Increasing Home Insurance with system installation cost?

[tomuo]

It seems risky not to have the solar/battery system included in the home insurance policy, but what are people actually doing?
Stated value equal to installation cost, cost after ITC, some other smaller number?

"Other equipment" is usually capped at e.g. $5K, so that would never cover the replacement cost if your roof got blown off, burned down, etc.

<edit> The Florida Solar Roof thread seems to have veered into this discussion too.

 

[jrweiss98020]

I told my insurance company. They said Fine, but did not directly raise the premiums. Premiums went up next year "just because"...

 

[slcasner]

I have my home insurance with Wawanesa in California. They seem to have specific underwriting for the Tesla Solar Roof based on the percentage of the roof area that is active tiles. My premium did increase.

 

[jjrandorin]

It seems risky not to have the solar/battery system included in the home insurance policy, but what are people actually doing?
Stated value equal to installation cost, cost after ITC, some other smaller number?

"Other equipment" is usually capped at e.g. $5K, so that would never cover the replacement cost if your roof got blown off, burned down, etc.

<edit> The Florida Solar Roof thread seems to have veered into this discussion too.

I have PV panels not solar roof, but told my insurance. When i was getting quotes, I told the agent I had solar, and got a quote. Then, after I swapped everything to the company, a couple months later, they sent me a supplemental bill "because our review determined there were solar panels on the roof".

I was pretty darn upset, not because insuring PV panels raised my rates, but because I told them that when I got the quote, and felt the agent specifically must not have put it on there to look more competitive to write the policy, then I got burned later.

It was MetLife, who actually sold their business in CA to farmers, and I will be dropping them for someone else. Not sure who yet, but as all of you home owners know, its a pain in the butt swapping insurance if you have an impound account, if you dont want impound shortages, waiting for refunds, etc.

Yeah I am a bit sore about the situation, lol.

Aaannnyyywayy...... Back on topic, It would be a good idea to tell the insurance, imo.

 

[scotsmanswan]

I added value equal to what I paid to installer. That would be the effective replacement cost of system.

 

[sunwarriors]

I told my insurance too, but they didn't change my rates. It's concerning since installing solar felt expensive to me, but maybe with home prices and construction costs so high, they just assume your solar install was peanuts compared to that.

Home insurance is always a concern with stories you hear of insurers dropping people's coverage due to wildfire risks, etc.

This reminds me I should look into earthquake insurance.

 

[RKCRLR]

I'm on the California FAIR plan because of wildfire risk which is expensive. So the increased premium for insuring the solar and Powerwalls is also costs more. That expense needs to be taken into account when you do your ROI calculation but the CPUC doesn't seem to recognize that expense when they estimate ROI for NEM 3.

 

[BGbreeder]

Same here. Told them, and the premium went up the next year due to "California fire losses, etc." Not unreasonable in my book, but nothing like the increase for this year after the 2020 fires.

On my side as a risk mitigation effort, I did have a whole house surge suppressor put in.

But as it is something of nonzero value that I would like coverage on, I told them. I also didn't want any games later about "well you didn't tell us about solar, so we will contest the entirety of the claim."

All the best,

BG