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O.T. Home owners insurance and fire coverage.

5

5 axis Fidia guy

Stainless
Joined
Aug 17, 2006
Location
Wisconsin
Hey guys, when looking into my future and my plan on getting out of WI for retirement, I stumbled on a comment someone had on a different blog. In regards to the recent Colorado wildfires, it was mentioned that many people did not have insurance for their homes, the reason was they were too far away from a fire department. Is there such a clause with insurance policies? I never gave it a second thought. Can you have a more remote home and still have fire coverage?
 
My best advice would be to call your current agent and ask that question. If that doesn't help let me know and I'll ask my step-dad, who is my homeowners agent.

I've never heard that here in Maine. You get a nice discount for being close to a FD or hydrant but I've never heard of not getting insurance for being too far away. In fact any fire that results in an FD applying water is likely to cost nearly the same as if the FD can't get there.

The more likely scenario for Colorado and other wild fires is that they are simply not covered by homeowners insurance because they are "Acts of God." Hurricanes and floods are similar and not covered either. You can read your current policy to learn more about this. Flood insurance is a separate government program.
 
I live out in the country. Most properties out here have farm ponds like I do. My policy has fire ins. and lists "750 ft to hydrant".

I don't even KNOW where the nearest hydrant is, so I assume they are using the pond as a water source.
 
5 axis Fidia guy said:
Hey guys, when looking into my future and my plan on getting out of WI for retirement, I stumbled on a comment someone had on a different blog. In regards to the recent Colorado wildfires, it was mentioned that many people did not have insurance for their homes, the reason was they were too far away from a fire department. Is there such a clause with insurance policies? I never gave it a second thought. Can you have a more remote home and still have fire coverage?
Click to expand...

.
insurance company can offer coverage at $20,000/yr for a $200,000 house or they can say you need a pond of water with a 1000 million gallons and a pumping system with independent power source that can pump over 1000 gallons per hour for over a week. of course that can easily cost more than the cost of the house.
.
just saying insurance companies often tell you what you must have for coverage even if it means spending vast sums of money
.
you want a fire proof house there are concrete buildings with fire proofing around steel beams been in factories for over 100 years with sprinkler systems , technology is there if you want to build a building that way
 
Fire departments are rated by ISO for expected effectiveness. ISO 1 is best. Many of the local properties would have fire fighting water supplied by tanker truck. My insurance carrier assigns an ISO 3 to such properties, even though most departments are unrated.

If you have a Colorado question, you need to ask Colorado agents. I do know Colorado has seen many changes to how they rate fire insurance costs related to the huge losses from wildfires. Don't expect to build a house in the forest with trees close and buy affordable fire insurance.
 
Where I live, it's classified as a high fire risk area. The fire dept requires me to have a huge water tank, just for them. Most of the major insurance companies won't touch it. I had to go with some backwater company i'd never heard of, and it's Expensive.
 
Chinese have been building concrete houses a long time. the "floor boards" are concrete like 4 or 5" thick with steel pipe in them for reinforcement. that and a tile roof and tile siding a ordinary fire would have little effect. might break windows from heat and if vinyl windows they would be damaged but the structure would still be there
 
DMF_TomB said:
Chinese have been building concrete houses a long time. the "floor boards" are concrete like 4 or 5" thick with steel pipe in them for reinforcement. that and a tile roof and tile siding a ordinary fire would have little effect. might break windows from heat and if vinyl windows they would be damaged but the structure would still be there
Click to expand...

So living in a prison is your advice here :dunce:
 
The fancy hotel in Yosemite Park is all concrete on the outside including all the stuff that looks like wood. There is real wood inside. Chicago does not allow any wood exposed on the exterior in the downtown area. all concrete,stone or cast iron. In the Victorian era many fancy exterior trim was cast iron painted to look like expensive stonework.

The Yosemite Trademark Dispute Explained - Climbing Magazine

The home of the university of California president is also cast concrete. the original builder/owner was a paving contractor.

View of Blake House from Edwin Blake'''s garden | Photographer… | Flickr

Bill D
 
This is my business through multiple states and I've yet to find a building that cannot be insured, within reason here, but it comes down to price. Fire and flood are issues in areas where fire departments are beyond 5-miles or homes are on built on jetties. It's all about risk and many people choose to self insure for risks or choose policies with very high deductibles. Beyond 5-miles to a fire department is considered Protection Class 10 and most companies will say no to this but we have lots of buildings insured in PC-10, they just pay more. Flood is the same thing although since private companies now offer flood coverage the costs and availability have gotten better.


John
 
kustomizingkid said:
So living in a prison is your advice here :dunce:
Click to expand...

A concrete house can be made to look like any other stucco coated house.

Personally if I was going to build a house in a fire prone area it would be made out of Hebel block and there wouldn't be any combustible material on the outside of the structure.

Another out-of-the-box idea after seeing some of the photos coming out of California is I would not have any trees within 80 feet of the house or a 15'x30' wood deck attached to it. But that's just me.

Steve
 
DMF_TomB said:
.
insurance company can offer coverage at $20,000/yr for a $200,000 house or they can say you need a pond of water with a 1000 million gallons and a pumping system with independent power source that can pump over 1000 gallons per hour for over a week. of course that can easily cost more than the cost of the house.
.
just saying insurance companies often tell you what you must have for coverage even if it means spending vast sums of money
.
you want a fire proof house there are concrete buildings with fire proofing around steel beams been in factories for over 100 years with sprinkler systems , technology is there if you want to build a building that way
Click to expand...

1000 million gallons is 1 billion gallons...1000 gallons per hour is 16 gpm considering we run around 75-125 gpm on a 1.75 line at around 100 psi that figure would be grossly inadequate. Not to mention friction loss due to distance. Also multiple lines are going to be used with possibly 2.5 lines in service. If we are talking about using the pump to supply at least one truck, you would need flow around 500 gpm at 60 psig through at least 3.0 hose. Friction loss is less but that's gonna be one hell of a 3 phase pumping system.

Or you could install a dry hydrant in the pond and provide access for the fire department to get a pumper down there and pull a draft...much cheaper.
 
In 1971 we bought a house in the country with an in-ground swimming pool. Within a year we filled in the pool and put a big patio where the pool was. The fire insurance premium went up without the pool.

Bob
WB8NQW
 
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