Originally Posted By: dvalley This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Nick,
Any proposals yet?
We are all desperate to see what this new proposal consists of. There are members that are seeking a better and cheaper insurance policy for their business. E&O Insurance has really gotten out of hand lately for beginner inspectors who are looking to insure their business for the first time.
Family health insurance would be another proposal that we would be interested in looking into.
Originally Posted By: psabados This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Nick
Keeping the thread alive here. Also Thanksgiving Day is right around the corner. Help us find something that we ALL can be thankful for, affordable group health insurance.
Originally Posted By: Scotty Lee This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
psadados wrote:
Nick
Keeping the thread alive here. Also Thanksgiving Day is right around the corner. Help us find something that we ALL can be thankful for, affordable group health insurance.
Paul
True "Group" health insurance is not available to members of an association. This type of coverage must come from an employer. You will find that many insurance brokers will offer "plans" for members or individuals, these are nothing but individual plans.
If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield in your state you might try contacting them as they have some of the most cost effective plans on the market that I have seen.
Originally Posted By: psabados This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Scotty
Yes, the coverage plan must be put into effect by an employer. Yes I am my employer. As owner of my company, when looking to find a group, I am inserted into a group consisting of people in my same position. Small time, 1-2 insured. Now that gets us absolutely nothing in the way of cost reductions. Besides employer groups of 25 are put in other groups anyway.
Organizations do have a greater influence on pricing than one single individual. As for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans. How about Blue Care for husband and wife for 1007.00 per month with an estimated 12% increase in 2004, after 18% in 2003. In my mind and wallet, not cost effective at all.
Now factor in the other insurances (E&O, GL, Bonding, Vehicle Ins. excluding life or accident policies) total expendatures for the year approachs 15K. That's a lot of Freakin Inspections. Now if you're trying to tell me that an organization of several thousand cant get a better deal than an individual then thats a bunch of B.C. and B.S. 
Originally Posted By: dvalley This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Quote:
Dear David, Thank you for contacting me. Once we have everything set we will be in touch with you.
Sincerely yours,
Fritz Seifert
I'm still sitting here pondering and twiddling my thumbs waiting for a reply. I wish someone would just dominate the market with affordable rates for all of us (as a group) and our families. Maybe it'll be a cold day in hell when this happens, ehh?
Originally Posted By: rray This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
dvalley wrote:
I wish someone would just dominate the market with affordable rates for all of us (as a group) and our families. Maybe it'll be a cold day in hell when this happens, ehh?
As an former insurance salesman for Fidelity Union Life Insurance (now that was a long time ago), here's my current take on insurance.
First of all, I really don't think you want a monopoly. That's part of the problem as it exists right now. Most insurance policies are sold to re-insurers, just like mortgages. There are a lot of insurance companies but very few re-insurers, which is where that nasty old monopoly thing comes in. I believe there are some federal and state regulations which require insurance companies to have a cash reserve to handle emergencies and disasters. Keeping too much money as cash in a bank account is not good business practice, so most insurance companies sell policies, keep a few since every company needs some cash anyway, and sell the rest of them to re-insurers.
Look at our E&O as a good example. I think when it comes right down to it, every E&O insurance policy out there probably is backed up by Lloyd's of London. I know a couple of real estate agents with different brokerages who have E&O through their companies, just like I do, and the policy is through Lloyd's. Your local company simply sells the policy and then resells it to Lloyd's.
History basically has proven that monopolies don't serve the public good. So, hopefully, it will be a cold day in ell when that happens.
What we need is for Bill Gates and a few other ostentatiously rich people to take about half of their empire (Bill Gates alone could take $30 billiion and really not put a dent in his standard of living or that of his children, his grandchildren, his great grandchildren, his great great grandchildren, his great great great grandchildren, his great great great great granchilcren, his great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, his great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren, or his great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren) and set up some additional re-insurance companies.
I continue searching for health insurance because I want to provide it to my employees, but I haven't found anything affordable yet.
I originally had tried to get my significant other to quit Borders Books and Music and come work my home inspection company with me. I quit doing that when I first looked at the cost of insurance. At this point I consider myself very fortunate. I have domestic partnership insurance through his company. My prescription medicine co-pay is $20, doctor co-pay is $15, and I just had surgery which required no co-pay. Although we pay through deductions from his check about $40 per month for the benefits, since Jim and I can't get married to each other and get marital benefits under IRS regulations, I do have to pay taxes on those benefits. If I ever find good health insurance at a areasonable price, Jim probably will quit Borders and come work with me. Until then, I look foward to this thread.
It would seem that a franchise could find health insurance for its franchisees, but mine has not been able to do that.
Joe, what's with health insurance over at HouseMaster?
Originally Posted By: Scotty Lee This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
psadados wrote:
Scotty
Organizations do have a greater influence on pricing than one single individual. As for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans. How about Blue Care for husband and wife for 1007.00 per month with an estimated 12% increase in 2004, after 18% in 2003. In my mind and wallet, not cost effective at all.
Now factor in the other insurances (E&O, GL, Bonding, Vehicle Ins. excluding life or accident policies) total expendatures for the year approachs 15K. That's a lot of Freakin Inspections. Now if you're trying to tell me that an organization of several thousand cant get a better deal than an individual then thats a bunch of B.C. and B.S. 
Paul
I am not trying to argue this point, but many don't understand how the insurance programs work. I have Blue Care for myself and two children(my wife is covered by her company) with a $2000 deductible, and I pay $470 a month. Rates are based on your age, if you smoke, your past health and the area you live in.
As for E&O, well its not going to get any cheaper. The days of $900 rates are gone. Our industry is a small risk pool in the insurance industry. FREA estimates that less than 25% of the estimated 28,000 home inspectors in the country have E&O and FREA insures more home inspectors than any other company.
Insurance is part of the cost of doing business. Pass the cost off to your clients in the way of a rate increase. The days of the $200 home inspection are gone.
Originally Posted By: rray This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Scotty wrote:
The days of the $200 home inspection are gone.
Ooooooooooooooops.
My lowest home inspection price is $199 for 749 SF or less (we did a 540 SF home a couple of days ago; we have a lot of beach cottages with 500 to 749 SF). My lowest condo price is $179 (749 SF or less; the smallest condo we did was 461 SF at $205K for an airline pilot who just wanted somewhere other than a hotel to rest his head overnight).
Originally Posted By: Scotty Lee This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
rkirk wrote:
Scotty wrote:
The days of the $200 home inspection are gone.
Ooooooooooooooops.
My lowest home inspection price is $199 for 749 SF or less (we did a 540 SF home a couple of days ago; we have a lot of beach cottages with 500 to 749 SF). My lowest condo price is $179 (749 SF or less; the smallest condo we did was 461 SF at $205K for an airline pilot who just wanted somewhere other than a hotel to rest his head overnight).
As I said our industry as a whole does not charge enough. Look at what your cost are. When you figure in retirement, insurance, office overhead, taxes, permits, fees, education, transportation cost and your salary you will then know what your base cost for setting foot onto a job is. My cost for this year is around $157 per job. If you are part of a franchise it is even more.
For a 461 sf condo (that's a closet) if you inspected the common areas, roof, HVAC, appliances, electrical. plumbing, and then wrote a report you should still have 1 to 2 hours invested into the inspection. Don't forget to include reporting time and drive time. It all adds up.
Originally Posted By: Blaine Wiley This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Paul is absolutely correct. My current health insurance policy is with Golden Rule, and I am able to get a much more reasonable rate due to belonging to a group of small business owners. My brother in law, who is an agent was able to point me in the right direction to find this. As we add more and more members, the organization should gain clout with many types of vendors for lower costs, including insurance.
Originally Posted By: psabados This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Scotty
Im really happy for you that you live in Inspectors Utopia. I think if you look at the boards and some of the websites out there, you will find, in fact, that the 200.00 inspection is not over.
Based on you cost factors, in order to attain a 40% profit of the sale price of the inspection, your average sale price needs to be 262.00. I can guarantee you that a lot of the areas in this country have a hard time keeping 175.00 as a starting point. There's always going to be someone, somewhere who thinks that they should be the Wal-Mart of the inspection business. You know what their philosophy is, control, control and more control of the market place.
I cant remember insurance rates that you have stated since the early 90's. They cant be found unless you're RIDERED on someone elses policy.
As for E&O's. Cost can be controlled by allowing individual policy holders that option of letting them decide the amount of deductable that they feel comfortable with. If I recall the 900.00 policy carried a deductable of 2,000.00 or more. Homeowners and car owners can set their deductable amount. FREA doesn't allow it. Why? Because in the long run its money out of their pockets.
This organization has the ability and the power to start forcing some changes. You know what they say, The wheel that squeaks gets grease.
All it takes is one company to bend at the knees and give in. Let's start squeaking and put some pressure on these companies!
My turn to vent 
Originally Posted By: Nick Gromicko This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
I finally got us a group health insurance plan proposal. Oxford Benefit Management emailed it to me on Friday in a pdf attachment, so I can’t post it unless I retype the whole thing. I’ll have Lia do it tomorrow if she gets done with the members that joined this weekend. I can email forward it to any member who can’t wait to read it.
Originally Posted By: dvalley This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Gerry,
A magnifying glass would help in reading those documents. 
I'm interested in a better health insurance plan, but I need to be able to read about the proposal first.
Originally Posted By: gbeaumont This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.
Hi Dave,
be honest if you didn't need glasses anyway you wouldn't be so interested in the medical coverage  
sorry it was the best I could do with what I was sent, maybe Chris can find a better way to post it, as a picture the first page is only just under our 50KB limit.
