All Forum Posts by: Jordan Dooley

First you need to look for your vacancy clause. IE your policy may state that the property cannot be vacant for more than 30 days or coverage won't apply. Or on the flip side, a builder's policy might only apply if the building is vacant and under construction. Assuming that coverage will apply, check to see if there are any special provisions or riders that deal with theft and read through those exclusions (there should be). Sometimes there will be a separate deductible for those items or different terms/coverage. It should also define what is covered under the theft coverage.

If this is a covered loss with no separate terms, you'll then need to check to if your policy is Actual Cash Value or Replacement Cost. ACV takes the replacement cost and subtracts depreciation. IE If your AC has a usable life of say 10 years, and they determine it was 5 years old, you'll only get 5/10ths (50%) of the value of their determined cost of replacement. If you chose not to replace it and just keep the cash after you get paid, your insurance won't cover any future claims related to that. With replacement cost coverage, they'll give you a check for the ACV, then once you replace it, give you a check for the depreciated value as well. As such, policies that pay ACV are cheaper because the insurance company expects to pay much less for their risk as they only have to pay the depreciated value of the loss.

Yup I was just about to post about ACV vs RC - that nice low ACV premium gets isn't so cheap when you actually have to use the policy and file a claim. Same thing w/ these 1% of building value deductibles w/o riders that lower the deductible for specific losses (like wind/hail).

Am I the only one who has never heard of a central AC unit getting stolen out of someones yard? 

@Jordan Dooley wow same thing happened to mine after closing as well! Closed on a SFH in Kansas City and a week later bam. PM emails me saying it got stolen, they noticed it gone during a walk through with prospective renters 😂.

I did not file a claim since the price will be under 1k for replacement . Interesting how this is a thing with people stealing these.

I agree with @John Teachout also depending on the size of the house you can do a smaller AC unit.  I usually spend 1.5k to 1.9k for the compressor (which is what I assume was actually stolen).  I assume the A coil was probably not stolen as it is attached to the furnace.  

Did the theft occur before or after closing?

If the unit was old, I'd probably just pay for the replacement myself. If it was newer, file a claim, that's the point of insurance. If it was a later system and just needs an outside unit, that may be less expensive but if it's an r22 older unit, they'll probably want to change out the whole system and that typically runs 4 to 5 thousand.

Haven't heard about too many ac units being stolen in recent years since they made it harder to market them at the scrap yards.