Home Owners Insurance. What can I say about Home Owners Insurance? Well, here's the deal...if you've got a mortgage, you MUST have Home Owners Insurance. If you don't have a mortgage, I still recommend it. Want to see why?

Yep. That pile of bricks was once a historic home just like Scarlett. The house had been standing just fine for many years....until the fire. OK, I'm going to say it even though it curdles my blood. Scarlett is 163 years old. The wood used to build her (yes, real wood....from real trees) was old before it was cut. It's pine mostly (heart of pine) so let's say conservatively that the trees were cut down when they were 150 years old to use as building material. That means that I have 300 year old wood inside my walls. Basically, for all intents and purposes, my house is 4,000 square foot of fat lighter. Gives me the shivers just to think it. For this reason, I am the Candle Nazi. No candles are lit inside that house and left burning. Period. Not for any reason. I have candles as decoration but they are never lit. I am extremely careful with the oven and stove and make sure I am in the kitchen when something is cooking. I have a fire extinguisher in almost every room....and every room with a fireplace definitely has one as does the kitchen.  Better safe than very sorry!

A little note on Home Owners insurance on an older home….OK, not a little note. It’s actually a rant. Here’s the scenario. Big Company A holds all of our insurance, which is 2 houses, 2 jet skis, and 11 various cars and trucks. Oh! And a camper. No really. I’m serious! Anywho, of course they are my first phone call for an insurance quote. At first, it didn’t seem like it would be a huge issue. However, they were concerned on a couple of fronts. First, this house is OLD. It is made of actual wood as opposed to the fiber board and plastic new builds contain.  Second, this place is HUGE…4160 square feet to be exact. Third, due to the housing market being in the toilet, we got this big old house CHEAP. Now, according to the Big Company A’s guidelines, they cannot insure anything that would be over $800,000.00 to rebuild. Secondly, they cannot insure for more than 150% of the sales price. Here’s the rub. Per their calculations, it would cost $619,000.00 to rebuild this place should it burn flat to the ground. No matter what amount of money you handed me, you could not rebuild this place. You could build a similar house of similar material but think of all that would be lost that is irreplaceable! You’d never be able to replace all the character and history of THIS house. Now, since the house, per their calculations, would be $619,000.00 to replace, they will not insure it. That is more than the 150% of the sales price that they will ensure for. Yeah, this is fun. Basically, I am informed that none of the “big” insurance agencies will touch it. I’ll need to call a smaller, independent company. Fine. I wonder at this point if they realize that they’ll lose ALL my business. Wonder if they care. Small independent insurance agent #1 is called on a Thursday. “Shouldn’t be an issue. Blah, blah, blah…” Well, one week later and NO RETURNED CALL. Small independent insurance agent #2 was called at 3:30 the next Thursday afternoon. They had called me back within half an hour with a quote. High quote, but no less a quote. I continued to shop small agencies for a week or more before finding an agency that quickly got us insurance at an affordable rate. Unfortunately, since the smaller agencies farm their insurance out, we were placed with a larger company. Remember, the larger companies I was told would not insure this house? Guess what? A week after my first payment was made, the insurance company sent us an immediate cancellation notice stating that the home was in an incredible state of disrepair with the chimneys on the verge of collapse and trees needing to be trimmed off the house. They did not give us any option to fix these issues, just a cancellation. This sent me into panic mode. I ended up running to the company that had held the previous owners insurance and I went armed to the teeth with receipts for repairs we had done and letters from chimney companies stating the chimneys were safe, and proof of a tree appointment to take out a few dying trees and trim up the rest and any other information I thought she might need. I had a stack of paperwork at least 4 inches thick! With the help of a very AWESOME, very sympathetic agent who went to the ends of the earth for us, we FINALLY got insurance. I can't tell you how much work this agent did to make sure our home was covered. She made multiple visits to the house to take photos, brought managers out to tour it, spent hours on the phone, and seriously sold this house to get that insurance.

This is the house just after closing on 4/25/2012.

This is the house on 5/31/2012. See the difference?

Those two live oaks had gotten a blight that was attacking old live oak trees in SC due to years and years of draught conditions. They were rotting from the inside out. While it broke our hearts to remove the trees, they had to go. As we were standing under them in the yard discussing their fate, a big limb came crashing to the ground right in front of us. That was the death knell. This is what we were dealing with...up close and personal.

You can see the black rotted holes and broken branches that these trees had. It wasn't pretty. Removing them really opened up the front of the house and we've received many compliments from neighbors on the new look.

All this to say, if you’re buying an old house be aware that home owners insurance MAY be an issue. Call around. If the big companies won’t help, call a local agent in the area where the home is located. Ask your real estate agent for a reference. Don’t underestimate real estate agents. They are a wealth of information in my experience! My agent knew Scarlett very well and even had some stories of previous owners. She got us painters and contractors and recommended insurance agents. You may want to consider keeping the home with the same insurance company the seller was using. Your real estate agent can get that information for you. I cannot stress this enough…..ask your real estate agent LOTS of questions. They are there to help you.

I'll leave you today with a photo of an older home in my neighborhood that has been undergoing what appears to be a full-on restoration for quite a while. I haven't met these folks yet but they are doing a WONDERFUL job with this place! I love that color!! They've done so much work here. All paint is new, windows are new. They've removed lattice work from the porch that needed repair. This place is really shining now!