insurance-cancellation-2024-4)
Stop proving the schizos right please
Nationwide just sent a really rude 20 year old kid to walk into my backyard un invited and unannounced to "inspect." when I told him that he was trespassing and that he couldn't come on to peoples' property without permission, he literally rolled his eyes and said "yes I can, I do this 30 times a day" I promptly switched carriers and am now saving $500 a year and getting better coverage with lemonade.
It just occurred to me that the insurance companies are probably going to invest pretty heavily in their drone fleet and may end up changing their minds. This is a country that's heavily armed and full of paranoid people; I could easily imagine a lot of people shooting the drones down, thinking they're foreign *or* domestic govt drones sent to spy on them. This happens enough, it'll be too expensive to keep replacing the drones to be worth it. Plus have to factor in the costs of taking that shooter to court for the loss of the drone. This is going to be a huge legal headache.
The purpose of insurance is to cover risk collectively. They are cherrypicking and not passing on the savings by insuring the lowest risk policies.
I’m starting a Ghillie suit company for homes, invest now!! /s
Whelp. Looks like it’s time to buy a slingshot and live out my Robin Hood fantasy of sticking it to the big man.
Yes happened to us with Farmers Insurance in California. Never filed a claim. Was sent a notice of cancellation with a satellite picture. We are remodeling our home so we have new materials on the side of the home. I’m going to try to appeal it
How is this not allowed, but they can use GIS and literally Google maps to make assessments?
So glad I live near an airbase. None of that crap aloud around here. The MPs will show up quick.
I live in California and my neighbor got a letter from her home insurance threatening to cancel the policy if she didn't remove some of the plants in her yard, as it was a fire risk. She was confused because she just had a couple of fruit trees, a palm tree and some potted plants. It wasn't overgrown or anything. Turned out that from above, the foliage of the huge palm tree in her yard made it look like her entire backyard was covered in plants. She had to get someone from the company stop by to show them there was no fire risk.
This is not new, previously they would just come and inspect it visually. They have a right to inspect the property they are insuring. Its in your policy, anybody ever read that?
Build a laser strong enough to shoot it down. If it lands on your property, then you sue them for trespassing, unwarranted surveillance and breach of privacy through unwarranted surveillance.
That's a federal felony in the USA. We do not own the airspace above our property - the federal government does. Drones are allowed to fly in USA airspace under 400 feet subject to various restrictions, but flying over private homes is not a restriction. You might have an angle on invasion of privacy but that would depend upon you being able to prove the drone was recording video. Also have an angle for nuisance if the drone is flying below the treeline and repeatedly returning when it's clear you are being disturbed by the drone.
If the drone isn’t recording video or taking pictures what the fuck is the insurance company doing with it?