Your Real Estate Expert for Berkeley and Beyond
“Marilyn is exceptional. Her knowledge base, enthusiasm for her job, professional ethics, organization, sensitivity to our aesthetic requirements, loyalty and gentle perseverance set her apart.”
-- Bill and Carol Seidel
Marilyn Garcia, PhD
Broker Associate, Realtor®
DRE# 02014153
District Homes
1758 Solano Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94707
Direct:
(510) 390-5406
REAL ESTATE ANSWERS: Where can one get more information on the current homeowners insurance crisis in California?
Where can one get more information on the current homeowners insurance crisis in California? The current insurance situation comes up a lot in my profession, since virtually every real estate transaction results in a new homeowners insurance policy. All buyers who are getting a bank loan must get homeowners insurance (it’s required by lenders), and of course all but the most extreme risk-loving cash buyers will want coverage as well. We fairly regularly get presentations and other insurance information at office meetings. When I heard that Susan Wengraf, Vice Mayor of Berkeley and Councilmember for District 6, was hosting a [...]
REAL ESTATE ANSWERS: What’s going on in the home insurance market, and how does it affect current homeowners?
What’s going on in the home insurance market, and how does it affect current homeowners? In late May, State Farm, which is the largest issuer of homeowners’ policies in California, announced that it would not sell any new home insurance policies in California. In addition, Farmer's Insurance just announced that they will limit the number of new policies they sell here. Allstate also stopped issuing new policies in California last fall, so this is a significant trend. Why are these big insurers pulling away from California at this time? Major wildfires in recent years have resulted in surges in claims, [...]
ARE YOU UNDER-INSURED?
ARE YOU UNDER-INSURED? The huge wildfires this year are a reminder that we should all periodically evaluate our insurance coverage, and make sure that we could rebuild if we ever needed to. Most insurance policies auto-renew each year, and the coverage may not keep pace with rising building costs. To get a very rough sense of the adequacy of your existing coverage, take your total coverage amount and divide it by the square footage of your home to calculate how much you would be able to spend per square foot if you had to rebuild. Experts say that $250-$300 per [...]
REAL ESTATE ANSWERS: How have the massive fires in recent years affected homeowner’s insurance locally?
How have the massive fires in recent years affected homeowner’s insurance locally? I spoke with Ruth Stroup with Farmers Insurance, who is always a great source of information about the insurance world, and asked her what changes she’s seen as a result of the tragic fires we’ve had in California over the last few years. Ruth said that the huge claims in back-to-back years from the fires have affected insurance companies’ ability to get reinsurance. (Reinsurance pays a share of the claims in the case of massive losses like with the fires, and is a critical component of the insurance [...]