DIYbanter - View Single Post - State Farm Insurance vs knob & tube wiring

In article . com,
says...

With car insurance why insure a repeat DUI customer whn lots of
regular safe drivers are available?

If your actuaries have a good handle on the added risk a repeat-DUI
customer represents, and your insurance commissioner will approve
appropriate surcharges, you insure the repeat-DUI customer because he's
likely to be just as profitable at very high premiums as a safe driver
at very low premiums.

cover up K&T by saying you dont have it or disquising it by say getting
it out of basement? have fire they likely deny the claim.........

Nobody has been suggesting misrepresentation or concealment.

But in many parts of the country, many insurance companies don't even
*ask* about K&T wiring. They may ask a more general question, like "is
any part of the wiring obviously indadequate or in need of
replacement?" They may ask whether the home has fuses or a breaker
panel.

Why would they do that? Various reasons.

If a large share of local housing stock still has some K&T circuits,
refusing to insure them would cost the company more business than simply
charging a premium that includes the slightly higher risk.

The average homeowner is not an electrician and can't be expected to
know much about the home's wiring, especially what's inside the walls.
Asking them about K&T wiring wouldn't necessarily get useful
information.

If the company does interior inspections on older homes, the inspector
is likely to be a more reliable source of information than the customer.

My own homeowner's insurance application *did not ask about K&T at all.*
The interior inspection was ordered based on the age of the home, the
inspector looked over the wiring, checked what loads were on what
circuits, looked for signs of overheating in outlets and the panel, etc.
The company approved the insurance based on the application and
inspection.

If the inspector missed some awful wiring flaw that causes a fire,
there's no basis for denying a claim -- I fully answered all their
questions, they took advantage of their opportunity to inspect the risk,
they decided to accept the risk.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html