Hunker Down with Peyton and Hayden

I got some comments on the post I wrote about getting homeowner’s insurance. I was trying to decide whether I should get insurance with or without wind coverage, which is often extremely expensive. Based on last year’s huge premium, along with the large deductibles and the low likelihood of serious damage, I figured it was best to skip wind coverage.

No one can explain how insurance companies work. Some people defend them, claiming we are not smart enough to understand their math. They think it all makes sense somehow. That isn’t true. If it were true, similar coverage from different companies would cost about the same amount, but it doesn’t.

I had GEICO for my cars. They wanted $5,000. Suddenly. I could not believe it. I called around, and I got just about the same coverage from State Farm for about half as much. It’s still ridiculous, but it’s not $5,000.

When I was looking for medical insurance for this year, my old company wanted the moon and stars. Another outfit gave me the same policy, more or less, for a much lower price. I forget the disparity. Maybe a third less.

The insurance seems to work, although once I ended up screaming at a woman in India.

If insurance companies were rational, they would make similar decisions about covering various areas. Some companies have left Florida, however, while many continue to insure homes here.

Last year, I was told my home insurance, hurricanes included because of my rotten trees, was going from about $3,400 to $6,000, and then they ended up increasing it to $8,000. I called–literally–every company I could find on the web. I couldn’t find a single one that would write a policy at any price. Because of hurricanes? No. Because of cattle. I have cattle on my farm to kill property taxes.

I knew hurricanes were causing disturbances in the insurance force, but the cow thing took me by surprise. I had no idea. The weirdest thing about it is that they didn’t care about horses. Hello? Christopher Reeve? People fall off horses. Horses kick people. What do cattle do? Eat, sleep, and poop.

Have rogue herds been escaping from farms and taking over towns? I have not heard about it.

Please don’t tell me you know a company that would have insured me, because you don’t. You may think you do, but you’re wrong. Don’t tell me Farmers Insurance would have insured me. They refused. Don’t tell me State Farm would have done it. They refused. Having “Farm” and “Farmer” in their names didn’t mean anything.

I went to a cattle forum for advice, I said no one would insure me, and some cranky old guy who worked in insurance told me not to tell me his job. He assured me a certain company would cover me. They wouldn’t. He looked pretty stupid.

So now I can’t get insurance because I have cattle, right? Wrong. This year, they don’t care about cattle. I got several quotes. No problem with the cattle. No explanation.

This time, I ended up getting pretty much the same policy I bought last year, for around $3,000. So it went $3,400, $8,000, $3,000. It’s like they used one of those lottery ping pong ball machines. I got the $3,000 policy from a real company people know about, not the obscure insurer that covered me last time. Ramon’s of Hialeah.

I have no idea what’s going on.

I was truthful with the agent I talked to. He knows about the cattle. He knew a tropical storm was coming. Didn’t care. He offered an insanely low price for insurance without wind coverage, and then he told me I could add wind coverage and pay only $3,000.

I still think wind coverage is stupid for people in my county, but my wife was nervous about it, and the price was right, so I took it.

That’s my insurance story. Try and explain it if you want.

Here is what I would do if I ran an insurance company: I would charge the snot out of people near the coast, and I would give huge breaks to people inland. I would not spread the risk around, alienating a huge number of low-risk people who were unlikely to file claims. I would make those people my target demographic. I would treat the coast like the coast, and I would treat the interior like Missouri.

Insurers make money in Missouri, selling only to people who are safe from hurricanes, charging modest prices. If that is true, they should be able to make money in the interior of Florida. Getting rid of high-risk clients who refuse to pay high prices shouldn’t matter, and getting huge premiums from high-risk clients who are willing to pay should work out just fine.

As far as the storm goes, they have named it Debby, which is odd, because everyone else spells that name “Debbie.” It will not be a problem here. There are reasons.

1. Prayer.

2. It doesn’t have the potential to strengthen much.

3. It’s going to make landfall in the panhandle, far away.

4. The projected track keeps moving farther west, away from me.

5. I spent $7,500 cutting all the trees that threatened my buildings.

The way storm tracking works is interesting.

I always look at the “static cone” pictures from the National Hurricane Center. The pointy part of the cone is the storm’s location. The fat end is where it will probably be hours and days later. The cones are not all that unreliable these days. If they say a storm will land in Miami, it’s not going to land in New Orleans. Storms usually go within maybe a couple of hundred miles of the places cones say they will, as long as we’re talking about cones drawn within a couple of days of landfall.

That brings up the second point.

A cone itself will show whether a storm is drifting in a certain compass direction, but you can also look at a succession of cones. The NHC’s site doesn’t offer the option of looking at cones over several days, but you can always save cone images on your PC and look at them later.

Cones are updated every three hours. If you look at a succession of cones over a couple of days, you will see the cones themselves generally drift. Weather guys may start out saying a certain storm is expected to hit Fort Myers, and then 36 hours later, they may say it’s headed for Destin. Destin may be completely outside of the cone the weather guys were using when they said the storm would hit Fort Myers.

If you watch the way the cones themselves drift, you get a better picture of what’s really going to happen. A cone predicts where a storm will go, based on knowledge obtained over a short period of time. A succession of cones where future cones will go, based on observations over a longer period. I think smart people look at successions of cones.

Weather guys often get overexcited by early cones that seem to indicate landfalls in highly-populated areas. “IT’S BARRELING DOWN ON PALM BEACH!!!” Everybody in Palm Beach tunes in. The weather guys get better ratings, so their employers can charge more for ads in the future. Then the storm goes to Titusville.

They LOVE “barreling down.” They say it constantly. Well, when they’re not saying “hurtling toward.” They say Beryl BARRELED DOWN on Texas.

It’s a weird expression. I have never seen a barrel hit anything.

I sincerely believe the weather guys don’t care. I think they and their bosses are only interested in money. They don’t care if they freak people out for nothing. Or maybe they’re just not smart enough to understand cone drift. A lot of meteorologists are physics majors, though. That’s odd, because I didn’t notice a lot of gays when I was studying physics.

The latest cone is centered around a tiny town called St. Marks, directly south of Tallahassee. But the cones keep drifting westward, so I think Apalachicola is a more likely landfall.

In any case, it looks like it’s going to land where there are almost no people. Sorry, Apalachicolans. You know it’s true. Remember how excited you were when you thought you were going to get your own Arby’s? Sorry that didn’t pan out.

Mmm. Beef ‘N Cheddar. I was telling my wife about them just the other day.

I don’t care if it’s not real meat.

Don’t fret, panhandlers. It looks like you’re getting a Category 1, so as long as you tie your boats up right, it shouldn’t be too bad. Moderate storm surge and some wind.

I hope people up there have cut problem trees.

Whoever gets hit wants to be west of the eye, because on that side, there will be no storm surge. The wind will be blowing the water away from shore. If the eye is to the east of Apalachicola, things should go well.

A lot of the panhandle is nearly-empty swamp. It’s amazing how few people live on a huge stretch of land right on the water. The government owns a ton of it. Maybe they’re doing Area 51 stuff to kidnapped Florida Men. It would explain a lot.

“Okay, Jayden and Brayden. Try not to chew on the straps, and in no time at all, you’ll be back in your bass boat. No, you can’t tell Ashlee and McKayla where you are.”

It’s actually kind of funny that people in Manhattan think Florida Men are the crazy ones. Someone should erect a giant mirror along the Hudson.

Within two days, it would be covered by a gay BLM mural.

Well, that’s it. I got insurance. Spent too much so the wife would be happy. Feel like I wasted a lot of money.