I can appreciate that if you are not more knowlegeable on insurance and read this article, that your opinion would be biased. But this is a one sided article.
Insurance companies do in fact pay 30 to 60% of market value. They do this when policies become outdated and do not have inflation riders on the policies. Therefore people are underpaying premiums. Additionally as many poster readily claim, home values are over inflated anywhere from 5%% to 50% so market value becomes subjective.
It sort of like this. Everyone goes to the banker saying I’m rich I’m rich I’m rich when trying to get a loan. There effort is to get the lowest rate on a loan. That seems reasonable. But then they turn around and say I’m poor, I’m poor, I’m poor, when it is time to pay taxes. Sorry folks you can’t ahve it both ways.
Most people have an unfavorable view of insurance becasue it is a game of risk and many people would rather choose not to think in terms of probability. They also might not have the skills to do so.
When they get a call from an agent to discuss their policies they would rather hang up on them then have the agent tell them where they have difficiencies in their policies. This means paying added premium. Additioanlly most Property and casualty agents are highly encouraged to sell life insurance policies. Property and Casualty provides a conduit to this conversation. Because most people are not adequately insured in the are of Life and Disability they again would rather not discuss this.
It would be Unamerican to be proactive with respect to planning. We rather react to catastrophies then preparing to prevent them. We would rather point fingers then take responsibility.
I have had my challenges with insurance companies. I purchased a renters policy before traveling to Brazil for fear of lost luggage. Unfortunately on the way back the airline lost my luggage. Upon putting in a claim with my renters policy I found out that they cover “theft” of my luggage but would not cover a “Mysterious disappearance” I was later compensated form the airline but I still.
I still choose to defend the industry because their are many abuses and fraud that occurs routinesly against insurance carriers. It just does not make the front cover of the paper.