cars, condos and convalesence
Its time for us to re-look at our car insurance. It seems like every year, it needs to be reassessed. Last year, I called and ended up getting about $75 in additional discounts because of the safety features on our car and our OnStar membership. I think this time, I’m just going to go ahead and get auto insurance quotes from a few different companies. We’ve been with the same company for over four years now. I’m always getting those mailers that say “we could save you an average of $ on your insurance!” I think it’s time to check it out.
The reason I’ve been thinking about this is that my mother-in-law just moved to Miami. We were looking into transfering to Florida, and we were looking at real estate, and I found a super awesome house in Tampa. Totally affordable. But then I was talking to my step-mom, who is an insurance agent, and she was telling me how expensive home-owners insurance is in FL. How, in some cases, it can cost as much as a monthly mortgage payment! Yikes! That could really make a home unaffordable. So home-owners insurance was something my mother-in-law needed to get when she got to Miami (although, I’m not sure how she didn’t have it in the first place, because she still has a mortgage on that condo!!!!). She said she found it right away. I didn’t even ask her about it. Who knows what kind of crazy company she got. And what if she needs special things like a wind policy? I hope she’s really covered because you never know whats going to happen in Florida.
This brings me to my general concerns for her future. This post is really all over the place. But it’s really all about insurance, too. I’m not sure what her real financial situation is. She often makes statements like, “Oh, it will be fine. You can take care of me in my retirement.” That scares me. So while I need to make sure we’re covered with life insurance, we also need to make sure she’s covered, but we have to do it without getting too involved or asking too many questions. It’s a delicate balance because she’s more likely to just get you to take over all her responsibilities than give you a straight answer.
Ugh.
You are right to be concerned, more important than life insurance is Long Term Care insurance! If she gets Alzheimer’s, she can burn through about $7k a month for years and years.. If she is ready to hand over control then maybe she isn’t able to manage it all anymore but can’t admit it.. time for a talk !!
condo insurance is way easy to get because the everything from the outside to the drywall is covered by the hoa policy. and it’s cheap — only a bit more expensive than renters’ insurance. the only difference is condo insurance pays to rebuild walls and cabinets, etc, should there be a fire or something (apt only pays to replace belongings, because the other is the responsibility of the community). tmi. sorry. :-P
[…] Mark Brown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIts time for us to re-look at our car insurance. It seems like every year, it needs to be reassessed. Last year, I called and ended up getting about $75 in additional discounts because of the safety features on our car and our OnStar … […]