As some of you know, we’re buying a house and with that, comes house insurance. Can you point me in the direction of your house insurance people?
I’m not a Marylander but one suggestion would be to check with whomever has your auto insurance - there are sometimes discounts if you’ve got multiple policies.
That saved us when we bought our current house four years ago. We’d had two homeowners’ claims in the previous 3 years (neither preventable or due to negligence - the d*mn chimney blew off the roof one time, and the other time it was for property stolen when a car was broken into… in Maryland 
) and apparently this made us slightly less attractive to potential insurers than a leper living on an earthquake fault in Tornado Alley. So - to get insurance through our current insurer - the one who held the policy on the old house, which had been renewed since the 2 claims, mind you - we had to get our case presented to an underwriting committee. We also had our auto insurance through them, and had for well over a decade, with only the claim for the auto breakin - so they decided to make nice-nice and cover us. Other insurers wouldn’t touch us with a 10-foot pole - we’d have had to go with some high-risk pool which would have insured only the house, no contents, and pay out the wazoo as a result.
Anyway, the point of that whole spiel is that you can benefit from having a number of policies with the same insurer and having that long-term relationship.
Having been a commercial insurance broker for many years, that was my first call. But thank you, most people don’t think of that.
Our auto insurance is with a direct writer which doesn’t provide the type of property coverage I want.
I’ve always used State Farm and they’ve been ok. Never had to actually have them do anything. They do good when I’ve had to use them for the car/bike before though.
I think Inigo Montoya is an insurance broker. He might have some useful general info for you if he shows up.
I am in Montgomery County.
GEICO is cheaper for my car Insurance
State Farm is chaeper for my Home Insurance.
This was ture as of last week price check by our State Farm Broker who we really like and would go to for all our Insurance if we could do it for equal (or less)
You’ve probably forgotten more about insurance than I’ll ever know, but as a suggestion if the costs justify it it might be worthwhile to move your car insurance to a combo company like Erie (who I use) for car+house insurance. Theye’ve always been fair (so far) with me.
We’re with Allstate for our house and cars. They actually covered us when we bought a freezer and the motor conked out soon after stocking it with food. The freezer warranty paid for a new freezer and our homeowner’s policy paid the cost of all the spoiled food.
Oh, should have asked - where’d you find a house?
I had an accident three years ago and I doubt it’s worth it to switch right now. I’ll look into it, though.
That’s a standard coverage on most home policies - so don’t be impressed with them on only that account!
The house, she is in Edgewood. Coming to help move?
Eh, we were new homeowners and just saw rotten meat and thawed frozen pizzas. Finding out someone else was going to pay for it was kinda nice. (Okay, yeah, we paid for it in premiums.)
Edgewood, huh? Getting farther away. I’ll help, depending on how my summer plans go.
My broker for more than 30 years has been V.W. Brown in Columbia. I have Erie for my cars and homeowner’s policy, and Brown hooked me up with health insurance and business insurance, too. They’ve been great, and I highly recommend them.