Ken entones:
> I agree with you until some nimnuts comes along with a hot poker. Lately 
> it has been one cascading dump after another and if the boogey man/woman 
> comes around I'll do damned near anything to get him/her to go away.

Here's how I dispelled the curse of the insurance boogey man. The magic 
spell is to simple say out loud "self insurance," every day. Every day? 
Yes. One of the ways insurance works well for the insurance companies is 
that they get you to pay your premiums regularly but ignore them the 
rest of the time. And they certainly don't want you to know about 
insurance and how it actually works.

Self-insurance.
Many homeowner policies are sold with a very low deductible, such as 
$250. If the deductible is raised up to say, $1000 or $5,000 then the 
premium will be less. Of course, you have to have the discipline to keep 
that $1k or $5k on hand so if you have a loss you can use it.

Back in the 1970s I bought my first house. I was poor, with week-to-week 
finances, and could not afford homeowners insurance, but my house loan 
required it. I just happened to read an article about self-insurance and 
deductibles. My deductible was $250, but if I raised it to $1000 my 
monthly premium payments would be $50 less. I didn't have $1000 to put 
in the bank for self-insurance, but I figured since I was a carpenter I 
could easily repair any loss up to the value of $1000 myself, a risk I 
could afford to take on my own without the help of an insurance company. 
Well, each month I paid my premium and put $50 savings in a special 
"self-insurance" account. After 20 months I had a nice little $1000 
self-insurance fund, which was actually more than $1000 because it was 
earning interest. On the 21st month I had my agent raise my deductible 
to $2000 and I saved even more on my monthly premiums. My insurance 
agent was surprised I knew so much about insurance, and so was I ! Then 
I did it again and again. After 10 years I was able to bump up to a 
$10,000 deductible and my premium was lower than ever. When I bought a 
new house my new insurance agent thought I was crazy for insisting on a 
$10,000 deductible. Right, crazy like a fox.

Over the years I've never had a loss so my self-insurance fund has grown 
and grown. It's now big enough that I could actually build a modest 
house with it if I had a complete loss, though my current house is not 
modest in size. The interest from my self-insurance fund even pays for 
my current insurance premiums, plus a little. By careful management over 
the long-term I have bested the insurance industry at its own game. When 
I go in to see my current insurance agent he jokes about us starting up 
an insurance company--no thanks, I've worked for an insurance company, 
and I'm happy to just take care of myself.

John

P.S. If you think saying magic spells is kind of silly, you are right. 
But you should know that I worked for an insurance company for two years 
  as their historic building specialist. When visiting and talking with 
the top executives on the top floor of the home office I noticed that 
they all ALWAYS actually "knocked on wood" whenever the words "claim," 
"loss," or "disaster" were spoken.

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