I was mindlessly paying my homeowner insurance bills, flood, and earthquake, and to be honest I really didn’t look at the statement until later when I was filing away the earthquake insurance statement.

I noticed they had raised my coverage to $646,000 making my deductible $96,900. Now my house and everything in it is not worth more than a half a million dollars and as retirees we couldn’t even afford the deductible. An awful lot of damage could be done to this little tract house and still not reach the deductible.

I called my insurance agent, they denied any knowledge of this, but since their name and address was on my statement I am pretty sure they knew about it but did not feel obliged to check and see if I was aware of the amount of my deductible. I accept that this was my responsibility but I just wanted to forewarn others that if they aren’t reading these things carefully it could cause them some real problems in the event of a disaster. Take a second look.

Pat Wallace

Oak Harbor