WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY would home owners insurance cover something that should be covered by auto insurance???? i just did a COMPLETE search of my ENTIRE house and i didnt find a set of headers bolted to this house ANYPLACE!
a little story for yinz..... back when i had my construction business...i paid a kings ransom in insurance to cover EVERYTHING. i arrive to the job one morning only to discover that the load of lumber ( a large load) that was delivered the previous day at quitting time...GONE!
I PROMPTLY call the insurance company and tell them that my $15,000.00 load of lumber was stolen. their answer to this was..." sir...we dont cover anything that is laying on the ground...we would only cover the lumber if it was standing erect..(..as in built....standing...like a wall ). my answer to her was.....( youll love this ....)...WHO IN THE HELL IS GOING TO STEAL LUMBER THAT IS ERECTED AND FILLED WITH NAILS? " ...so in escessence my good friend, this is their "out" of paying a claim....because they know damn well that nobody will steal erected lumber.....just as nobody would steal a set of headers that is firmly bolted to an engine!
the end !
If you searched his car, you wouldn't find a set of headers bolted onto the car either, which is exactly why the auto policy didn't pay. The headers are not, and should not be covered by the auto policy. Regardless of what they are or the intended use of the property, they were not permanently installed into the vehicle and are therefore not part of the vehicle, and are hence excluded from coverage. A perfect example: you have two cd players in your car, one portable and one in-dash. Both are stolen. Your auto insurance would pay for the in-dash but not the portable. Your homeowners would cover the portable. Screwed up, maybe, but thats the way it is. It just isn't as simple as "home related = homeowners, auto parts = auto coverage".
For the purposes of this discussion, the stolen item could have been headers, a laptop computer or a bucket of fried chicken. Personal property is personal property. Homeowners covers all personal property that you own, no matter where it is. If you have a car that isn't licensed / insured and it burns up in a garage fire, who pays? Homeowners, even though its a car.
You know what one of the biggest scams in insurance is? Travel insurance. If you lose your luggage overseas, your homeowners policy pays, up to a limit. There are exclusions, of course, usually things that are lost in war / nuclear accident / etc and payment limits ($1000 on jewelry, $200 on cash, etc.). If you have lots of valuable stuff, buy an inland marine policy to cover it, but don't expect a bargain-basement HO-3 policy to cover it, or a personal auto policy to cover personal property. It will never happen, unless the insurance company is feeling generous (how often does that happen?). An insurance companies job is to make money by living up to the terms of the agreement (i.e. the policy) that they made with the insured.
Every personal auto policy and every homeowners policy is written on a standard form by one group, ISO, which means my HO-3 says exactly the same thing as your HO-3, except any riders that you might have or that I might have (also standard boilerplate written by ISO). There is no shady text put in by company lawyers to screw insureds. It may seem like it, but it isn't. And this is me, speaking as a
duly appointed insurance regulator for the State of Michigan. My job is to protect insureds from wrongful action by the insurance company.
Bear in mind I'm not arguing what should be, only the reality of the situation.
tpodwdog, I'd have to see your file to determine why they denied your stolen lumber claim, but from the looks of it they didn't adjust your claim properly. Did you file a complaint with your state's insurance department?
