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Is this a normal requirement to face while obtaining quotes for a home owners insurance policy? If I'm understanding this insurance agent correctly all three quotes they provided for insurance of a home we're looking to purchase require the purchase of auto insurance through them. Does this make sense, is this a common practice? Is this an agent just trying to secure more sales for themselves?

Could it be that the presence of an automobile changes the risk profile at the home? What could be the connection exactly? (Also what if the homeowner doesn't even own a car? How would this requirement make sense in such a scenario?)

Vicky
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jxramos
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3 Answers3

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It is common for insurers to offer a discount if they are handling both the home and auto policies. So that might be required in order to get a specific price. It will almost certainly be required if you want them to issue an umbrella policy on top of those.

But I can't see any reason an insurance company would completely refuse to insure someone's house unless they got to carry the car policy as well, or vice versa. Among other things, not everyone has both.

I'd suggest asking another agent for quotes...

keshlam
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From my personal experience, at least here in California, yes. For whatever reason, some insurers are only issuing new homeowners policies in CA if you bundle it with auto insurance. Others aren't issuing new policies at all.

Why? Who knows. Assuming a car is parked at the insured address, the weather-related incidents that damaged homes in the last few years (which are largely cited as the reason insurance companies are reducing homeowners issuances in CA) would probably have damaged the car as well (unless you evacuated). I'm not seeing a reduction in risk there, but I'm not an insurance underwriter.

Stan H
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It sounds like the agent is saying "to get this price, you need to also have auto through this carrier" which is very common -- you get a multi-policy discount when you have more than one policy at the same insurer. So, the agent (and, perhaps, the companies) are giving you what looks like their best possible price, because they expect to also get the auto business from you. (Similarly, you'll probably also get an auto discount for having homeowners with the same company.)

So, you might want to get quotes for the whole package if you want to have the lowest cost option.

Separately, homeowners insurance frequently comes with some form of bundled liability insurance, and that in turn may require that you have auto liability insurance such that they won't have to take on liability if you cause a traffic accident. I don't know how common this secondary reason is, but I've certainly seen it in specific liability policies in the past. (In fact, those policies typically require that you have the maximum offered level of auto liability insurance, before the separate liability coverage kicks in.)

Jon Watte
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