I bet someone was happy to learn about the PB… :mrgreen:
And therein lies the problem with these inspections. If you have to ask that questions that means that you are not doing a complete inspection for a 4 point, just doing enough to keep the insurnace referrals coming.
Roy, I am not picking on you , but this is a common everday occurance. If you forget about the standards for the moment and just look at the Citizens form, which is the baseline for the other forms, it specifically asks you to hazards: blowing fuses or breakers, empty breaker sockets, loose wiriing, imporper grounding, over fusing, double taps, exposed / unsafe wiring, and then the all important ‘other’. How can you not do a complete inspection of the house and answer those questions? What happens when there is a fire and it was caused by faulty exposed wiring in an open junction box in the attic that was never written down because the inspector never went into the attic. I know what the insurance agent will say - he will say the owner could have had someone in the attic and it was not like that during the inspection. If you want to live like that, then more power to you. I would rather piss someone off and save a life rather than make my $75 and move on.
Now you can see why insurance agents never refer me for insurance inspections. You guys need to remember that under your license your are responsible for the health, safety, and welfare of your clients, not making the insurance agents richm (and yourselves) becasue they can write a policy from a fradulent report.
I have had insurance inspectors come out while I am still completing my inspection and whitewash a 4 point so the buyer can get insurance. The insurnace industry did a recent sting down here in Miami Dade where they set up a house and had 10 inspetors come in. The reports varied widely. Unfortunately you never hear about these things because they never get publicized.
We had a recent meeting with a large carrier in Ft Lauderdale. They are in bed with one of the largest insruance inspection firms in the industry. The one thing we learned from that meetnig was that the insurance company does not care, they are all about the money and writing policies, and they will use whoever will write what they want. But just wait until there is a problem. Guess who will get hit by the bus.
One party was…the other…not so much!! 
And if you use the Citizens form:
How do you determine if the system is not in good working order? How do you observe any visible hazards or deficiencies…if you don’t look for them?
It is quite apparent some don’t look very hard…but I am sure they find a way to “make it work”.
What happens when another inspector comes out and finds a bunch of things that would have been caught in a home inspection, but weren’t on a 4-point?
It’s called force-placed insurance. :shock:
Just a side note here. While I do agree with finding the defects with plumbing and wiring in the attic , those carriers that send their own people out for a 4 pt most often do not go in the attic. They stick with the basic information and photos as listed on a citizens form. Could it be liability? Years ago before licensing or the law had just been passed there was a guy who came to my in laws house and did a “4 Pt” it was a hand written chicken scratch POS nothing and got paid 150.00 for 10 Min of walking around. The kicker is he did not even get all the info that was required. I had to finish it and send everything to the insurance co. This is when I decided to get my license and try to make a difference because they were ripped off. I guess what I am saying is there are those who stay with min requirements , those that go beyond and those that should not be doing it period. If you are gathering enough to satisfy the carrier by their own standards then who are we to judge?
Wayne I do agree with your comments. Unfortunately this will be like the ole argument of which came first, the chicken or the egg. As has been stated many times before, until some things are clarified with regards to the 1802 and the form is more standardized for a 4 point, we’ll continue to see these debates ongoing.
Bert
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Standardized 4 point form…where have I heard that before?
You can only standardize it, if people can get an answer on questions about the form.
Fabi should issue a form and have a committee issue answers for the both the wind mit and the four point. They could ask for input from the insurance companies also. Then they could then publish the findings and debate questions and come up with a final answer. This could put this all to rest. Unfortunately, I think it would take years to hash through all of the questions we debate. If they publish a manual, then everyone could refer to it.
A little history on the 4 point forms. It was origianlly a form to only check for updates. The insurnace companies wanted to know if the electric, roof, plumibng, and heating system had been updated were origianl.Only contractors could fill them out. This was in the late 80’s through the early 2000’s.
Bill Mason, with ASHI, came up with an ASHI form that was accepted by citizens (The others followed). That form could only be used by ASHI and FABI members. I worked with him on that form. It was a very difficult form and asked many questions, something along the lines of the Sate Farm form taht was out, but with more detail.
I had contacts with Citizens back then and there were issues with the ASHI form. They allowed FABI ot create their own form that was accepted by Citizens for FABI members only. The next year InterNACHI came out with their current forn that was to be used by InterNACHI members only. That is how home inspectors first got into the 4 point buisness.
Then along came Citizens with their own form, which is the current version many use. Because Citizens was the largest insurer in the state that became the form to use, or you could use any form that met their requirements.
In the past couple of years Citizens has shed many policies and is no longer the largest insurer in the state. Enter the wild west. Now insreance comanies accept anything and every thing they want to. It is no longer about asfety, it is all about wiriting policies and making money. The state has never standardized the form and, from what i can gather, have no interest in doing so, mainly because that is not in their interest.
The insruance industry also has no interest in standardizing the form. They can use a 4 point to issue insurance or they can not request one. Most will request one, but have no idea what they want or what to look for on the form. It makes it easire for them to subbrogate damages that way. And that is happening. We had an inspector recently get a call from an agen with the client in front of them. They wanted the inspector to pay for a new roof because he put down five years on the roof cert, and it was leaking after three.
It is all a money game. I was told by an agent that my report was useless to him becuase I checked all of the outlets and found defective exterior GFCI outelts. His comment to me was - it could have gone bad after you left the protertly.
So the answer right now would be to do whatever you think is the right thing to do. I personally do not write them any more. My feeling is if you do the home inspection your four point should mirror the inspection report. With that, most homes would need specific repairs. I just tell my client to hire one of those $75 guys and they will get insruance. The problem now will come because we are licnesed and there is the argeument of whether or not our standards applyl to the 4 points. I believe that they do. Others believe that they do not. I guess that will be up to E&O insurance and the courts to decide.
$55 is $55 regardless of how long the inspection takes. 
I don’t see it happening. State Farm uses their 4 Pt to weed out policy holders.
We all know what high regard we hold that form.
Due to the added liability I charge more for a State Farm 4 Point than I do for a full home inspection, needless to say I’ve never filled out the form. Standardization. : lol
I don’t know of any more liability if you are performing the 4 point inspection the same way you would a home inspection.
Nevertheless, I charge the same for a stand alone 4-point as a home inspection.
That may explain why I don’t do any! 
Somehow, insurance and real estate agents have convinced their clients that 50-75 dollars is the going rate for a four point, or a wind mit for that matter.
And the realtors have also convinced their cleints that townhome inspections should be $250 to $275. Was just told that by a cleint in Boynton Beach