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My wife and I are in the process of buying a house in Ft Bend County and I thought I would poll this august body and see if anybody has any recommendations on home owner's insurance carriers. Who do you use and do you like their service? We have our auto and renter's policy through State Farm right now and we will be checking with them but I figured it couldn't hurt to shop around.

Thanks!

I'm in Harris County, but I am sure it won't make any difference.
I have been with Allstate (Auto) since about 1996 and my wife and I bought our house in 2004 and kept them as our home insurance provider.
We did check with other insurance carriers in 2004, but Allstate came out at least even to the others, off the top of my head, I don't remember the figures.

Whatever you get, check your windstorm policy. See what your deductibles are for named and not-named storms, so you are not shocked having a 2% (or more maybe?) deductible on a named storm, when a non-named is 1%.

Also not all insurance providers even insure against tropical events, so be sure who ever you do, covers it.

Stick with State Farm for all your insurance needs. I find them to be fast to payoff when you have a claim and you are not just a number to them, they actually seem to care. I have everything I own insured with State Farm/ life policy too, so therefore, a discount. They were fast on the scene after IKE and I felt they got the job done, (my checks in the mail fast for repairs) Easy to communicate with. I have heard a lot of horror stories from people insured with other companies about not getting their money in a timely manner and/or being cancelled after they did get their claims taken care of. I don't work for state farm nor does anyone I know work for them. Just think they are good to do business with. I have been insured with them since 1980 when another insurance company decided to go up on my premiums.

I'm happy with USAA although their rates aren't as good as they used to be.

SwimFan85 wrote:I'm happy with USAA although their rates aren't as good as they used to be.

I have the house, van and 2 bikes with ANPAC.
http://anpac.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I have never been able to beat their rates.

pbwalker wrote:

SwimFan85 wrote:I'm happy with USAA although their rates aren't as good as they used to be.

I too use USAA and their service after a claim is very good. However, I just got a new homeowners policy pack.....wow.....USAA is
dropping a lot of coverage items, adding one or two, increasing deductibles, and dropping most cases of water damage (requires a rider for coverage). They increased the amts/limits paid for jewelry, guns and electronic equipment. All in all you'll have to read it at least twice to figure out if you need additional coverage or to add riders etc. That's about 100 pages of "we cover this" BUT "we don't cover this" UNLESS "we don't cover this, except we cover this under these specific circumstances". Boring reading but it has to be done.

Be sure to check your firearms coverage. We have homeowners and auto through State Farm. But when I asked them about umbrella firearms coverage, they wanted appraisals, receipts, a list of serial numbers etc.

So (for that part only) I looked at the NRA policy (which doesn't cover ammo) and ended up going with a firm called Collectibles Insurance (who do). It was cheaper, too.

seniorshooteress wrote:Stick with State Farm for all your insurance needs. I find them to be fast to payoff when you have a claim and you are not just a number to them, they actually seem to care. I have everything I own insured with State Farm/ life policy too, so therefore, a discount. They were fast on the scene after IKE and I felt they got the job done, (my checks in the mail fast for repairs) Easy to communicate with. I have heard a lot of horror stories from people insured with other companies about not getting their money in a timely manner and/or being cancelled after they did get their claims taken care of. I don't work for state farm nor does anyone I know work for them. Just think they are good to do business with. I have been insured with them since 1980 when another insurance company decided to go up on my premiums.

I can not remember when I did not have State Farm insurance and i'm pretty old. You might also want to look at a liability policy while you're at it.

Amica for House and Auto, Had them since 1997. been great, Did not have to go thru Texas Windstorm insurance after IKE, Saved me a nightmare that my neighbors went thru or are still going thru for their roofs.

All of my insurance is with State Farm. I had no claim problems with them after Hurricane Rita, or any other time I have had to file a claim.

I have State Farm for all my coverage also. Never had to file a claim, so I can't say what it looks like from that end. The multi-line discount is worth it, but I'm looking into switching to USAA to see what they can do for me. Based on chartreuse and gemini's notes, though, I might have a little more looking to do.

I'll put in my "vote" for USAA. As it has been mentioned, there are some recent changes that are not to my fancy but I am happy with them overall. To be fair, USAA has been my only insurance policy for both my home and autos so I have no other experiences to compare with. I have, however, heard the horror stories that friends with other companies have told me. My experiences with USAA have never been anything but smooth and easy.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Sounds like it may be worth sticking with State Farm.

We had a great agent in California but we are not so thrilled with our current agent and his office. Fortunately we will end up getting a new one when we move.