February 26, 2025 • 52 mins
The price of gas, the price of eggs and milk- these are the kinds of expenses that we’re very sensitive to as consumers because of how frequently we make these purchases. And don’t forget visibility of course with the price per gallon essentially plastered on electronic billboards we consistently drive past! But the cost of insurance feels like the exact opposite. We rarely shop for coverage, it’s not often discussed, and automatic payments insulate us from rising premiums. In the case of homeowners insurance there’s an additional layer of insensitivity in the form of escrow. But insurance is becoming more of a burden and here to tackle this problem is Lisa Gill from Consumer Reports. Lisa is an investigative journalist and we’re going to discuss everything from wildfires to prescription drugs, what to do if you receive an insurance cancellation notice, the steps to take when you receive a medical bill that’s way too high, and much more during our episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Today we're talking about navigating the insane insurance system with
Consumer Reports Lisa Gill.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, so our conversation today is going to be all
about reducing some major expenses in our lives. Insurance, the
premiums that we pay. They've skyrocketed over the past several
years for many reasons that we'll actually get into today,
and it's a huge bummer if you haven't noticed your
premiums rising, that's a problem too. I think one of
the issues with insurances that were often insulated from these
(00:50):
higher costs because let's say homeowners insurance, well, that's covered
by our escrow. We don't necessarily see that day in
and day out. Or health insurance premiums, maybe that's gone
up a little bit, but hey, my employer they take
care of that for me. But eventually that's going to
have an impact on you on an individual level. And
here to tackle this problem is Lisa Gill from Consumer Reports,
(01:11):
the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that we love, we talk
about all the time, and Lisa is an investigative journalist.
We're going to discuss everything today from wildfires to prescription drugs. So, Lisa,
thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for
talking to me.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's such an important topic, and we're going to try
to make it as fun and easy to understand as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, let's making sure it's fun, Lisa. I like that.
It's a tall task, but we can do it. We
can do it.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
We can do it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh, you can do it at least. Well, we'll ask
you questions to point you in that direction. The first question, though,
that we ask everyone who comes on the show, is
what do you like to suploor?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
John?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Because Matt and I splore John fancy beers from time
to time. But we're still being smart with our money, investing, saving,
thinking about the future.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
What's that for you?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I live in a tiny house, and this tiny house
is located in a little like magical pine forest, and
I swear it looks like the It looks like a
movie set. And in this pine forest are lots of
pine needles. But under that is sand, and because of that,
I have become ever vigilant with putting down pea gravel
(02:16):
so that my tiny home does not wash away in
a rainstorm. So this is a necessity. But at the
same time I accomplished that, but I am addicted to
loads and loads of pea gravel that you can get
at home depot or you can get people to drop
it off. I splurged on a wheelbarrel that is like
at to like load up this pea gravel and spread
(02:40):
it all around the tiny home and all leading up.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
To the tiny home. And I have got probably six
seven tons of pea gravel and I can I literally
can't stop getting it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So basically, every time you are out running an air
and you'll swing by home depot and throw one of
those guys on your shoulder. Oh my god, yeah, you're
walking out of home deep like Joel's walking out of
Costco with this uh with his tragger pellets.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I can't, I cannot, I literally can't stop. The other day,
somebody asked me, what would you do if you had
a whole day off that you didn't expect, you know,
how would you spend it?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And I was like, oh, yeah, I'd go get like
fifty bags of the grapple.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And spread it all out, and you know what, it
just looks so good, and you know you, you spread
it out and then like six months eight months later,
you're like, oh I need I need a freshy.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I got to get another fresh low.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
This has got to get her hit.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yeah, this is so weird and niche, but you know
what pea gravels where.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's at all?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Right, speaking of your tiny home, I want to know more?
Is is d I y? I think I read did you?
Did you build this yourself?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
So I found I found a builder and his wife.
They designed it and they like but they actually built
it by hand. But it is like fully one built
by hand from top to bottom, and it's customized for
like my height and my everything that you touch in there.
I considered like everything from like the poured concrete countertops
(04:03):
to the tile to the wood floor. I mean, it's
it's my dream home.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That's I gotta say.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
That's super cool. Okay, So what's the square footage? I
don't know what do you have to be under a
certain square footage to be considered a tiny home?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
So this is like so I'll tell you before I
take this square footage, I'll tell you it's eight feet
wide by about thirty two feet long, and it's on wheels.
It's on like a proper trailer, and it's like fourteen
and a half feet tall, So it's got two lofts
and the total actual square footage is like about two eighty.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Wow, I think to eighty what house parties look like
at the tiny home?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I think she's hanging out in the gravel. Yeah, they're
outside parties. Yeah, there's nothing all that I mean right,
based on how you're describing it, sounds amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I mean, here's the dirty secret.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Nobody tells you about tiny homes. You Yeah, it's a
simpler life.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I only have like a couple of pairs of socks
and a couple of T shirts like whatever. But I've
got two enormous storage units and I just swapped stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
H okay, So be prepared to pay for storage units.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
On a somewhat related note, do you have to pay
homeowners insurance on your tiny home? Like? Y? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah? So so mine?
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Is it being a DI So a lot of tiny homes,
I should say this, A lot of tiny homes are
actually r V certified, which means you qualify for RV, like,
you know, recreational vehicle insurance. You can get through Guygo,
And that is a great way to go, even though
most tiny homes are really not very roadworthy, like you
don't want to pull them down the highway. You don't
(05:32):
want to, you know, it's not a camper. And so
if that, if you can get your RV, if you
can get your tiny home certified RV, it's a way
cheaper option. I did not know that at the time.
Mine is just it turns out to be a DIY project,
not RV certified, which put me I can't get homeowners
insurance because it's on a trailer, you know, basically a
(05:54):
trailer but with wheels. But I can get something called
excess and Supply Line insurance through Lloyd's of London. And
that is actually one of wounds up just winds up
being one of our tips, like after we walk through
all the different tips of what to do, that's like yours,
it's your last resort insurance.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
That's good to know, all right. I want to talk
too about Fortunately we're a little ways removed from the
worst parts of the California wildfires, but man significant damage,
UH and a lot of people left without a home
and with steep insurance claims. And there are some I
think California specific insurance realities going on right now, but
(06:33):
those are also they seem to be kind of bleeding
out to the rest of the country. Can you maybe
speak to what's happening in California and how that is
kind of, I don't know, just starting to impact the
insurance market as a whole.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Well, actually, i'd take that question twist it a little
and say, you know, can we already saw in the
United States most homeowners feeling the impact of other natural
disasters all throughout the country, whether they be hurricanes, wild fires, earthquakes, hailstorms,
and we saw we put a call out to consumers
(07:06):
asking for people to tell us their stories of losing
their homeowners insurance or kind of like just astronomical increase
in prices, and were just inundated within hours and just
received hundreds upon hundreds of detailed stories all over the place.
And so we traced back like, Okay, where's this all
coming from. So we could see in California it was
(07:27):
already you know, the insurance crisis was well underway along
with other states as well, but you know, you really
thinking about California, and California has a very specific problem.
You know, you can see in the headlines leading up
to this that there were a couple of major insurance
companies that just threw up their hands and they were like, oh,
we're not going to write.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Any more policies in this state.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
It was like all state state farm and farmers just
like walked away and they can legally do that. You know,
nobody says like, hey, you have to do business in
a certain state.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
That was that that became kind of the norm in
a lot of other states, Florida and Colorado, Texas. To
some degree, people the company started pulling out. Well.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
That was often after asking the insurance commissioners for the
ability to increase premiums and the insurance commission was like no, sorry,
they were like well okay, we got to go or no.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Not that much, and they would try to negotiate and
they'd just be like, we're not going to do it.
Here's the fascinating, like underlying, one underlying thing to think
about for California when we think about how this discussion
and it's something called prop one oh three and I'm
not sure you've probably come across that in your research.
It you know, it forms my thinking about it and
it's worth talking about here. So insurance companies, as you
(08:41):
it's like insurance companies raise their rates in the same
way that you get to raise at work. It's retroactive.
It's based on what happened in the previous year and
then and then they have to apply for the rate
and increase. That can take months and months before it's
actually granted. If it is granted, and then it goes
out into the wider public. So you're looking at and
sometimes eighteen, sometimes even twenty four month lag time. So
(09:03):
the insurance industry will tell you, oh, we're always trying
to catch up. So prop in California, Prop One O
three was something that actually regulated this, and then it
said it said to the insurance companies, hey, you can
only ever look back. You cannot look at future projections.
And so many argue that in California, in particular, the
(09:25):
insurance people were actually paying a lower insurance rate that
was not reflective of the true growing risk in their
state of natural disasters.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, people in California were paying what like a third
of the price of Florida homeowners for homeowners.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Right exactly exactly, So this issue just switched. I read
somewhere that has switched just a few weeks before the
Palisade fires. I can't confirm that, so don't quote me
on that, but it's a very recent development that prop
one O three is like a no go and that
now insurance companies are allowed to use and I'm guessing,
you know, AI and other sophisticated two to do future
(10:00):
projections to build their rate increases on those. And so
what's going to happen is what was already at work
before the Palisades fire was a major so called correction
in the market. And it sucks if you're a homeowner
there or anywhere where this has happened. But this correction
is what is just hit people with I would say,
(10:22):
without warning. If you're not you know who pays attention
to the like home insurance point market, you know, you
only really notice it when the letter comes to you
and it's like we're not renewing you for next year.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Sure, which feels a bit more extreme. And I mean,
it's worth highlighting the fact that we're talking about California,
not just because we have a lot of listeners out
in California, but the fact that this trickles out to
these insurers what they're charging their bottom line all across
the country. So this impacts us like the fires out there,
they impact us directly. Do you have an idea of
how much of an impact Just general inflation has impacted,
(10:56):
increasing premiums as opposed to kind of stue these just
a rise in natural disasters as well.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
The industry points to a lot of reasons as to
why homeowners might have seen a small increase, a twenty
percent increase, or losing your insurance altogether. One of them
it has to do with the replacement costs, the replacement
value of your home, and so unlike car insurance, home
insurance is typically based on how much would it cost
(11:25):
to replace your home today if natural you know, if
a disaster occurred, Whereas like with your car, when you
ensure your car, it is the it is what's called
the actual replacement costs, and that is like that's why
you get you know, when they total it out, they
give you like a couple thousand dollars and they're like,
here you go. You know, this is all you could
(11:45):
really get on the market because it depreciates, whereas like
homes are different. But one of the reasons that they've
cited is that labor costs and material costs. Dude, inflation
like went up in the last couple of years basically
since the pandemic, at least forty percent, if not higher.
And so the industry points that says, well, look, replacement
costs for us have increased, and so we're going to
(12:08):
pass that cost onto you in the form of a
higher premium or reduced benefits.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
So it's a little bit of both. In I guess,
like we've obviously got higher prices, but then I mean,
it certainly seems like that there's been an uptick in
claims that have been filed due to natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yes, there's two hidden factors.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
One of them we talk about, and that's the reinsurance market,
and the other we don't talk about because it's not
very well understood. So let's start with the reinsurance market. So,
insurance companies get their own insurance against losses, and it's
called reinsurance, which is a silly name, but in essence,
they buy insurance on the international market, and that international
(12:49):
market is not regulated whatsoever, and that market really shores
up like State Farm or All State or Geico or
whomever you're getting your insurance from. In the case that
they need like they're in a position where they need
a lot of cash quickly to pay out claims. So
that reinsurance market, from the best government data that we
(13:11):
can find out, the amount of money that insurance companies,
our insurance companies have to pay to get that insurance
has like doubled in the last just like two years.
It's costing State.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Farm more money to ensure you. So that's one. That's
one thing.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
The second bucket is the bond and stock market, and
so insurance companies basically securitize risk and they resell it
in the form of catastrophic bonds. That's a primary way
that they also invest in the market. And those catastrophic
bonds are not very they're not very attractive to investors
(13:47):
these days, and it's you know, with good reason because
more natural disasters are probably on the horizon, and so
investors have moved away from these bonds.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
But these bonds are important.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
They help these companies basically, it's like a third layer
of protection for them and making it more difficult. All
of this basically trickles down to your premium price going up,
going up, and then really going up or losing your
insurance altogether.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
It's basically just harder for these insurance to do business
on all fronts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, So it feels like we as consumers, we've reached
kind of a tipping point where we're like, Okay, I
assumed that my mortgage was kind of sort of knowable
moving into the future, but with incredible, you know, property
tax hikes alongside insurance costs going up at a ridiculous clip. Wow, man,
(14:37):
my mortgage payment went up by more than I assumed.
Do you have any tips for people out there shopping
around for coverage when it comes to trying to save
money on your homeowners insurance policies? Maybe like the dues
and the dun'ts, because there are definitely some ways that
you can harm yourself shopping her up for coverage, but
then there are other ways that you really can legitimately
save right in an environment of rising costs.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
This is the most orring tip, but it is the
best one, and it is also the one that's least understood.
But it's to get your credit score as high as
you can. That credit score will be used as part
of a secret algorithm that companies use to assess your
ability to pay.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
And just assess you as a customer.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
To get you the lowest It helps with getting the
lowest possible premium price. Insurance brokers don't talk about it.
They might casually mention it if they happen to see
that your credit score is like below seven hundred, But
I would say that the brokers I've interviewed don't their
articulation of this problem is or that that's as a solution.
It's actually pretty thin. This gets us into a credit
(15:40):
score discussion, but really quickly, it's really good to know
that you can download all three of your credit reports
at annual credit report dot com and that's all three
bureaus feed into that Equifax, TransUnion and Experience, and by
law you're allowed to get that basically free every week
to check for like mistakes and duplications and you know,
(16:04):
identity theft you can check on there and then appeal
and that that all of that like can help increase
that score by a ton. And it's always good to
just kind of keep your you know, keep your eye
on what that score is. But actually that can also
help with car insurance as well.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, it seems to you would think, Lisa, that like
the advent of the internet would make it easier to
shop around for insurance rates. But no, yeah, it doesn't
seem like it has right, really weird, but you would think,
oh man, this like there are some things it's been
become more transparent to shop for, like tennis shoes, but
not insurance. Do you like literally have to pick up
(16:43):
the phone call a bunch of different companies, Like, how
do you suggest people do it?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
No, so check it out.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
The internet is like a fine place to start if
you just want to get a grip on what's out there.
But honestly, the best way and actually the safest way,
is to find a local broker, like a real human
being who works and you know, the key here is
an independent So a local independent broker who can get
quotes from any company that your state will allow you
(17:11):
to work with, and even then some like even outside
of the state.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And that's that's what I did for the tiny house.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
And they can scan, they can scan, you know, really
like your big companies. Any state sponsored plans that fall
into the fair category, this is a This is a
type of state sponsor insurance that people sometimes have to
get if they can't get typical homeowners insurance, which is
what's going to happen in California and definitely other states
that are hit by natural disasters. We often think about like, oh,
(17:41):
we need to save money, but honestly, what you're really
looking for is the best value for the money that
you're paying. So you you want to make sure that
you have all the correct and proper amount of coverage
and the amount of coverage that your bank requires, because
most people have a mortgage, and that's why you know,
if you have a mortgage, you almost certainly have to
have of homeowners insurance so that broker can help you
(18:03):
sort through the coverage and help you actually make true comparisons.
If you're left with like trying to decipher that on
the internet by yourself, you can wind up with a
policy we're like, oh, look, I'm saving so much money,
and then not understanding that on the back end that
the coverage is so poor or it's not it's just
not robust enough in the event you actually need to
(18:23):
use that insurance, so find somebody local.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You're making me think too about the fact that Consumer
Reports has a list they update every year of the
best and worst insurance companies. Oh yeah, we're doing that again, Okay, great, yeah,
And I'm curious you talk about finding the best value. Well,
let's say the top two are typically what AMIICA and
USAA are top two in the rankings essentially perennially. What
(18:47):
if I contact those companies and the annual homeowners insurance
premium is five thousand dollars and I go down to
some of the ones that are kind of mid ranked,
and it's more like three thousand dollars a year, but
it's sim or coverage. How do you help people think
through that trade off of value in homeowners insurance and
whether or not maybe it's worth it to pay more
for a company that's ranked more highly.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Well, I would be asking, I mean that kind of
difference that you just pointed out, I would be very suspect,
and I would be like, Oh, there's got to be
some detail in here that is that I'm not understanding.
Where it might look like the same coverage, but it
actually might not be, or it might be predicated on
moving all your autos to that same policy as well,
and you may not realize that. And that's why I
(19:30):
love I just I love telling people to find a
broker just to help you work through that so that
you're not sitting there on, you know, on a screen saying, Oh,
that looks so much cheaper.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Why is that? Why is that?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Just you should be asking why? And then and then conversely,
why is that one? You know, if there's an outlier
here that's super expensive? What is that coverage all about?
Why is that so much more? And you know, and
I hate to say it, but it's like it requires
a lot of you know, you need to be willing
to educate yourself on and use the vernacular of the
insurance industry to help and help it. You're broker, and
(20:02):
it's an unfortunate reality. And you know, it used to
be the case that you could just renew the policy
every year and not think about it like it was
just on your run autopilot. And the way that insurance
has changed in the last couple of years, that is
just unfortunately not the case.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
What about high deductibles, because that's I mean when it
comes to us, especially with like auto insurance, But that's
something that we advocate for sometimes if you are willing
to accept a little more risk yourself and have those
cash reserves on hand, that can significantly reduce your premiums
as well. Are you Are you a fan of that.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Yeah, I am to the point that it makes sense
for you and realize this. You can ask for something
called a split deductible, and you could say, okay for
all the regular stuff like oh, a pipe bursts inside
my house or a tree falls on the house. You know,
sort of like your run of the mill. You know,
it's not a disaster, but it's like a run of
the mill problem. Or you're going to have a normal claim.
(20:53):
That's one thing. But for fire, you know, flood policies
or separate policies. But for other types of maybe it's
wildfire coverage or hail coverage, you can ask for a
different see if that insurance company offers a different and
maybe even higher deductible for that, and that also will
help bring that premium down. But just you know, be
realistic about it. I mean, if I had a like
(21:14):
it would be ridiculous if I had a twenty thousand
dollars deductible. I can't, like, I don't have twenty grand
just sitting around and I'm never going to have that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
But you know, something more like.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Five that seems okay, Ten seems all right, But you
know it's gonna be It's gonna be your comfort level,
and then be sure that you actually know where you're
going to get that ten grand from or twenty thousand
from you got it, and then yeah, you know, and
this is one other thing too, uh, something that a
lot of people have missed in these discussions, and that
is if you have really expensive items, specific items, get
(21:45):
separate lines of policy for those like the say, musical
equipment or precious art, jewelry, guns, I mean, whatever, you know,
whatever the thing is that record collection I've got, like
an enormous record collection that is keep ensured separately. And
then in the story okay, okay, which have a separate policy,
(22:06):
take those items that are like extremely valuable, the antiques
or whatever, and write get written separate policies on those,
either through the insurance company or through even a secondary
like I'm just thinking about musical equipment.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Musicians.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Friend is a great place that many musicians will you know,
if you've got I don't know, studio is worth of
equipment or precious musical instruments, it's worth getting separate policies.
And then you can reduce that personal coverage amounts, which
can also help lower that deductor.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
All right, Lisa's great advice. So far, We've got a
lot more we want to get to about homelewer desserns,
but then also health insurance and medical bills too. You
write a lot about that, so we'll get to some
of our questions about those tough topics right after this.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Right, we are back from the break talking with Lisa
Gill from Consumer Reports, and Lisa, let's take like, let'szoom
out a little bit as we're talking about homeowners insurance,
let's talk about taking risk when it comes to where
it is that folks are building homes. Right the Journal
there is an article actually that discussed how people want
to build and live in risky places, places that you
(23:18):
know there's maybe a higher chance of having your house
burned down or getting hit by a storm, but they
don't want to bear the brunt of market rate insurance
costs in order to have the luxury or the nicety
of living in an area like that. It seems like
something's got to give. How do you think about this
sort of I don't know, you're kind of stuck between
a rock and a hard place if you are in
a more disaster prone area.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
So I'm thinking about like the people that live like
right on a coastline. That is a tip you know,
that is a type of home that is not going
to be like a typical middle class home. Those are
going to be probably more expensive homes. And I'm thinking
it's also people that are not using traditional mortgages to
pay for their homes, which can actually be very good
thing because it allows you to use different kinds of
(24:01):
insurance products that is not maybe not a typical like
state farm plan or an all state plan. Something does
have to give and what might you know in thinking
about that those other so I'm referring to basically what's
called access in supply line insurance, and this is what
covers like DIY structures, Like if you live in a
high intent or in a tiny home or something that
(24:23):
you've built that just falls outside the typical insurance plan,
or a multi multi multimillion dollar home that's just not
going to be covered by a typical homeowners plan, it
launches you into this this excess in supply line space,
which is not typically regulated or really at all by
your state or even our federal government. It's just like
(24:44):
it's on the private market, and it often means that
you're gonna it's almost like commercial insurance, You're not going
to have the same level of coverage. You're going to
have really large deductibles and maybe more more limited. It
may not be the actual replacement costs.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So I know that. I think your question is.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Getting at like, oh, we shouldn't build on the coasts anymore,
and you know it's all afford.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
It, you know, yeah, No, I guess what you're highlighting
here is the fact that those individuals are like when
you like insurance, pool's risk and I guess there's a
there's an aspect of folks seeing houses burned down or
homes being built, you know, in Florida right on the coast,
and it's just like man like that's causing everybody's race
to go up. But what you're highlighting here is that
because of these excess and supply lines, a lot of
(25:27):
these individuals are they're not getting the typical run of
the mill state farm amik A USAA kind of policy.
They're getting these Lloyds of London's policies that they're having
to go out individually and secure.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Is that right, yeah, or they're going without a policy.
I mean, people that have a very high means may
not have that, you know, they may not want to
deal with insurance companies because they could afford to basically
rebuild on their own.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
But some of those people can't write. And that's right,
I think when you look at the statistics, and this
was something that shocked me, forty percent of homeowners in
the United States don't have a mortgage, like they have
a paid off home, which bottles to mind, like when
you to anybody who owns a home and they're like.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
How did you pay your mortgage? Jobs they just kept living.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
There's a lot of the time it must be okay
boomer kind of thing, right, But what would you say
to those people who maybe do have a paid off
home and they're thinking, I'm going to go it alone.
I'm going to risk it and I'm gonna drop the
insurance cause it's getting too dard expensive.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That's that's pretty risky too.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, you definitely don't want to do that.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
That I mean, I mean, if you if you are
somebody like you're not a celebrity or a retired like
professional athlete, I mean, having coverage is essential, and it's
because you don't know when disaster is going to strike,
and you especially you know, I would say, especially if
if your home is your primary asset, you want it
covered and you could I mean even baseline coverage, just
(26:45):
something even catastrophic coverage to make sure that you're just
like not high and dry in case like the worst
of all scenarios happens, and there are you know, and
you can get catastrophic coverage I mean through your typical
insurance companies, and you can get it through a Lloyd
of London, Lloyds of London, you could get through AIG.
There are different there are different types of policies. I
(27:06):
think maybe also inherent in your question is not just
multimillion dollars on the coastlines, but you know people building
in the interior, like maybe in Colorado or Montana, or
you know, places that have a higher wildfire risks that
maybe people didn't understand when they were first building. I mean,
that's that's another possibility too, And I would say you're
(27:30):
in for a surprise, you know, when you try to
go insure it. And the advocacy policy is trying to
get homeowners to build in places that are less risky.
And I mean you said it it's all about managing risk,
and it's like, what's your risk tolerance?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
And I think you have to be I will say this,
I think you have.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
To be realistic about what your risk tolerance is and
what you actually can afford. I think that most Americans
have a very inflated view about what they can afford,
and that's what leads us to like crazy credit card dead.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh absolutely sure. Where As we were just asking about
folks voluntarily for going coverage, but what if somebody receives
like a letter in the mail, they get that cancelation notice,
it's involuntary, and they're like, hey, you're no longer going
to be covered. What can folks do about that?
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah? You know, I will say this.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
I spoke to a number of consumers who that letter
sat around when they got in the mail and they
didn't open it because they were just accustomed to having it,
you know, their insurance renewed, and then opened it and were.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Like, holy what this is Like I didn't expect that.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
So if this happens to you at any point, whether
you open it immediately or you've accidentally waited, the first
of who do is call up the insurance company directly
ask them for an extension, because they're going to give
you a date they're going to say, hey, in thirty
days or sixty days, ninety days. Sometimes I've spoke to
consumers where it was a year. But if it's if
it's a really small time, short window of time, small
(28:49):
window of time, call them up and ask like it's
a courtesy. They don't have to do it, but can
you extend this another thirty days while I'm able to
either address your concerns or shop around for new coverage.
And you know, it works about half the time, but
it is, it's definitely worth trying.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Sometimes those concerns are the insurance company says, oh, hey
that the tree, the tree is touching the roof, or
it's like small repairs that you need to do around
your home to stay insured too.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
So that's the next question to ask is like ask,
either through your broker or directly, why am I being dropped?
And then and then they may be able to show
you satellite images and they say, oh you've got yeah,
you've got trees hanging over the roof, or your roof
looks old damage and you need to repair it. So
you're you're going to want to find out why. And
then and then your next thing is like two steps.
(29:33):
You're going to want to appeal the decision, and you're
going to want to fix find out if it's if
any of this is fixable, like do you need to
trim back branches? Do you need a new roof? Do
you need to make a roof repair? Is there something
that that and action you could take to get them
to reverse the decision. But while all that's going on,
you should be shopping around for another carrier, and that's
why you need the independent broker to help you.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, I guess the part of me wonders too if
it makes sense to like, should folks be scared? You know,
like what if someone gets that letter and I can
see a lot of folks freaking out. I think I'd
be concerned if they're just like, we're going to straight
up drop your tail, you know, Like yeah, but like, yeah,
I'm wondering if I'm wondering if some folks out there
would see that and immediately freak out and just pay
(30:14):
unnecessary amounts of money to repair something that maybe doesn't
need to be repaired. And I guess that's where you're
saying to kind of push back a little bit, Yeah,
appeal the decision to say Hey, you're complaining about my roof,
but like that roof is only eleven years old, it's
good for twenty to twenty five years, is it sort
of having that kind of conversation with the ensure?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Oh yes, So I spoke to consumers where that exactly
what you just said happened, and they said, look, I'm
going to bring in a couple of roofers. We're going
to take pictures, and I'm going to get their statements
to submit to you that this is actually a new
roof and that the shadow that you're looking at is
you know, is actually just a shadow, it's not a
damaged roof.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And that actually worked. That worked for a number of people.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And so I would say fighting back is like you
have to be a proactive of it sucks and nobody.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Wants to do this. You have to be a pro.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Nobody wants to do this.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
We have other stuff, have other stuff, but here, yeah,
right right, you have a problem.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
But you know what, here's why. Here is why you're
fighting back.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
If you don't take any action or your lax of
days ago about it, and the bank gets wind of
this and they find out that you are suddenly not covered.
They are going to put their own insurance on you
called forced place insurance. This is like this is like
for bad kids, and you're gonna get You're gonna get
coverage that is really expensive and not very good.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So like the Cobra equivalent of U of POTS insurance
really expensive, not so great. On a note, can we
talk about health insurance? Uh, that's no walk in the
park either when it comes to expenses there with medical
bills being the number one cause of bankruptcy, Like, what
are some of the ways that you would recommend for
folks to protect themselves?
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Actually it's the same, it's the same issue. And you
know what, I love that you bring up Cobra and
then we all laugh because it's like at Insider's insurance
joke and it totally was funny.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh yeah, three thousand dollars a month? Who can't afford that?
It's just like, wait, actually pays for this is.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
A lot of people actually do. So it's as similar problem.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
It's like you got you're gonna have to fight against
insurance company to get it down to an amount that
you actually can't afford. And the first thing to do
is not ignore the bill, even if it just looks
like to check it out. A lot of times you
go to let's say you go to the hospital or
you get a plan procedure, or even go to the
doctor's office and you get the bill and the mail
and you're like, oh, it's from you know, doctor Lisa
(32:34):
Gill and look it's ten thousand dollars and you're like, huh,
but I have insurance. Why am I getting sent this bill?
You got to call up at that point, you got
to call up the provider and say, look, why didn't
you put this through my actual insurance. Why are you're
sending me like the full amount? And they go, oh,
we're just sending you that, you know, just to let
you know, and you're like yeah, and they say they
(32:56):
might say like, oh, it says on the bottom this
is not a bill, and you're like, yeah, it looks
like a bill, and you set an envelope with it.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
So it feels like a bill.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
But but really that you make that first phone call
like hey, I want to make sure you've got my
correct insurance information and here, you know, here, here's all
the data. You know, it's all of this is like numbers,
so like every number can get numbers can get inverted,
that it can be off and like one little thing
can mean that it does that that ten thousand dollars
bill doesn't go all the way through into your insurance
(33:23):
because they've made a mistake on their end.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
So you got to call make sure did you make
a mistake? No? Okay.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Next thing you're going to do is wait then for
the insurance company to send you what the actual explanation
of benefits it are and to see if you owe
anything at that point, so you're kind of you're in
a waiting game.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
But stay on it.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Don't assume that it's all over until you see what
the insurance company is going to cover. And that's assuming
you have insurance and that you're going to use insurance.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
As a friend of the show who recently passed away,
our friend Marshall Allen would have said, never pay the
first bill. Yeah, never pay the first bill, right, don't
ignore that, Yeah, don't ignore it, but also don't pay
it because you're waiting for the insurance company to work
it out with the provider.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Let's talk about like credit scores and past two medical
bills and how like let's say you do ignore do
you let it go too long, or you feel like
you weren't able to come to a resolution. We've we've
seen a lot of changes when it comes to how
medical providers are allowed to report your non paid bill
to the credit bureaus.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Where does that stand?
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah? So okay.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
One one great thing that consumers might have noticed is
that medical bills under five hundred dollars can won't be
counted on your credit report as of right now. But
there was something even better than that, which was this
that is like pending. It was advanced by the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, but the status of that bureau as
(34:53):
well as this rule are also pending and really TVD. Yeah,
and the idea is that all medical debt, no matter
how much it is, would be removed off a credit report.
It couldn't live on there whatsoever. And this is the
exact reason that you do not want to pay a
medical bill with a credit card, not just like oh,
(35:16):
here's my forty dollars, copey, here's a credit card.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
I don't mean that.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
I mean like, ohiowe doctor Lisa Gill ten thousand dollars.
I can't afford that, so I'm going to put it
on the credit card. If you do that, you lose
all consumer protections around medical debt and around medical billing,
and including this issue of getting it off of your
credit report so it's counted as a regular just like, oh,
it's part of your VISI bill, it's part of your
(35:40):
Bank of America card. You want to actually not do
it like that unless you can actually pay it off.
The only way actually lives there it is if it's
coded as medical debt. And a lot of times providers
don't actually put that medical debt onto your credit report
if it's unpaid. They wind up selling it to bill
collectors and hopefully it is coded properly as medical debt,
(36:04):
and then the bill collector has to follow certain rules,
including not putting it on the credit report.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
What about actually negotiating the specific medical bill like with
a provider. How does that process look different than I
guess reaching out to an actual insure. Is this something
that folks can most folks out there can do on
their own. Is this something that they should be, like
you said, educating themselves and advocating for themselves.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
So if so, let's pretend you get like one hundred
thousand dollars bill or something where you're just like Wow,
I definitely cannot afford this bill, and the procedure has
already happened. If you have gone to a hospital then
is public It's hard to know this, but it's a
non nonprofit hospital, publicly funded hospital, and that's like about
three quarters of all hospitals in the United States. You
(36:50):
should find out what kind of patient assistance they may
offer you if your insurance is not going to cover
or cover very well that bill. And that's actually the
first place to start. And a lot of times these
hospitals do not want to tell you that they've got
a program. They may be offering like free actual like
free all services free, and so you would be in
(37:11):
the clear or discountant services depending on your ability to pay,
but you're going to have to go through some administrative
hoops to get it. We always recommend that consumers with
this issue go to dollar four dot org. They catalog
every single patient assistance program in the country for every
single hospital that's a nonprofit hospital. It is literally in
(37:32):
every state, and they will help you hold your hand
through this process. They have recovered like hundreds of millions
of dollars on patients behalf and so I cannot recommend
them enough, But let's pretend that you don't qualify for that.
Your next step is to now you're going to talk
to them about what you can afford, and you want
to make sure that you're able to pay for all
your other expenses before you pay for your medical debt.
(37:55):
But you sit down with a hospital administrator or again
the accounting department or any other medical facility, and you
start to talk to them about, what if I paid
you cash up front, will you give me a discount?
Will you give me a twenty percent discount? How about
a thirty percent discount? And start to like work your
way from there, and you know, I've actually skipped over
the most important tip and it's what you do before
(38:17):
all this, and that is you ask for an itemized bill.
So a lot of times the bill that you get
in the mail where they say that this is a bill,
and they do give you the envelope and they expect
you to pay it, they're they're only showing you the
top line of those charges, but they're not showing you
every single thing that they charged you for. So you
got to typically get on the phone and ask, can
you email me an itemized bill of every charge that
(38:38):
you're charging me, and at that point start scanning it
and looking for duplicate charges or charges for stuff that
you know you didn't get, like certain medications or procedures
or or just like you're looking for errors. That's the
first place to start, and then you're going to call
them and ask for those errors to be fixed. Second
thing is start looking for like outrageous charges where you're
(39:00):
it's like, there's no way that CT scan is fifteen
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
That makes no sense.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
There are different websites you can go to to check
what those prices should be. And this, again, this sucks.
No consumers should have to do this, but this is
this is the process you're gonna you're gonna have to
engage with if you can't afford the bill, but you
need to pay it or at least address it. If
you get to the point where you are negotiating like
per like per item, you're like, Okay, that that MRI,
(39:25):
that CT scan or that blood test looks so expensive.
U Healthcare blue Book and also fairhealth dot Com can
list out for you each in your zip code at
that hospital, what is the usual and customary charge for
that procedure? Because you might find out you are being
charged way more than what usual customary is, and you
(39:45):
want to make sure that they get that price down
to the normal price that you can.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
This is typically more affordable.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
If you just point that out and you just say, hey,
this isn't usual in customary do they usually get in
line pretty quick?
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Not always so not always, which is why sometimes if
you are having trouble with this process, they're not listening
to you, they're not being helpful to you. If I
were giving advice to my family, I'd say you need
to hire an outside basically a broker, a type of broker,
a type of negotiator. It's like they're medical billing consultants
(40:18):
that work on your behalf, that take all your information
that you pay them in different ways, and they are
all over the country. You can hire anyone in any state,
and I can give you some resources at the when
we're finished with this to like let listeners know to
places to go look up to find like certified medical
billing consultants. But these folks, I've interviewed a number of them.
(40:41):
These folks are really good ones for not a lot
of money, will negotiate on your behalf and get these
charges down, get the errors out, and work with your
insurance company if they need to, and that includes like
filing appeals. Sometimes insurance is being difficult and not willing
to cover certain things, or they've got a dispute about
whether or not you've got prior authorization. That medical billing
consultant can kind of like basically act as a concierge
(41:04):
and help get that nice.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Well, very cool. We got more to get to with you, Lisa,
might talk about paying less for drugs. We'll get to
that more right after this.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
We're back from the break, so they'll talk with Lisa
Gil talking about navigating insurance, which is no fun, but
there's obviously a lot of money to be saved if
you can do it well on both the homeowners and
the health insurance fronts. And Lisa, you've also written about
how to save money on prescription drugs, and yes, you know,
I think one easy tip would be the go to
(41:40):
Costco's pharmacy. Typically you're gonna save the most money going there,
but how else can folks spend less on prescriptions these days?
And by the way, you can go to Costco's pharmacy
even if you're not a Costco member.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Yes, Yeah, that's what I love about that. That's like
one of my favorite tips. Really almost in every state
you can walk into costco, don't have to show the card,
tell them you're going to the pharmacy, and they will
let you rite in.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
People spend a lot of money on prescription drugs. And
the thing that really is terrible is although prescriptions in
this country are more expensive than almost everywhere in the world,
what most consumers have been experiencing is massive changes in
the actual insurance coverage for their prescription drugs. And this
happens most often in two groups, and that is folks
(42:26):
who get their insurance coverage through their employer or if
you have Medicare, so that's like you're okay, Boomer said,
but Medicare apart d And the reason is that every
year what the insurance companies cover, like which prescription drugs
and how well they cover them, that actually changes and
(42:47):
it changes, and what it can mean is they decide
they're not going to cover something like let's say you
have an insulin. You take insulin because you have type
one diabetes. You can't live without it, and you can
only take one kind of insulin or you will controlled
on one kind and boom, January one rolls around and
that insulin is no longer covered, and all of a sudden,
it's hundreds and hundreds of dollars instead of the thirty
(43:09):
five or forty bucks you were used to. So you
start to ask questions of that pharmacist, what is the
lowest possible price that you can get you can offer
me on this medication, even if it means I don't
use my insurance. And honestly, we have found that, like
I don't know how many generic drugs wind up being
more expensive on insurance versus just paying a couple of
(43:32):
bucks out of pocket. And this is this is Mark
Cuban's cost plus Drugs entire business model. It really has
and it showed and if nothing else, along with Costco
showed us that actual markups were huge. And they're just
like it's honestly, it's criminal and they're not breaking any
laws by charging you really high prices, but it's morally
(43:55):
criminal to charge consumers like ten times or one hundred
times more than what the actual value of that little
pill is.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
And if you don't go through your insurance to get
the prescription drug, you could save a ton of money,
so people. But I think then the trade off is
you're not meaning getting closer to reaching your deductible.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
You might not be right.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
You might not be on occasion, if it becomes the
case that you wind up having to pay cash for
really expensive medication and.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
You've you know, you've done all your due.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Diligence, and you're still writing a big check, you might
be able to submit it to your insurance company as
like a non authorized payment and they might actually cover it,
sometimes at forty percent it's and they might actually put
it towards the deductable. There are some there's a couple
of situations in California with certain kinds of coverage where.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
By the law, they have to pay it out.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
So I know it's a weird hack, but it is
worth you know, it's not worth it if it's like
five bucks, ten bucks, twenty bucks, but if you're if
you're paying out regularly outside of that insurance coverage, it's
worth content them and saying can I submit these as
like claims, you know, to see if you'll pay for.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Them, aren't.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
There also discount programs from some of the pharmaceutical companies
for some of the more expensive drugs, and how would
a consumer go about looking into those.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
This is the case where you take a very like
an insulin, you take a very specific drug, there are
no generic equivalents, and for whatever reason, your insurance company
is not covering that drug or not covering it very well.
So it might be on like a high tier, or
they've got some crazy cost sharing scheme that is just
costing you a ton of money, or your deductible is
high for the year, and you're just like, I don't
(45:35):
want to pay a thousand dollars or five thousand dollars
before insurance Kickson. One thing to try is manufactured discount
coupon programs or discount copay programs and check this out.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
It used to be the case.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
So drug manufacturers have become a lot more savvy in
what they offer to consumers because of this insurance issue,
and so they will offer I'm thinking three different kinds
of programs right off the top of my head. One
is a copay program where the drug company, if you
you know, you apply, you give them all your information
and they they're gonna help cover a high copay cost
(46:11):
and they typically cap it out like thirty five bucks
or twenty five bucks something like that, and you're gonna submit,
you know, you'll go through your insurance like normal, and
they're gonna they're gonna help reimburse you and that that.
Sometimes they do that up to a limit, but it's
it's a totally worthy program. In some places still only
offer that, but other what we've noticed is that there
are other ones where they'll say, hey, you have you
(46:32):
have commercial insurance, but you're not going to use.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
It, so let's help.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Let's help get that full cash price down to twenty
five dollars or thirty five dollars, so you don't even
you don't even use your insurance even if you have it,
And that's that's a great that's a great option when
that happens. The third is patient assistance programs, and those
are usually income based, and so you're gonna have to
fill out some forms, maybe show your tax returns, show
that you make under a certain amount, and it's typically
(46:57):
under one hundred thousand dollars, which is incredible, and so
in some places it's even higher than that, and you
can get medication for free.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Awesome. I had no idea that those options are out
there for folks. It's super cool. Lisa, we really appreciate
you talking with us today. We'll make sure to link
to So you mentioned dollar four and that's f o R.
Is that right, Yes, that's.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Right dollar four dot org.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah, dot org. Nice. We'll make sure to link to that.
And we're going to have you send us some of
those different consultants, those folks who advocate on your behalf
as well, because we want to make sure to be
able to link to a lot of those folks. Where
else can folks find out what what you've been up to?
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Yeah, you know what, consumer reports dot org. A lot
of the stuff I write about is available for free,
including tips on how to get insurance, like your insurance down,
healthcare coverage, drug calls, credit scores, credit reports.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
You name it. But it's actually available there.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Or you can always do a search for Lisa Gill
and consumer reports.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
You're just writing about all the trickiest industries in the
United States.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
I get all the stuff that nobody wants to talk.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
A glutton for punishment. Indeed, Lisa, thank you for joining yesterday.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Thanks so much. This has been fun, all.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Right, Joel insurance man, it's a necessary It was a
fun conversation, but also a necessary one. I'm glad we
were able to to speak with Lisa today these days,
my goodness. Yes, that's why we wanted to talk about
this now, higher prices all around. What was your big
takeaway from our conversation?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I think, actually right if we stop recording, One of
the things we briefly touched on was the fact that
as a consumer, you just have to be vigilant. You
have to question everything, don't accept what comes your way,
whether it's a price hike from your homeowners insurance company,
whether it's a medical bill from a provider that you saw.
And I just think that's true, Like, you have to
be vigilant, and that was part of the theme of
(48:39):
this episode. You have to if you get some sort
of non renewal notice, you gotta fight your insurance company
and say, wait, wait a second, why what's going on here?
And or if you know your rate hike goes up
and you're like, why is this so expensive? Now, it's
worth asking the question and kind of popping your insurance
company in the nose and figure out why, or getting
(49:00):
hiring someone to work on your behalf, whether that if.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
You don't like violence, hire somebody else to be violent
exactly on your behalf, right.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
I'm all for that, and I think some people are
maybe gravitated towards that more naturally than others. Some people
are more just pacifist by nature, and they just kind
of take it on the chin, they accept it. But
especially in this environment of and how what's at stake here,
you have to figure out how to lean into that.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Your money's on the line, you know, Yeah, navigate.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
The expensive nature of insurance these days. It's kind of
on your shoulders.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it
should be that's the way our system set up though. Yeah, okay,
So my takeaway then is going to be she said
as turned but I've never heard before, and it's when
we're talking about homeowners insurance, and she mentioned a split deductible,
which I'm going to totally look up and see if
this is something that's available to me. If I have
the ability to raise my deductible for more catastrophical like
(49:48):
events on our property while keeping a separate deductible that's
a bit lower for things that aren't as big of
a deal. Dude, I might do that. I didn't know
about that either Yeah, that's pretty cool, which I almost clarified,
but I was like, no, she said split deductible. So
it's a new term. I know we've never talked about
it here on the show because I've never even heard
of it. But I'm totally going to look into that
mess off and if that sounds like something that might
(50:09):
be applicable to your situation, well look it up as well.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Makes me think of we had a listener question at
one time about some type of insurance that was only
offered in like the Northeast from a couple of old
school insurers, but it was able to save that that
listener a bunch of money on his insurance costs. I
can't even remember the name of that specific insurance right now.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
It's like one of these it's like one of these
original insurance companies. I think this is up like Ben
Franklin found the company. Yes, is like in the Boston area.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, and so yeah, insurance is one of those things
where there are all sorts of products that the average
person doesn't know about, even the average money podcast host
doesn't know about, because the insurance world can be incredibly complex.
But now let's get to the beer. Get back to
the beer that we had on this episode. This was
called Primordia. It's a oak aged mixed culture sour beer
(50:57):
by Freak Folk. What were your thoughts on this one?
Speaker 1 (51:00):
I thought it was not too dissimilar from the one
that we had somewhat recently, the one with a cat
on it. But this one it had more oaky notes.
So that one was aged in wine barrels, and so
it kind of had like this funkiness and this kind
of mellowed out, smoother flavor that you get I guess
when it's aged in wine barrels. But this had like
a really punchy, sharp oak flavor, which I am all about.
(51:23):
It definitely is mouth puckering, very mouth puckering, and it's
like right on the line of too tart. Like I
like sours that kind of round out and have like
a little bit of sweetness. These are riding the line of, Man,
I don't know if I could handle drinking too much
more of this because of the tartness, because of the
sour aspect.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I like my stuff a touch sweeter, yeah, you know
how I roll, And I like it a little funkier.
The last one had more funk that was bringing to
the party. This one was more straight up sour, yeah,
but brighter and sharper.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah. Yeah, it's still really good, like it had the
oak going on, which anytime, there's a whole lot of
oak flavor. Signed me on your love. I love it absolutely.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
I like this one too, and I'd be curious to
try more beers by these guys for sure.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Well, they make a ton of different I pas. It's
funny because I started following them that gets Instagram and
they keep posting pictures a bunch of like hazy IPAs,
and I'm like, well, dang it. The only thing that
we got were these hours and maybe their best beers
are actually IPAs. Yeah, I don't know, but these were
also fantastic. All right, We'll try some IPAs next time
from them. That's gonna do it, though. For this episode,
(52:22):
we'll put links to some of the resources that Lisa
mentioned up on the website at howtomoney dot com. There's
a bunch of other resources there too for you as well. Matt.
Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Today we're talking about navigating the insane insurance system with
Consumer Reports Lisa Gill.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, so our conversation today is going to be all
about reducing some major expenses in our lives. Insurance, the
premiums that we pay. They've skyrocketed over the past several
years for many reasons that we'll actually get into today,
and it's a huge bummer if you haven't noticed your
premiums rising, that's a problem too. I think one of
the issues with insurances that were often insulated from these
(00:50):
higher costs because let's say homeowners insurance, well, that's covered
by our escrow. We don't necessarily see that day in
and day out. Or health insurance premiums, maybe that's gone
up a little bit, but hey, my employer they take
care of that for me. But eventually that's going to
have an impact on you on an individual level. And
here to tackle this problem is Lisa Gill from Consumer Reports,
(01:11):
the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that we love, we talk
about all the time, and Lisa is an investigative journalist.
We're going to discuss everything today from wildfires to prescription drugs. So, Lisa,
thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for
talking to me.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
It's such an important topic, and we're going to try
to make it as fun and easy to understand as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, let's making sure it's fun, Lisa. I like that.
It's a tall task, but we can do it. We
can do it.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
We can do it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh, you can do it at least. Well, we'll ask
you questions to point you in that direction. The first question, though,
that we ask everyone who comes on the show, is
what do you like to suploor?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
John?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Because Matt and I splore John fancy beers from time
to time. But we're still being smart with our money, investing, saving,
thinking about the future.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
What's that for you?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I live in a tiny house, and this tiny house
is located in a little like magical pine forest, and
I swear it looks like the It looks like a
movie set. And in this pine forest are lots of
pine needles. But under that is sand, and because of that,
I have become ever vigilant with putting down pea gravel
(02:16):
so that my tiny home does not wash away in
a rainstorm. So this is a necessity. But at the
same time I accomplished that, but I am addicted to
loads and loads of pea gravel that you can get
at home depot or you can get people to drop
it off. I splurged on a wheelbarrel that is like
at to like load up this pea gravel and spread
(02:40):
it all around the tiny home and all leading up.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
To the tiny home. And I have got probably six
seven tons of pea gravel and I can I literally
can't stop getting it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
So basically, every time you are out running an air
and you'll swing by home depot and throw one of
those guys on your shoulder. Oh my god, yeah, you're
walking out of home deep like Joel's walking out of
Costco with this uh with his tragger pellets.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I can't, I cannot, I literally can't stop. The other day,
somebody asked me, what would you do if you had
a whole day off that you didn't expect, you know,
how would you spend it?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And I was like, oh, yeah, I'd go get like
fifty bags of the grapple.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
And spread it all out, and you know what, it
just looks so good, and you know you, you spread
it out and then like six months eight months later,
you're like, oh I need I need a freshy.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I got to get another fresh low.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
This has got to get her hit.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yeah, this is so weird and niche, but you know
what pea gravels where.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's at all?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Right, speaking of your tiny home, I want to know more?
Is is d I y? I think I read did you?
Did you build this yourself?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
So I found I found a builder and his wife.
They designed it and they like but they actually built
it by hand. But it is like fully one built
by hand from top to bottom, and it's customized for
like my height and my everything that you touch in there.
I considered like everything from like the poured concrete countertops
(04:03):
to the tile to the wood floor. I mean, it's
it's my dream home.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That's I gotta say.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
That's super cool. Okay, So what's the square footage? I
don't know what do you have to be under a
certain square footage to be considered a tiny home?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:13):
So this is like so I'll tell you before I
take this square footage, I'll tell you it's eight feet
wide by about thirty two feet long, and it's on wheels.
It's on like a proper trailer, and it's like fourteen
and a half feet tall, So it's got two lofts
and the total actual square footage is like about two eighty.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Wow, I think to eighty what house parties look like
at the tiny home?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I think she's hanging out in the gravel. Yeah, they're
outside parties. Yeah, there's nothing all that I mean right,
based on how you're describing it, sounds amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I mean, here's the dirty secret.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Nobody tells you about tiny homes. You Yeah, it's a
simpler life.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I only have like a couple of pairs of socks
and a couple of T shirts like whatever. But I've
got two enormous storage units and I just swapped stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
H okay, So be prepared to pay for storage units.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
On a somewhat related note, do you have to pay
homeowners insurance on your tiny home? Like? Y? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah? So so mine?
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Is it being a DI So a lot of tiny homes,
I should say this, A lot of tiny homes are
actually r V certified, which means you qualify for RV, like,
you know, recreational vehicle insurance. You can get through Guygo,
And that is a great way to go, even though
most tiny homes are really not very roadworthy, like you
don't want to pull them down the highway. You don't
(05:32):
want to, you know, it's not a camper. And so
if that, if you can get your RV, if you
can get your tiny home certified RV, it's a way
cheaper option. I did not know that at the time.
Mine is just it turns out to be a DIY project,
not RV certified, which put me I can't get homeowners
insurance because it's on a trailer, you know, basically a
(05:54):
trailer but with wheels. But I can get something called
excess and Supply Line insurance through Lloyd's of London. And
that is actually one of wounds up just winds up
being one of our tips, like after we walk through
all the different tips of what to do, that's like yours,
it's your last resort insurance.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
That's good to know, all right. I want to talk
too about Fortunately we're a little ways removed from the
worst parts of the California wildfires, but man significant damage,
UH and a lot of people left without a home
and with steep insurance claims. And there are some I
think California specific insurance realities going on right now, but
(06:33):
those are also they seem to be kind of bleeding
out to the rest of the country. Can you maybe
speak to what's happening in California and how that is
kind of, I don't know, just starting to impact the
insurance market as a whole.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Well, actually, i'd take that question twist it a little
and say, you know, can we already saw in the
United States most homeowners feeling the impact of other natural
disasters all throughout the country, whether they be hurricanes, wild fires, earthquakes, hailstorms,
and we saw we put a call out to consumers
(07:06):
asking for people to tell us their stories of losing
their homeowners insurance or kind of like just astronomical increase
in prices, and were just inundated within hours and just
received hundreds upon hundreds of detailed stories all over the place.
And so we traced back like, Okay, where's this all
coming from. So we could see in California it was
(07:27):
already you know, the insurance crisis was well underway along
with other states as well, but you know, you really
thinking about California, and California has a very specific problem.
You know, you can see in the headlines leading up
to this that there were a couple of major insurance
companies that just threw up their hands and they were like, oh,
we're not going to write.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Any more policies in this state.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
It was like all state state farm and farmers just
like walked away and they can legally do that. You know,
nobody says like, hey, you have to do business in
a certain state.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
That was that that became kind of the norm in
a lot of other states, Florida and Colorado, Texas. To
some degree, people the company started pulling out. Well.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
That was often after asking the insurance commissioners for the
ability to increase premiums and the insurance commission was like no, sorry,
they were like well okay, we got to go or no.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Not that much, and they would try to negotiate and
they'd just be like, we're not going to do it.
Here's the fascinating, like underlying, one underlying thing to think
about for California when we think about how this discussion
and it's something called prop one oh three and I'm
not sure you've probably come across that in your research.
It you know, it forms my thinking about it and
it's worth talking about here. So insurance companies, as you
(08:41):
it's like insurance companies raise their rates in the same
way that you get to raise at work. It's retroactive.
It's based on what happened in the previous year and
then and then they have to apply for the rate
and increase. That can take months and months before it's
actually granted. If it is granted, and then it goes
out into the wider public. So you're looking at and
sometimes eighteen, sometimes even twenty four month lag time. So
(09:03):
the insurance industry will tell you, oh, we're always trying
to catch up. So prop in California, Prop One O
three was something that actually regulated this, and then it
said it said to the insurance companies, hey, you can
only ever look back. You cannot look at future projections.
And so many argue that in California, in particular, the
(09:25):
insurance people were actually paying a lower insurance rate that
was not reflective of the true growing risk in their
state of natural disasters.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, people in California were paying what like a third
of the price of Florida homeowners for homeowners.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Right exactly exactly, So this issue just switched. I read
somewhere that has switched just a few weeks before the
Palisade fires. I can't confirm that, so don't quote me
on that, but it's a very recent development that prop
one O three is like a no go and that
now insurance companies are allowed to use and I'm guessing,
you know, AI and other sophisticated two to do future
(10:00):
projections to build their rate increases on those. And so
what's going to happen is what was already at work
before the Palisades fire was a major so called correction
in the market. And it sucks if you're a homeowner
there or anywhere where this has happened. But this correction
is what is just hit people with I would say,
(10:22):
without warning. If you're not you know who pays attention
to the like home insurance point market, you know, you
only really notice it when the letter comes to you
and it's like we're not renewing you for next year.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Sure, which feels a bit more extreme. And I mean,
it's worth highlighting the fact that we're talking about California,
not just because we have a lot of listeners out
in California, but the fact that this trickles out to
these insurers what they're charging their bottom line all across
the country. So this impacts us like the fires out there,
they impact us directly. Do you have an idea of
how much of an impact Just general inflation has impacted,
(10:56):
increasing premiums as opposed to kind of stue these just
a rise in natural disasters as well.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
You know.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
The industry points to a lot of reasons as to
why homeowners might have seen a small increase, a twenty
percent increase, or losing your insurance altogether. One of them
it has to do with the replacement costs, the replacement
value of your home, and so unlike car insurance, home
insurance is typically based on how much would it cost
(11:25):
to replace your home today if natural you know, if
a disaster occurred, Whereas like with your car, when you
ensure your car, it is the it is what's called
the actual replacement costs, and that is like that's why
you get you know, when they total it out, they
give you like a couple thousand dollars and they're like,
here you go. You know, this is all you could
(11:45):
really get on the market because it depreciates, whereas like
homes are different. But one of the reasons that they've
cited is that labor costs and material costs. Dude, inflation
like went up in the last couple of years basically
since the pandemic, at least forty percent, if not higher.
And so the industry points that says, well, look, replacement
costs for us have increased, and so we're going to
(12:08):
pass that cost onto you in the form of a
higher premium or reduced benefits.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
So it's a little bit of both. In I guess,
like we've obviously got higher prices, but then I mean,
it certainly seems like that there's been an uptick in
claims that have been filed due to natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yes, there's two hidden factors.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
One of them we talk about, and that's the reinsurance market,
and the other we don't talk about because it's not
very well understood. So let's start with the reinsurance market. So,
insurance companies get their own insurance against losses, and it's
called reinsurance, which is a silly name, but in essence,
they buy insurance on the international market, and that international
(12:49):
market is not regulated whatsoever, and that market really shores
up like State Farm or All State or Geico or
whomever you're getting your insurance from. In the case that
they need like they're in a position where they need
a lot of cash quickly to pay out claims. So
that reinsurance market, from the best government data that we
(13:11):
can find out, the amount of money that insurance companies,
our insurance companies have to pay to get that insurance
has like doubled in the last just like two years.
It's costing State.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Farm more money to ensure you. So that's one. That's
one thing.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
The second bucket is the bond and stock market, and
so insurance companies basically securitize risk and they resell it
in the form of catastrophic bonds. That's a primary way
that they also invest in the market. And those catastrophic
bonds are not very they're not very attractive to investors
(13:47):
these days, and it's you know, with good reason because
more natural disasters are probably on the horizon, and so
investors have moved away from these bonds.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
But these bonds are important.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
They help these companies basically, it's like a third layer
of protection for them and making it more difficult. All
of this basically trickles down to your premium price going up,
going up, and then really going up or losing your
insurance altogether.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
It's basically just harder for these insurance to do business
on all fronts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, So it feels like we as consumers, we've reached
kind of a tipping point where we're like, Okay, I
assumed that my mortgage was kind of sort of knowable
moving into the future, but with incredible, you know, property
tax hikes alongside insurance costs going up at a ridiculous clip. Wow, man,
(14:37):
my mortgage payment went up by more than I assumed.
Do you have any tips for people out there shopping
around for coverage when it comes to trying to save
money on your homeowners insurance policies? Maybe like the dues
and the dun'ts, because there are definitely some ways that
you can harm yourself shopping her up for coverage, but
then there are other ways that you really can legitimately
save right in an environment of rising costs.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
This is the most orring tip, but it is the
best one, and it is also the one that's least understood.
But it's to get your credit score as high as
you can. That credit score will be used as part
of a secret algorithm that companies use to assess your
ability to pay.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
And just assess you as a customer.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
To get you the lowest It helps with getting the
lowest possible premium price. Insurance brokers don't talk about it.
They might casually mention it if they happen to see
that your credit score is like below seven hundred, But
I would say that the brokers I've interviewed don't their
articulation of this problem is or that that's as a solution.
It's actually pretty thin. This gets us into a credit
(15:40):
score discussion, but really quickly, it's really good to know
that you can download all three of your credit reports
at annual credit report dot com and that's all three
bureaus feed into that Equifax, TransUnion and Experience, and by
law you're allowed to get that basically free every week
to check for like mistakes and duplications and you know,
(16:04):
identity theft you can check on there and then appeal
and that that all of that like can help increase
that score by a ton. And it's always good to
just kind of keep your you know, keep your eye
on what that score is. But actually that can also
help with car insurance as well.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, it seems to you would think, Lisa, that like
the advent of the internet would make it easier to
shop around for insurance rates. But no, yeah, it doesn't
seem like it has right, really weird, but you would think,
oh man, this like there are some things it's been
become more transparent to shop for, like tennis shoes, but
not insurance. Do you like literally have to pick up
(16:43):
the phone call a bunch of different companies, Like, how
do you suggest people do it?
Speaker 3 (16:48):
No, so check it out.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
The internet is like a fine place to start if
you just want to get a grip on what's out there.
But honestly, the best way and actually the safest way,
is to find a local broker, like a real human
being who works and you know, the key here is
an independent So a local independent broker who can get
quotes from any company that your state will allow you
(17:11):
to work with, and even then some like even outside
of the state.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And that's that's what I did for the tiny house.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
And they can scan, they can scan, you know, really
like your big companies. Any state sponsored plans that fall
into the fair category, this is a This is a
type of state sponsor insurance that people sometimes have to
get if they can't get typical homeowners insurance, which is
what's going to happen in California and definitely other states
that are hit by natural disasters. We often think about like, oh,
(17:41):
we need to save money, but honestly, what you're really
looking for is the best value for the money that
you're paying. So you you want to make sure that
you have all the correct and proper amount of coverage
and the amount of coverage that your bank requires, because
most people have a mortgage, and that's why you know,
if you have a mortgage, you almost certainly have to
have of homeowners insurance so that broker can help you
(18:03):
sort through the coverage and help you actually make true comparisons.
If you're left with like trying to decipher that on
the internet by yourself, you can wind up with a
policy we're like, oh, look, I'm saving so much money,
and then not understanding that on the back end that
the coverage is so poor or it's not it's just
not robust enough in the event you actually need to
(18:23):
use that insurance, so find somebody local.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You're making me think too about the fact that Consumer
Reports has a list they update every year of the
best and worst insurance companies. Oh yeah, we're doing that again, Okay, great, yeah,
And I'm curious you talk about finding the best value. Well,
let's say the top two are typically what AMIICA and
USAA are top two in the rankings essentially perennially. What
(18:47):
if I contact those companies and the annual homeowners insurance
premium is five thousand dollars and I go down to
some of the ones that are kind of mid ranked,
and it's more like three thousand dollars a year, but
it's sim or coverage. How do you help people think
through that trade off of value in homeowners insurance and
whether or not maybe it's worth it to pay more
for a company that's ranked more highly.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Well, I would be asking, I mean that kind of
difference that you just pointed out, I would be very suspect,
and I would be like, Oh, there's got to be
some detail in here that is that I'm not understanding.
Where it might look like the same coverage, but it
actually might not be, or it might be predicated on
moving all your autos to that same policy as well,
and you may not realize that. And that's why I
(19:30):
love I just I love telling people to find a
broker just to help you work through that so that
you're not sitting there on, you know, on a screen saying, Oh,
that looks so much cheaper.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Why is that? Why is that?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Just you should be asking why? And then and then conversely,
why is that one? You know, if there's an outlier
here that's super expensive? What is that coverage all about?
Why is that so much more? And you know, and
I hate to say it, but it's like it requires
a lot of you know, you need to be willing
to educate yourself on and use the vernacular of the
insurance industry to help and help it. You're broker, and
(20:02):
it's an unfortunate reality. And you know, it used to
be the case that you could just renew the policy
every year and not think about it like it was
just on your run autopilot. And the way that insurance
has changed in the last couple of years, that is
just unfortunately not the case.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
What about high deductibles, because that's I mean when it
comes to us, especially with like auto insurance, But that's
something that we advocate for sometimes if you are willing
to accept a little more risk yourself and have those
cash reserves on hand, that can significantly reduce your premiums
as well. Are you Are you a fan of that.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Yeah, I am to the point that it makes sense
for you and realize this. You can ask for something
called a split deductible, and you could say, okay for
all the regular stuff like oh, a pipe bursts inside
my house or a tree falls on the house. You know,
sort of like your run of the mill. You know,
it's not a disaster, but it's like a run of
the mill problem. Or you're going to have a normal claim.
(20:53):
That's one thing. But for fire, you know, flood policies
or separate policies. But for other types of maybe it's
wildfire coverage or hail coverage, you can ask for a
different see if that insurance company offers a different and
maybe even higher deductible for that, and that also will
help bring that premium down. But just you know, be
realistic about it. I mean, if I had a like
(21:14):
it would be ridiculous if I had a twenty thousand
dollars deductible. I can't, like, I don't have twenty grand
just sitting around and I'm never going to have that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
But you know, something more like.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Five that seems okay, Ten seems all right, But you
know it's gonna be It's gonna be your comfort level,
and then be sure that you actually know where you're
going to get that ten grand from or twenty thousand
from you got it, and then yeah, you know, and
this is one other thing too, uh, something that a
lot of people have missed in these discussions, and that
is if you have really expensive items, specific items, get
(21:45):
separate lines of policy for those like the say, musical
equipment or precious art, jewelry, guns, I mean, whatever, you know,
whatever the thing is that record collection I've got, like
an enormous record collection that is keep ensured separately. And
then in the story okay, okay, which have a separate policy,
(22:06):
take those items that are like extremely valuable, the antiques
or whatever, and write get written separate policies on those,
either through the insurance company or through even a secondary
like I'm just thinking about musical equipment.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Musicians.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Friend is a great place that many musicians will you know,
if you've got I don't know, studio is worth of
equipment or precious musical instruments, it's worth getting separate policies.
And then you can reduce that personal coverage amounts, which
can also help lower that deductor.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
All right, Lisa's great advice. So far, We've got a
lot more we want to get to about homelewer desserns,
but then also health insurance and medical bills too. You
write a lot about that, so we'll get to some
of our questions about those tough topics right after this.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Right, we are back from the break talking with Lisa
Gill from Consumer Reports, and Lisa, let's take like, let'szoom
out a little bit as we're talking about homeowners insurance,
let's talk about taking risk when it comes to where
it is that folks are building homes. Right the Journal
there is an article actually that discussed how people want
to build and live in risky places, places that you
(23:18):
know there's maybe a higher chance of having your house
burned down or getting hit by a storm, but they
don't want to bear the brunt of market rate insurance
costs in order to have the luxury or the nicety
of living in an area like that. It seems like
something's got to give. How do you think about this
sort of I don't know, you're kind of stuck between
a rock and a hard place if you are in
a more disaster prone area.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
So I'm thinking about like the people that live like
right on a coastline. That is a tip you know,
that is a type of home that is not going
to be like a typical middle class home. Those are
going to be probably more expensive homes. And I'm thinking
it's also people that are not using traditional mortgages to
pay for their homes, which can actually be very good
thing because it allows you to use different kinds of
(24:01):
insurance products that is not maybe not a typical like
state farm plan or an all state plan. Something does
have to give and what might you know in thinking
about that those other so I'm referring to basically what's
called access in supply line insurance, and this is what
covers like DIY structures, Like if you live in a
high intent or in a tiny home or something that
(24:23):
you've built that just falls outside the typical insurance plan,
or a multi multi multimillion dollar home that's just not
going to be covered by a typical homeowners plan, it
launches you into this this excess in supply line space,
which is not typically regulated or really at all by
your state or even our federal government. It's just like
(24:44):
it's on the private market, and it often means that
you're gonna it's almost like commercial insurance, You're not going
to have the same level of coverage. You're going to
have really large deductibles and maybe more more limited. It
may not be the actual replacement costs.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
So I know that. I think your question is.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Getting at like, oh, we shouldn't build on the coasts anymore,
and you know it's all afford.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
It, you know, yeah, No, I guess what you're highlighting
here is the fact that those individuals are like when
you like insurance, pool's risk and I guess there's a
there's an aspect of folks seeing houses burned down or
homes being built, you know, in Florida right on the coast,
and it's just like man like that's causing everybody's race
to go up. But what you're highlighting here is that
because of these excess and supply lines, a lot of
(25:27):
these individuals are they're not getting the typical run of
the mill state farm amik A USAA kind of policy.
They're getting these Lloyds of London's policies that they're having
to go out individually and secure.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Is that right, yeah, or they're going without a policy.
I mean, people that have a very high means may
not have that, you know, they may not want to
deal with insurance companies because they could afford to basically
rebuild on their own.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
But some of those people can't write. And that's right,
I think when you look at the statistics, and this
was something that shocked me, forty percent of homeowners in
the United States don't have a mortgage, like they have
a paid off home, which bottles to mind, like when
you to anybody who owns a home and they're like.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
How did you pay your mortgage? Jobs they just kept living.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
There's a lot of the time it must be okay
boomer kind of thing, right, But what would you say
to those people who maybe do have a paid off
home and they're thinking, I'm going to go it alone.
I'm going to risk it and I'm gonna drop the
insurance cause it's getting too dard expensive.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That's that's pretty risky too.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, you definitely don't want to do that.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
That I mean, I mean, if you if you are
somebody like you're not a celebrity or a retired like
professional athlete, I mean, having coverage is essential, and it's
because you don't know when disaster is going to strike,
and you especially you know, I would say, especially if
if your home is your primary asset, you want it
covered and you could I mean even baseline coverage, just
(26:45):
something even catastrophic coverage to make sure that you're just
like not high and dry in case like the worst
of all scenarios happens, and there are you know, and
you can get catastrophic coverage I mean through your typical
insurance companies, and you can get it through a Lloyd
of London, Lloyds of London, you could get through AIG.
There are different there are different types of policies. I
(27:06):
think maybe also inherent in your question is not just
multimillion dollars on the coastlines, but you know people building
in the interior, like maybe in Colorado or Montana, or
you know, places that have a higher wildfire risks that
maybe people didn't understand when they were first building. I mean,
that's that's another possibility too, And I would say you're
(27:30):
in for a surprise, you know, when you try to
go insure it. And the advocacy policy is trying to
get homeowners to build in places that are less risky.
And I mean you said it it's all about managing risk,
and it's like, what's your risk tolerance?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
And I think you have to be I will say this,
I think you have.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
To be realistic about what your risk tolerance is and
what you actually can afford. I think that most Americans
have a very inflated view about what they can afford,
and that's what leads us to like crazy credit card dead.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh absolutely sure. Where As we were just asking about
folks voluntarily for going coverage, but what if somebody receives
like a letter in the mail, they get that cancelation notice,
it's involuntary, and they're like, hey, you're no longer going
to be covered. What can folks do about that?
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Yeah? You know, I will say this.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
I spoke to a number of consumers who that letter
sat around when they got in the mail and they
didn't open it because they were just accustomed to having it,
you know, their insurance renewed, and then opened it and were.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Like, holy what this is Like I didn't expect that.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
So if this happens to you at any point, whether
you open it immediately or you've accidentally waited, the first
of who do is call up the insurance company directly
ask them for an extension, because they're going to give
you a date they're going to say, hey, in thirty
days or sixty days, ninety days. Sometimes I've spoke to
consumers where it was a year. But if it's if
it's a really small time, short window of time, small
(28:49):
window of time, call them up and ask like it's
a courtesy. They don't have to do it, but can
you extend this another thirty days while I'm able to
either address your concerns or shop around for new coverage.
And you know, it works about half the time, but
it is, it's definitely worth trying.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Sometimes those concerns are the insurance company says, oh, hey
that the tree, the tree is touching the roof, or
it's like small repairs that you need to do around
your home to stay insured too.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
So that's the next question to ask is like ask,
either through your broker or directly, why am I being dropped?
And then and then they may be able to show
you satellite images and they say, oh you've got yeah,
you've got trees hanging over the roof, or your roof
looks old damage and you need to repair it. So
you're you're going to want to find out why. And
then and then your next thing is like two steps.
(29:33):
You're going to want to appeal the decision, and you're
going to want to fix find out if it's if
any of this is fixable, like do you need to
trim back branches? Do you need a new roof? Do
you need to make a roof repair? Is there something
that that and action you could take to get them
to reverse the decision. But while all that's going on,
you should be shopping around for another carrier, and that's
why you need the independent broker to help you.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah, I guess the part of me wonders too if
it makes sense to like, should folks be scared? You know,
like what if someone gets that letter and I can
see a lot of folks freaking out. I think I'd
be concerned if they're just like, we're going to straight
up drop your tail, you know, Like yeah, but like, yeah,
I'm wondering if I'm wondering if some folks out there
would see that and immediately freak out and just pay
(30:14):
unnecessary amounts of money to repair something that maybe doesn't
need to be repaired. And I guess that's where you're
saying to kind of push back a little bit, Yeah,
appeal the decision to say Hey, you're complaining about my roof,
but like that roof is only eleven years old, it's
good for twenty to twenty five years, is it sort
of having that kind of conversation with the ensure?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Oh yes, So I spoke to consumers where that exactly
what you just said happened, and they said, look, I'm
going to bring in a couple of roofers. We're going
to take pictures, and I'm going to get their statements
to submit to you that this is actually a new
roof and that the shadow that you're looking at is
you know, is actually just a shadow, it's not a
damaged roof.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And that actually worked. That worked for a number of people.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And so I would say fighting back is like you
have to be a proactive of it sucks and nobody.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Wants to do this. You have to be a pro.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Nobody wants to do this.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
We have other stuff, have other stuff, but here, yeah,
right right, you have a problem.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
But you know what, here's why. Here is why you're
fighting back.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
If you don't take any action or your lax of
days ago about it, and the bank gets wind of
this and they find out that you are suddenly not covered.
They are going to put their own insurance on you
called forced place insurance. This is like this is like
for bad kids, and you're gonna get You're gonna get
coverage that is really expensive and not very good.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So like the Cobra equivalent of U of POTS insurance
really expensive, not so great. On a note, can we
talk about health insurance? Uh, that's no walk in the
park either when it comes to expenses there with medical
bills being the number one cause of bankruptcy, Like, what
are some of the ways that you would recommend for
folks to protect themselves?
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Actually it's the same, it's the same issue. And you
know what, I love that you bring up Cobra and
then we all laugh because it's like at Insider's insurance
joke and it totally was funny.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh yeah, three thousand dollars a month? Who can't afford that?
It's just like, wait, actually pays for this is.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
A lot of people actually do. So it's as similar problem.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
It's like you got you're gonna have to fight against
insurance company to get it down to an amount that
you actually can't afford. And the first thing to do
is not ignore the bill, even if it just looks
like to check it out. A lot of times you
go to let's say you go to the hospital or
you get a plan procedure, or even go to the
doctor's office and you get the bill and the mail
and you're like, oh, it's from you know, doctor Lisa
(32:34):
Gill and look it's ten thousand dollars and you're like, huh,
but I have insurance. Why am I getting sent this bill?
You got to call up at that point, you got
to call up the provider and say, look, why didn't
you put this through my actual insurance. Why are you're
sending me like the full amount? And they go, oh,
we're just sending you that, you know, just to let
you know, and you're like yeah, and they say they
(32:56):
might say like, oh, it says on the bottom this
is not a bill, and you're like, yeah, it looks
like a bill, and you set an envelope with it.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
So it feels like a bill.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
But but really that you make that first phone call
like hey, I want to make sure you've got my
correct insurance information and here, you know, here, here's all
the data. You know, it's all of this is like numbers,
so like every number can get numbers can get inverted,
that it can be off and like one little thing
can mean that it does that that ten thousand dollars
bill doesn't go all the way through into your insurance
(33:23):
because they've made a mistake on their end.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
So you got to call make sure did you make
a mistake? No? Okay.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Next thing you're going to do is wait then for
the insurance company to send you what the actual explanation
of benefits it are and to see if you owe
anything at that point, so you're kind of you're in
a waiting game.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
But stay on it.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Don't assume that it's all over until you see what
the insurance company is going to cover. And that's assuming
you have insurance and that you're going to use insurance.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
As a friend of the show who recently passed away,
our friend Marshall Allen would have said, never pay the
first bill. Yeah, never pay the first bill, right, don't
ignore that, Yeah, don't ignore it, but also don't pay
it because you're waiting for the insurance company to work
it out with the provider.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Let's talk about like credit scores and past two medical
bills and how like let's say you do ignore do
you let it go too long, or you feel like
you weren't able to come to a resolution. We've we've
seen a lot of changes when it comes to how
medical providers are allowed to report your non paid bill
to the credit bureaus.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Where does that stand?
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah? So okay.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
One one great thing that consumers might have noticed is
that medical bills under five hundred dollars can won't be
counted on your credit report as of right now. But
there was something even better than that, which was this
that is like pending. It was advanced by the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, but the status of that bureau as
(34:53):
well as this rule are also pending and really TVD. Yeah,
and the idea is that all medical debt, no matter
how much it is, would be removed off a credit report.
It couldn't live on there whatsoever. And this is the
exact reason that you do not want to pay a
medical bill with a credit card, not just like oh,
(35:16):
here's my forty dollars, copey, here's a credit card.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
I don't mean that.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
I mean like, ohiowe doctor Lisa Gill ten thousand dollars.
I can't afford that, so I'm going to put it
on the credit card. If you do that, you lose
all consumer protections around medical debt and around medical billing,
and including this issue of getting it off of your
credit report so it's counted as a regular just like, oh,
it's part of your VISI bill, it's part of your
(35:40):
Bank of America card. You want to actually not do
it like that unless you can actually pay it off.
The only way actually lives there it is if it's
coded as medical debt. And a lot of times providers
don't actually put that medical debt onto your credit report
if it's unpaid. They wind up selling it to bill
collectors and hopefully it is coded properly as medical debt,
(36:04):
and then the bill collector has to follow certain rules,
including not putting it on the credit report.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
What about actually negotiating the specific medical bill like with
a provider. How does that process look different than I
guess reaching out to an actual insure. Is this something
that folks can most folks out there can do on
their own. Is this something that they should be, like
you said, educating themselves and advocating for themselves.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
So if so, let's pretend you get like one hundred
thousand dollars bill or something where you're just like Wow,
I definitely cannot afford this bill, and the procedure has
already happened. If you have gone to a hospital then
is public It's hard to know this, but it's a
non nonprofit hospital, publicly funded hospital, and that's like about
three quarters of all hospitals in the United States. You
(36:50):
should find out what kind of patient assistance they may
offer you if your insurance is not going to cover
or cover very well that bill. And that's actually the
first place to start. And a lot of times these
hospitals do not want to tell you that they've got
a program. They may be offering like free actual like
free all services free, and so you would be in
(37:11):
the clear or discountant services depending on your ability to pay,
but you're going to have to go through some administrative
hoops to get it. We always recommend that consumers with
this issue go to dollar four dot org. They catalog
every single patient assistance program in the country for every
single hospital that's a nonprofit hospital. It is literally in
(37:32):
every state, and they will help you hold your hand
through this process. They have recovered like hundreds of millions
of dollars on patients behalf and so I cannot recommend
them enough, But let's pretend that you don't qualify for that.
Your next step is to now you're going to talk
to them about what you can afford, and you want
to make sure that you're able to pay for all
your other expenses before you pay for your medical debt.
(37:55):
But you sit down with a hospital administrator or again
the accounting department or any other medical facility, and you
start to talk to them about, what if I paid
you cash up front, will you give me a discount?
Will you give me a twenty percent discount? How about
a thirty percent discount? And start to like work your
way from there, and you know, I've actually skipped over
the most important tip and it's what you do before
(38:17):
all this, and that is you ask for an itemized bill.
So a lot of times the bill that you get
in the mail where they say that this is a bill,
and they do give you the envelope and they expect
you to pay it, they're they're only showing you the
top line of those charges, but they're not showing you
every single thing that they charged you for. So you
got to typically get on the phone and ask, can
you email me an itemized bill of every charge that
(38:38):
you're charging me, and at that point start scanning it
and looking for duplicate charges or charges for stuff that
you know you didn't get, like certain medications or procedures
or or just like you're looking for errors. That's the
first place to start, and then you're going to call
them and ask for those errors to be fixed. Second
thing is start looking for like outrageous charges where you're
(39:00):
it's like, there's no way that CT scan is fifteen
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
That makes no sense.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
There are different websites you can go to to check
what those prices should be. And this, again, this sucks.
No consumers should have to do this, but this is
this is the process you're gonna you're gonna have to
engage with if you can't afford the bill, but you
need to pay it or at least address it. If
you get to the point where you are negotiating like
per like per item, you're like, Okay, that that MRI,
(39:25):
that CT scan or that blood test looks so expensive.
U Healthcare blue Book and also fairhealth dot Com can
list out for you each in your zip code at
that hospital, what is the usual and customary charge for
that procedure? Because you might find out you are being
charged way more than what usual customary is, and you
(39:45):
want to make sure that they get that price down
to the normal price that you can.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
This is typically more affordable.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
If you just point that out and you just say, hey,
this isn't usual in customary do they usually get in
line pretty quick?
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Not always so not always, which is why sometimes if
you are having trouble with this process, they're not listening
to you, they're not being helpful to you. If I
were giving advice to my family, I'd say you need
to hire an outside basically a broker, a type of broker,
a type of negotiator. It's like they're medical billing consultants
(40:18):
that work on your behalf, that take all your information
that you pay them in different ways, and they are
all over the country. You can hire anyone in any state,
and I can give you some resources at the when
we're finished with this to like let listeners know to
places to go look up to find like certified medical
billing consultants. But these folks, I've interviewed a number of them.
(40:41):
These folks are really good ones for not a lot
of money, will negotiate on your behalf and get these
charges down, get the errors out, and work with your
insurance company if they need to, and that includes like
filing appeals. Sometimes insurance is being difficult and not willing
to cover certain things, or they've got a dispute about
whether or not you've got prior authorization. That medical billing
consultant can kind of like basically act as a concierge
(41:04):
and help get that nice.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Well, very cool. We got more to get to with you, Lisa,
might talk about paying less for drugs. We'll get to
that more right after this.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
We're back from the break, so they'll talk with Lisa
Gil talking about navigating insurance, which is no fun, but
there's obviously a lot of money to be saved if
you can do it well on both the homeowners and
the health insurance fronts. And Lisa, you've also written about
how to save money on prescription drugs, and yes, you know,
I think one easy tip would be the go to
(41:40):
Costco's pharmacy. Typically you're gonna save the most money going there,
but how else can folks spend less on prescriptions these days?
And by the way, you can go to Costco's pharmacy
even if you're not a Costco member.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Yes, Yeah, that's what I love about that. That's like
one of my favorite tips. Really almost in every state
you can walk into costco, don't have to show the card,
tell them you're going to the pharmacy, and they will
let you rite in.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
People spend a lot of money on prescription drugs. And
the thing that really is terrible is although prescriptions in
this country are more expensive than almost everywhere in the world,
what most consumers have been experiencing is massive changes in
the actual insurance coverage for their prescription drugs. And this
happens most often in two groups, and that is folks
(42:26):
who get their insurance coverage through their employer or if
you have Medicare, so that's like you're okay, Boomer said,
but Medicare apart d And the reason is that every
year what the insurance companies cover, like which prescription drugs
and how well they cover them, that actually changes and
(42:47):
it changes, and what it can mean is they decide
they're not going to cover something like let's say you
have an insulin. You take insulin because you have type
one diabetes. You can't live without it, and you can
only take one kind of insulin or you will controlled
on one kind and boom, January one rolls around and
that insulin is no longer covered, and all of a sudden,
it's hundreds and hundreds of dollars instead of the thirty
(43:09):
five or forty bucks you were used to. So you
start to ask questions of that pharmacist, what is the
lowest possible price that you can get you can offer
me on this medication, even if it means I don't
use my insurance. And honestly, we have found that, like
I don't know how many generic drugs wind up being
more expensive on insurance versus just paying a couple of
(43:32):
bucks out of pocket. And this is this is Mark
Cuban's cost plus Drugs entire business model. It really has
and it showed and if nothing else, along with Costco
showed us that actual markups were huge. And they're just
like it's honestly, it's criminal and they're not breaking any
laws by charging you really high prices, but it's morally
(43:55):
criminal to charge consumers like ten times or one hundred
times more than what the actual value of that little
pill is.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
And if you don't go through your insurance to get
the prescription drug, you could save a ton of money,
so people. But I think then the trade off is
you're not meaning getting closer to reaching your deductible.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
You might not be right.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
You might not be on occasion, if it becomes the
case that you wind up having to pay cash for
really expensive medication and.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
You've you know, you've done all your due.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Diligence, and you're still writing a big check, you might
be able to submit it to your insurance company as
like a non authorized payment and they might actually cover it,
sometimes at forty percent it's and they might actually put
it towards the deductable. There are some there's a couple
of situations in California with certain kinds of coverage where.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
By the law, they have to pay it out.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
So I know it's a weird hack, but it is
worth you know, it's not worth it if it's like
five bucks, ten bucks, twenty bucks, but if you're if
you're paying out regularly outside of that insurance coverage, it's
worth content them and saying can I submit these as
like claims, you know, to see if you'll pay for.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Them, aren't.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
There also discount programs from some of the pharmaceutical companies
for some of the more expensive drugs, and how would
a consumer go about looking into those.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
This is the case where you take a very like
an insulin, you take a very specific drug, there are
no generic equivalents, and for whatever reason, your insurance company
is not covering that drug or not covering it very well.
So it might be on like a high tier, or
they've got some crazy cost sharing scheme that is just
costing you a ton of money, or your deductible is
high for the year, and you're just like, I don't
(45:35):
want to pay a thousand dollars or five thousand dollars
before insurance Kickson. One thing to try is manufactured discount
coupon programs or discount copay programs and check this out.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
It used to be the case.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
So drug manufacturers have become a lot more savvy in
what they offer to consumers because of this insurance issue,
and so they will offer I'm thinking three different kinds
of programs right off the top of my head. One
is a copay program where the drug company, if you
you know, you apply, you give them all your information
and they they're gonna help cover a high copay cost
(46:11):
and they typically cap it out like thirty five bucks
or twenty five bucks something like that, and you're gonna submit,
you know, you'll go through your insurance like normal, and
they're gonna they're gonna help reimburse you and that that.
Sometimes they do that up to a limit, but it's
it's a totally worthy program. In some places still only
offer that, but other what we've noticed is that there
are other ones where they'll say, hey, you have you
(46:32):
have commercial insurance, but you're not going to use.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
It, so let's help.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Let's help get that full cash price down to twenty
five dollars or thirty five dollars, so you don't even
you don't even use your insurance even if you have it,
And that's that's a great that's a great option when
that happens. The third is patient assistance programs, and those
are usually income based, and so you're gonna have to
fill out some forms, maybe show your tax returns, show
that you make under a certain amount, and it's typically
(46:57):
under one hundred thousand dollars, which is incredible, and so
in some places it's even higher than that, and you
can get medication for free.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Awesome. I had no idea that those options are out
there for folks. It's super cool. Lisa, we really appreciate
you talking with us today. We'll make sure to link
to So you mentioned dollar four and that's f o R.
Is that right, Yes, that's.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Right dollar four dot org.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah, dot org. Nice. We'll make sure to link to that.
And we're going to have you send us some of
those different consultants, those folks who advocate on your behalf
as well, because we want to make sure to be
able to link to a lot of those folks. Where
else can folks find out what what you've been up to?
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Yeah, you know what, consumer reports dot org. A lot
of the stuff I write about is available for free,
including tips on how to get insurance, like your insurance down,
healthcare coverage, drug calls, credit scores, credit reports.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
You name it. But it's actually available there.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Or you can always do a search for Lisa Gill
and consumer reports.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
You're just writing about all the trickiest industries in the
United States.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
I get all the stuff that nobody wants to talk.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
A glutton for punishment. Indeed, Lisa, thank you for joining yesterday.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Thanks so much. This has been fun, all.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Right, Joel insurance man, it's a necessary It was a
fun conversation, but also a necessary one. I'm glad we
were able to to speak with Lisa today these days,
my goodness. Yes, that's why we wanted to talk about
this now, higher prices all around. What was your big
takeaway from our conversation?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
I think, actually right if we stop recording, One of
the things we briefly touched on was the fact that
as a consumer, you just have to be vigilant. You
have to question everything, don't accept what comes your way,
whether it's a price hike from your homeowners insurance company,
whether it's a medical bill from a provider that you saw.
And I just think that's true, Like, you have to
be vigilant, and that was part of the theme of
(48:39):
this episode. You have to if you get some sort
of non renewal notice, you gotta fight your insurance company
and say, wait, wait a second, why what's going on here?
And or if you know your rate hike goes up
and you're like, why is this so expensive? Now, it's
worth asking the question and kind of popping your insurance
company in the nose and figure out why, or getting
(49:00):
hiring someone to work on your behalf, whether that if.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
You don't like violence, hire somebody else to be violent
exactly on your behalf, right.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
I'm all for that, and I think some people are
maybe gravitated towards that more naturally than others. Some people
are more just pacifist by nature, and they just kind
of take it on the chin, they accept it. But
especially in this environment of and how what's at stake here,
you have to figure out how to lean into that.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Your money's on the line, you know, Yeah, navigate.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
The expensive nature of insurance these days. It's kind of
on your shoulders.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it
should be that's the way our system set up though. Yeah, okay,
So my takeaway then is going to be she said
as turned but I've never heard before, and it's when
we're talking about homeowners insurance, and she mentioned a split deductible,
which I'm going to totally look up and see if
this is something that's available to me. If I have
the ability to raise my deductible for more catastrophical like
(49:48):
events on our property while keeping a separate deductible that's
a bit lower for things that aren't as big of
a deal. Dude, I might do that. I didn't know
about that either Yeah, that's pretty cool, which I almost clarified,
but I was like, no, she said split deductible. So
it's a new term. I know we've never talked about
it here on the show because I've never even heard
of it. But I'm totally going to look into that
mess off and if that sounds like something that might
(50:09):
be applicable to your situation, well look it up as well.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Makes me think of we had a listener question at
one time about some type of insurance that was only
offered in like the Northeast from a couple of old
school insurers, but it was able to save that that
listener a bunch of money on his insurance costs. I
can't even remember the name of that specific insurance right now.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
It's like one of these it's like one of these
original insurance companies. I think this is up like Ben
Franklin found the company. Yes, is like in the Boston area.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, and so yeah, insurance is one of those things
where there are all sorts of products that the average
person doesn't know about, even the average money podcast host
doesn't know about, because the insurance world can be incredibly complex.
But now let's get to the beer. Get back to
the beer that we had on this episode. This was
called Primordia. It's a oak aged mixed culture sour beer
(50:57):
by Freak Folk. What were your thoughts on this one?
Speaker 1 (51:00):
I thought it was not too dissimilar from the one
that we had somewhat recently, the one with a cat
on it. But this one it had more oaky notes.
So that one was aged in wine barrels, and so
it kind of had like this funkiness and this kind
of mellowed out, smoother flavor that you get I guess
when it's aged in wine barrels. But this had like
a really punchy, sharp oak flavor, which I am all about.
(51:23):
It definitely is mouth puckering, very mouth puckering, and it's
like right on the line of too tart. Like I
like sours that kind of round out and have like
a little bit of sweetness. These are riding the line of, Man,
I don't know if I could handle drinking too much
more of this because of the tartness, because of the
sour aspect.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I like my stuff a touch sweeter, yeah, you know
how I roll, And I like it a little funkier.
The last one had more funk that was bringing to
the party. This one was more straight up sour, yeah,
but brighter and sharper.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah. Yeah, it's still really good, like it had the
oak going on, which anytime, there's a whole lot of
oak flavor. Signed me on your love. I love it absolutely.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
I like this one too, and I'd be curious to
try more beers by these guys for sure.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Well, they make a ton of different I pas. It's
funny because I started following them that gets Instagram and
they keep posting pictures a bunch of like hazy IPAs,
and I'm like, well, dang it. The only thing that
we got were these hours and maybe their best beers
are actually IPAs. Yeah, I don't know, but these were
also fantastic. All right, We'll try some IPAs next time
from them. That's gonna do it, though. For this episode,
(52:22):
we'll put links to some of the resources that Lisa
mentioned up on the website at howtomoney dot com. There's
a bunch of other resources there too for you as well. Matt.
Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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