Home Insurance

You should make sure they are fully aware of the fact that you have the stove. I've never heard any horror stories of them giving anyone a hard time or increasing rates because of that. You wouldn't want them giving you a hard time in the case of a claim, by them saying they were never informed of the installation.

My homeowners insurance just asked some pretty basic questions. I sent them a pretty big package of info (permit, inspection, pictures, copies of reciepts for chimney liner, etc). They never asked any followup questions (they were probably afraid to ask)

When the house in Quebec was purchased and the home insurer came to do inspection she found we did not have the most upto date ss chimney..It was an 8 inch metalbestos(don't remember exact model) we had to replace with the equivalent of a Class A 2100 ...She would not authorize the use of a wood stove with the original pipe..

EDIT: This was in Oct 2001

I'm about to install an insert and brought it up to my homeowners agent just the other day. He just wanted to verify that the insert was UL listed.

About a week od so back an insurance underwriter call my office and guestioned my abilities to properly inspect pellet stoves. Little defensive I asked him what qualifications he had questioning me and what code he goes by. Asked him what certifications he had or licencing. I invited him to accompany me whiile doing an inspection so the he could refresh the code to me.

I also told him to call my superiors at the state and confirm my status and also confirm the state hired me to present their anual building inspector's se convention where I presented and
ccovered this subject area. and to please call me if he had any aditional doubts or further questions.

IF seems the Insurance industry has woken up and figured last year pellet stoves had record sales. They are trying to influence installations and code concerning wood burning stoves.

To me I feel thay are a little late for the dance, but knowing their influence they will bully their way in. Insurance controls healthcare to some extent they have their fingers deep in the construction industry and we all know how they control autos. It is best to do things right according to manufactures specs and code

This guy did make one recomdation to me, it was to have every installer sign an affidavid, that the wood burning appliance was installed according to manurfactures specs. and that it complied to all applicipable codes. I have a feeling this is the tip of the iceberg and insurance co will be dictating our industry

I called my Insurance company the other day (Travelers) to tell them of my upcoming install. They said they were going to send out a questionaire that needed to be filled out and that it would not raise my rates.

Same here, insurance agent said there would be no increase in premium. Christ, the building inspector told me "sounds like you know what you're doing" when I explained my "insert" install to him, and he never even inspected it (even though I pulled a permit).

Just be sure you buy the replacement cost rider

I just found out that Ameriprise insurance will not insure if you install the stove, not even if you have an inspection done. Must be done by a "professional".

I am a "professional". Just not a professional stove installer, and I think that goes for about half of the guys around here doing install work. After the third time the fireplace installer runs his sawzall through the SAME wire, you can be sure he's a genius!

Have your wife pay you (to install the insert!), then you're a professional. :smirk: Code is code, if it exceeds that, I don't care if Magilla Gorilla put it in, it's good.

I installed my wood furnace last fall. Told my insurance company (Erie). They sent my agent out to inspect the installation. He really didn't know to much about wood stoves - just filled out the Erie questionaire and took some pictures. No problem and my premium did not go up at that time. I already had (and Erie knew I had) a wood burning fireplace. Maybe I was already rated for having a fire in the house.
My premium did go up on renewal, but I think that had more to do with a general increase in insurance rates as a result of Katrina.

I called our insurance agent months before we got our woodstove. Wanted to be sure that the savings in gas for our furnaces wouldn't be offset by increased insurance! He said it wouldn't be much, maybe $40 a year higher premium. (No hydrants in my town, and a volunteer fire dept., although they are very fast and quite good supposedly.) He said to let him know when it was installed. The insurance company later sent a person who looked at it a lot harder than the local building inspector, and wrote down a lot more things and had more questions. We built our hearth but had the stove professionally installed, so no problems with that. My mother almost burned her house down once via sparks escaping from a fireplace, so we wanted everything done by somebody who knew what they were doing just to be safe.