CA insurance company drops customer after 'drone' took aerial images of yard
CA insurance company drops customer after 'drone' took aerial images of yard
A Bay Area man lost his home insurance after the carrier took aerial photos of the "clutter" in his yard.
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I get it, my sister got bugs in her home before from a hoarder neighbor and I've known somebody who had to move due to a fire caused by a different hoarder so I understand why they'd want/need to do this. But I feel like this falls under the inspection notification laws, at least my state has it where they need to inform you 24 hours before any inspection. So they should've sent out a notification 24 hours before flying the drone over and it would've been fine IMO. I'm not saying this guy was a hoarder either though, the insurance company wouldn't release their photos so we can't say if that's actually the case one way or the other. But I'm fine with them using drones tbh.
That seems pretty reasonable.
But also, insurance companies have way too much power here. They serve a valuable need, but the company made 15 years of 100% pure profit by ducking out at the first inkling there was of risk. There needs to be a lot more regulation around insurers of all types to help protect consumers.
Absolutely agree, I don't think they should be able to pull out like they did here. I could possibly see it if it was an extreme case of hoarding with an open flame and tons of flammable material or something like that, but there's nothing to suggest that's the case so the insurance company is in the wrong still. I was more referring to the use of the drone tech itself since this is the tech community.
Yeah but looking at what he showed it's not like a hoarder situation, it's a significant amount of stuff but it's not like there's literally a pile of tires and garbage back there, he's just got some car accessories and a few sets of tires for his cars by his house and stuff like that. It's a lot of stuff for the average person but nothing noteworthy generally pretty tame for a guy that's into old cars. Maybe he cleaned it up some for the news, but if they aren't showing their pictures it's his word against theirs and I'm more inclined to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.
I played Where's Waldo: Oakley Subdivision Edition seems pretty representative based on that. Also residents of Oakley seem to really like having cars and boats and shit in their side yards. if this guy is uninsurable then half the city is.
I agree. I wasn't implying he deserved to have his plan dropped. Only commenting on the use of the drone tech for inspecting people's properties. I should've clarified I was not defending the insurance company's decision to cancel his plan.
If they think this is a hoarder, they ought to take a look at 2 of the homes near me lol. Both have been fined and forced to clean up by the city multiple times. One house was so bad they had junk like old cars, appliances, and old parts covering the sidewalk, let alone their own yard. I can see an insurance company dropping them, but this isn’t even close to bad.
Oh I agree, I don't think he should've been dropped especially since they're not showing the photos they took meaning it's likely not that bad. I was more so just referring to the use of drone tech for this type of inspection. I think that's fine, as long as they're giving proper notification like what's required with human inspectors.
The video is from the news station doing the story, he's had plenty of time to stage the yard to make himself look better.
yea but if you're assuming the guy might lie then it's just a he-said-she-said between insurance companies that are known to employ awful shitty practices and just some dude and you're taking the side of the corporations
As someone who works in insurance, this guy sounds like an otherwise ideal customer. The insurance company would be turning down easy profit if they really cancelled his policy for no reason.
This isn't like denying a claim for shitty reasons. If this company cancelled someone with no claims in a low risk area, they either had a good reason or fucked up.