1 /5 Kevin Donohue: I opened a policy with this company about a month ago when I purchased my first house. I have an older home and I was getting renovations done and it was extremely difficult to find any insurance company that would cover the house. Thankfully they were there when I needed them with an extremely competitive quote. In fact, it was the most competitive quote Id seen by Miles, so of course I was super excited. Cut to us mid-renovations and our furnace decided that it was time to go. Now I reached out to the claims department and said that the furnace unfortunately went and Im not sure what exactlys going on with it. I had an equipment breakdown package with my policy and they stated that as long as it wasnt normal wear and tear that it should be covered. Now. Unfortunately the furnace was a pretty old unit, but again I didnt know if that was the root cause of the issues that we were having. Of course, this being the coldest week in upstate New York, I had to put a furnace in. Regardless. I reached out to a local loan agency and was able to get the funds to get a replacement furnace in there. While I waited for the inspector to show up. After about 2 weeks he finally showed up to take a look at the old furnace, then I had to wait another week for his information to get to the insurance agency. After calling them a few times to get some sort of a response on what was going on, they informed me that they would not be covering the furnace as it was due to "wear and tear. ". Now this was slightly frustrating because we just had the house inspected not mere months before and we were told that the furnace was in working order, but again things happen so we just kind of took it on the chin and said it is what it is. Come to find out. I get an email today that we are being dropped by this company because we filed a claim within the first 60 days of opening the policy. We were not told that filing a claim within the first 60 days would automatically drop us. We were not told that this is some industry standard. In fact, the woman that we spoke to in the claims department encouraged us to have this looked at because this is something that should not have happened. The fact that this is an acceptable practice of business to completely rip out somebodys security of the biggest asset that they own purely because of some weird back-handed industry standard that within a 60-day span of opening a policy, you are "not allowed" to open a claim hes absolutely ridiculous. But who here is actually surprised that theres an insurance company that doesnt necessarily take into account that things just happen and life is the way it is. Not all of us are trying to win one over on the insurance company and make a buck whenever we can. Sometimes we just bought our first house and were scared and we dont know what to do and are only looking for people to help us. Instead, we get slapped in the face. Overall, if youre looking for a cheap insurance company for your home, Sterlings not a bad option. Just make sure you never file a claim and you should be good. Because whats insurance for anyways?
