Should I Keep Paying My Homeowners Insurance?

eliza is with us in orlando florida hi

liza

welcome to the dave ramsey arthur the

ramsay show what's up

hi thank you for taking my call and i

appreciate what all you guys do i've

been starting to listen now since we've

had to stay home

so it's been a little education here but

i still have a couple of questions

and um my house has paid off

and i have a friend who told me why are

you paying the insurance

i mean when have you had something

catastrophic happened

since you bought the home well once when

um

hurricane irma came and i was going to

put the roof on myself but irma helped

me along so the insurance paid for it

so she says you got a full roof on now

what else can happen the fire station's

about two

two blocks from you um or either lower

the replacement value

and i'm just a little bit scared about

not having insurance on the house

because this is my only asset you know

that i have that

big-time money so i think your friend's

kind of dumb

right and he has money to back up if he

had any problem with the house i

i'm not that long i've got the money to

write a check and rebuild my house but i

have homeowners insurance

okay so i should just continue that

because i don't even know if i can

not have insurance on the house um

should i lower the replacement value or

should i leave it the way it is

you know if you're going to pay for

insurance pay for insurance that

replaces the house if it burns

okay well the fire station's two blocks

i know

but you still have something will still

burn i mean it can still

i mean i don't you the chance you're

having a total loss is

not there probably depending on what

happens

but um i mean i've been to orlando i was

there last week

there you guys have thunderstorms like

we have in tennessee

yes so who's to say you don't get struck

by lightning i don't know that's true

yeah because we're the capital for light

or lightning strikes yeah

yeah i but i wouldn't think i would have

been able to do it because i have an

equity line

on the house no they're not going to let

you i thought you said you had it paid

off

well the house has paid equity line it's

a off company it's with my bank with my

checking

i know but it's they've got your house

is not paid off they have a lien on your

house

yeah oh so and i've been just letting

that linger there because i just thought

it's like

like an open credit card type of thing

my husband's passed away so

now i'm dealing things on my own he's

probably rolling on his brave listening

to my conversation now

oh yeah no listen you're doing good

because you're asking questions and

you're learning that's always

good let's leave the insurance in place

and let's call the bank and cancel the

equity line

okay i don't because i don't have

anything hardly on it's probably about

500

or something yeah but the value of it is

like 30. so

yeah that's the the the pre it's an

accident looking for a place to happen

is what it is yeah

let's get rid of it absolutely yeah i

there are times that you can self-insure

through some things that you want to um

but not a house though right not a house

i i just

you know but i mean you know like i had

a a three thousand dollar jeep

yeah that was at the lake house right it

was just a lake house jeep yep

and um i did not carry collision on it

yeah

because they wanted like 500

for collision on a 3000 rg but i'm like

i'll just take the you know i'll take

the risk it's a 3 000 jeep i can

if i if the thing just explodes tomorrow

into a thousand pieces because

you know whatever i hit a wall with it i

don't know then then

i'll just get another one it's not

because it's not a big deal but

stu you know my nicer cars i still carry

coverage on

now because i've looked at it i'm going

okay i've got this vehicle that's worth

this

yeah uh i can afford to buy one of those

a month

right right even though it's expensive

but i mean i'm in a financial condition

to do that

right but i look at the value that i'm

covering versus what it costs me to

cover it

and i'll let them take the risk for that

ah it's just a value proposition for me

and so but you know technically

they're making money on me and and

technically it would cost you more money

if you didn't have it insured

i mean you have to go drop you know the

money when technically if you pay the

insurance you come out cheaper if

something was to happen well certainly

if something happens but that's when

they don't come out

right and on average you know they're

going to come out absolutely

that's the deal yeah but uh but i still

carry coverage on the cars

the nicer cars yeah and on other things

uh

and of course i carry liability on

everything lots and lots of liability

it's the best

buy in the insurance world and dave is

saying he covers he

he carries full coverage on the nicer

cars

yeah make sure america hears that yeah

but i don't you know but but you know if

i've got a

a farm truck or something i don't i

don't put a bunch of insurance on it you

know it's not what we're doing it's

it's a that's an easy enough thing to

replace and you have full coverage on

your lake house even though it's not

it's not as big as your

house but it's you have full coverage on

your lake house absolutely yeah

people understand that and they're all

paid for and i could

write a check and build one of those in

30 seconds if something happened to one

of them but i'm gonna

go ahead and let the uh let the

homeowner sit in place it's just pretty

simple