I have been researching homeowner insurance policies for the past month. DH and I were burglarized this past January and were not aware that our current policy had only a $1500 max on jewelry (our fault for not reading the fine print.) All of our clothes, shoes, cameras, etc... were covered at 100%. Unfortunately, I took a big loss on the jewelry. So I started looking into other companies to get better jewelry coverage. Have narrowed it down to 3 options.
1) Safeco- pros are they have the largest option for unscheduled jewelry coverage ($50,000) and the highest per item coverage ($5,000) therefore limiting how much needs to be scheduled which costs more than doing the unscheduled option. The only thing I would have to schedule at this point are my ering/wedding rings. Everything else (which isn't much at this point) can go unscheduled. Another pro is that I currently have my auto insurance through them so would get a huge discount on that if we switch to them. Cons- they have some terrible reviews online. Most of them are previous hurricane victims or policy holders in the South. Not sure why this is, but most of the complaints against them are from people in Tenessee, Texas, Florida, etc... couldn't find any from a person in California but it still worries me to see so much bad stuff about them online. Some people even called them evil. It was pretty bad stuff.
2) USAA- pros are that they serve the military and have a good reputation within the military as being the primary bank and insurer. DH has all of his accounts/investments through them as well as his auto policy. They have a higher rating online than Safeco and a very competitive rate. Cons- they do not go very high on the unscheduled jewelry ($10,000) and their per item max is lower ($2,500) so I would have to schedule more pieces in the future if we went with them. They are also known to be super strict and need pics and receipts for everything where other insurance companies may just take your word for it or need a pic of the item. They also had some negative reviews online, more than I expected since they serve the military and thought that would make a difference in their level of service. There were a lot of reviews that said they raise your rates quarterly rather than annually like most companies. So people say they start you low to reel you in, then raise your rates after the first quarter with them and every quarter after that.
3) Stay with our current company American Security- pros are that they handled our claim in January well and even waived the deductible and depreciation since we had such a huge loss on jewelry (I think they felt sorry for us.) They paid us much more than we expected. They didn't ask for receipts, pics, nothing, took our word on every item listed in the claim. Also, they didn't cancel our policy or raise our rates despite having a huge claim. I read some horror stories online about companies dropping people or jacking up their rates super high after a claim. They kept our policy in tact and didn't raise our rates. Cons- their jewelry coverage is terrible. They will not cover my wedding rings (they don't offer scheduled jewelry coverage) and they will only do $5000 for unscheduled jewelry and their per item max is only $1000. The Agent said they don't like to cover jewelry since it is the greatest risk of loss.
So what would you do? I have been struggling with this decision for over a week now. DH isn't sure what to do either. We are really torn between these three options. If this was you, which would you choose and why?
