Trade Secrets Inspections Podcast
Join host Rick Kooyman of Trade Secrets Inspections and stay in the know. In each episode, Rick shares cutting edge insight on the best ways to protect you most valuable asset... your home.
Trade Secrets Inspections Podcast
Florida Insurance Survival Guide: Hurricanes, Codes, and Costs
Rick Kooyman, owner of Trade Secret Inspections, discussed the complexities of homeowners insurance in Florida, particularly post-Hurricane Andrew. He explained the evolution of the Florida building code, the rise of Citizens Insurance, and the impact of Hurricane Irma on insurance rates and policies. Rick detailed the four-point inspection process, emphasizing the importance of meeting new standards for roofs, electrical panels, and other systems. He highlighted the wind mitigation program, which offers discounts for storm-resistant homes, and the challenges of maintaining older homes to meet these standards. The discussion also touched on the role of public adjusters and the increasing cost of insurance.
Okay,
Unknown:and this is Rick Kooyman. He is the owner of trade secret inspections. Talk about a jack of all trades, anything when it's time to see your house. I mean, seriously, this is my go to guy. So I wanted to talk a little bit about today navigating the homeowners insurance maze, where your home inspector knows that you probably don't. This is a different you probably think, and you're going to learn about homeowners insurance. We're going to do that with a twist. So we'll let Rick do his thing, and once again, this is going to be recorded. We will go ahead and get this going into the newsletter. Everybody here has already signed up, I believe. So you'll get your emails from me once a month. So Rick, thank you great to
Rick Kooyman:be here. Thank you guys for showing up, although the news didn't get out. But that's okay. I appreciate you guys being here. So I'm going to just talk to you a little bit about insurance over here. Oh, I'll move. Yeah, sure. Did you guys get these? I'll
Unknown:hand them out. Okay, in this general area here, just one.
Rick Kooyman:You're gonna need all those right on on stage. Yeah, right. Okay, what's what I'm handing out are the basic insurance documents that the industry is using, just for your reference, and then a brochure that's mine. It is outdated, so that some of the stuff got scratched out because the pricing has changed and we changed some programs, but the information in the packet is what I wanted to give you. That's why I'm still handing it out to you. So just start with a basic understanding of what's going on in Florida and how we ended up in this situation. We're in with the insurance world, right? So you go outside of the country, and insurance is just kind of a normal thing in the world, you know, just the fundamental you come down here and all of a sudden it's more than your mortgage sometimes, right? How do we get to that place? What can we do about it? The truth is, it started in 92 and that was Hurricane Andrew. Okay, Hurricane Andrew came through. It hit Miami, and it took homestead off map, like eradicated the whole town, just wiped it into the ocean, right? That was the first big payout for the insurance industry in the recent past, right? They didn't like that so much. More importantly, the state of Florida didn't like it so much that they had to rebuild a whole town of homestead. And they wanted to say, Hey, we got a situation here we need to address. So we need to change things up a little bit. And Miami and Dade County in particular said, Well, you know what we're going to do, we're going to create our own building code. Right up until that point, everybody down in Florida was using the National Register residential building code. And you know, that was fine, and there were upgrades made for a lot of cases, but there wasn't any requirement, right? So in 92 after Andrew wiped everything out, Miami, Dade said, we want to do hurricane building type stuff, and they created the Miami Dade code, which became the Florida building code, right? So in 94 that was law in Miami and Dade County, and that was it, right? They had the Florida building code. The state of Florida wouldn't adopt it Miami, and Dade County said, you have to do these things, right? Five, six. More years go by, several more hurricanes comes. 2001 the insurance industries in a panic. They're leaving like dropping everybody and not offering new policies that gave the state a problem, right? Because now, what do we do as homeowners when we have to have mortgage insurance. Well, they said, well, it's too much risk. We want to do that building code thing. So in 2001 the state of Florida finally adopted that building code as a state, but it didn't go in effect until 2002 because there's always a delay. So it's essentially the 94 building code that they call the 2001 building code that was instated in 2002 right? And when they did that, they created citizens insurance. Right? The citizens was created by the state to answer the problem of all the underwriters leaving and not offering policies, right? So they were meant to be the backstop. They were supposed to be like, 10, maybe 20% of the market, just to catch the stuff that nobody else wanted to cover. They didn't offer a great product, but they offered a product. Well, they became 80% of the market citizens. The state of Florida wasn't in the industry to be an insurance company, right? The state of Florida was like, we can't do this either. So a couple years back, Irma came through and welcomed everybody back to hurricane season again, right? Well, when Irma came through, it damaged a lot of properties here. There, but they were on the old insurance policies, and those policies were written in a way that they made them responsible for the structural even at an aged out state. So a lot of houses had 25 year old roofs on them. They were pretty much expired, but then they got damaged by the storm, and they had to replace them with like for like. And the old policy said the roof was covered, so the insurance industry got to buy everybody that got affected by Irma a new roof, right? And that's how the roofing industry ended up inflating the prices, right? Because now we had a shortage, and we had a whole bunch of people that needed work. We had roofers coming in from all over the country, writing sales contracts, and it was going through public adjusters a lot of times, because citizens is trying left and right to not pay these claims, but the public adjusters are getting a hold of it and saying, Well, there's no way you're getting away with it. It's pretty black and white in these terms. And then, in turn, the roofers doubled the prices. So you got 30% going to a public adjuster. You got 200% of the cost of the roof going to the roofing contractor that gets paid by the insurance company, and most of the times they were doing assignments and benefits, which meant, sign this piece of paper, and it's all taken care of, but I get all the money, right? You don't get the check from your insurance company, the assignments of benefits. Contractor that sign you sign that piece of paper is now your representative to the insurance company, so he gets the whole check. Now, if there's a public adjuster in there, he gets his 30% sometimes it was 20% right? So now we can see how this industry exploded into high expense industry, right again, the underwriters left the state right. And three, four years ago, there was nobody again to offer insurance, and our insurance started going through the roof. DeSantis passed House bills, 8018, 57 or something like that. And essentially what he did is he put the house rules back in favor of the house, basically casino wise, right? So from an underwriter standpoint, they are now allowed to sell a product that was inferior to the product they used to be selling because citizens decreased their coverage requirements as well. What did they mostly do? They put in the word prorated, right? So now your 10 year old roof is only going to get 25% coverage, right, because they prorated that shit way down so that they don't have to do this again, right? But so they brought in all these new underwriters. We got all these new companies now offering policies, but the policy details have changed dramatically, right? And and ultimately, you're you're not buying the same high quality insurance that used to cover you. You're buying a piece of paper that is mostly going to say denied, right? And that's the bottom truth of it. And how do they get to write these high price policies is through those forms I just gave you guys right? And those are citizens forms. They were created by the state for the underwriters as they wanted them to be. And the funny part about the insurance industry is they write their own rules right, there. There their rules in their paperwork. Don't even say in accordance with building code. They say in accordance with insurance regulations. Now, what does that mean? They get to write the rules. That's what that means, right? They literally get to make the definitions up as they go, right? So they're carrying all the cards you're paying all the money, and they want to know every year what they're putting their money on now, and that's what that four point form in your hand is, right? So every year that form expires, so they have the right to say, time for new policy. You need an inspection, and they're going to go through the four fundamental systems of that house and look for any reason they don't want to be part of this situation, which is, everything's perfect and shiny and there's no corrosion, no leaks, no sketchy products, Everything's new. Okay, we can make a deal. If it's not the case. You're going to have to do this, that and the other thing, or you're going to pay three times as much for nothing at all, basically. So what's on that form? That four point form, is somewhat confusing to the layperson, the homeowner and whatnot, but it's a checkbox form, right? And as an inspector, all I can do is answer their questions. I don't get to make a judgment or. Assessment, they ask, are there these things? Are there leaks? Is there corrosion? You know, how old is the material? Well, it's just take a picture of it. If I check the box, they want to show a photo that says, This is how I came up with that answer, right? And now they're even sending out what they call auditors, which are just private inspectors that follow us around, and almost every new policy is getting double inspected at the insurances cost at that point, because they're in house inspectors, but they're basically just checking on our work, right? But that matters, because they're looking for reasons to not, to not represent their policies, right? So oftentimes people will come and they'll say, How much is that four point inspection? You know, I need to get these insurance inspections done. And back in the early 2000s when these were first created by citizens, everybody in the homeowner world said, Well, if citizens wants me to do it. Citizens should pay for it. Seemed reasonable. They didn't want to do that, and they didn't want to have their own inspectors do that. So then they said, well, let's let the homeowners fill it up. I tried that for a little and they found out that it was just everything was great all the time, and the things weren't right anyways, and they were still writing policies, and six months later, saying, oh, you know what this policy is, null and void. It was actually written on false pretenses. So they went back to private industry and said, well, let's let the home inspectors and the general contractors, the engineers and architects, those people are qualified to do this. Okay? Well, that means I got to get paid, right? Citizens isn't going to pay me. So now there's a price competition, right? So originally it was 50 bucks to get a win mint done, 100 bucks to do a four point and it was literally just fill this out, and they weren't really paying a lot of attention to it. The trainings were very sparse, and nine out of 10 times the form was completed wrong by the inspectors. So now they started paying on those faulty policies again and said, well, we need to send those people back to school. Well now we have to have certifications. We got to get certified to fill that thing out every couple of years. Well, now there's a price difference, and the price difference is because of, I find it important that your insurance be represented correctly, and the cheap guy is sending out somebody to fill out the form, right? So you can get$100 inspection, but you're getting what you pay for, and in the end, you're getting a canceled policy, or policy that won't pay out, because they're going to pull that form out and go, you know, what turned out based on these photos, that was already there, or we don't like that, that plumbing leak was, you know, was pre existing, and they're not going to represent it, and they're going to fight every time everything. I can't tell you how many people I talk to that say they denied the claims. First two times you submit it, they probably will deny the claim, because it's basically their practice, like that's just a common practice of to make you prove to them that they need to pay for it, and now, not only do they not have to pay for it as easily, they're paying lots less, right? So your coverage on your new insurance policy on your new roof is, you know, good coverage for the first five years, you know, and by 10 years, it's not worth half the value of the roof, and the roof's got 20 more years of life on. Well, the problem is, is that come 20 years, the insurance companies say, you know, we want that form filled out again. And how do I express what they call remaining useful life? Like I'm supposed to predict how long it's supposed to continue to function. Well, they give you a chart, right? And that chart's in there too, and it's based on regions. And there's a couple of different people out there that are creating the charts, but it's just what we have to work with. So the chart says the concrete roof will last you 30 years. The roofer says this is a 50 Year product. I've got a 65 year metal roof. Well, you've got a 20 year under Layman and there's nobody else out there doing anything about it. So those forms with these time windows and these expected life spans, they're just hard and fast rules that they're going by right, and there's nothing anybody can do to make it or say it's good. I can't. I used to be able to come out and do just the roof section of the four point and they called it a roof certification. And they would say, Okay, well, what's the condition of the roof, Mr. Inspector, and how long do you think it will last? And they really gave me credit for if I said, I think there's 10 years. I. On it, they'd be okay 10 years. Well, now if I say there's five years, they're only going to offer you one more year coverage, and if I say there's three, they're not even going to talk to you. They're just going to tell you to buy a new roof. So now your 30 year product is insurable for 25 really, it's more like 2122 before they're going to call and say, You know what, twice as much for a policy, or we're just not going to offer you one. You got to put a new roof on it, and there's nothing you can do about it, right? You can't have a roofer come and certify it. They won't accept it. They're just going to look at that chart and say, This is what we got to deal with, and this is how it's going to go, right? So there's more things than just the roof that the insurance industry is doing this on. You know, it goes to the electric panels. There's a whole list. There's probably a half dozen panels out there that are, yeah, they weren't good to begin with, right? And they're non insurable. They're fire hazards. They don't work. Basically, they don't do anything. Some of them fall apart. When you take the cover off. They're just all the pieces fall out of them like that. Can't be right, you know, but you know. So the panel manufacturer now matters what kind of wire they're really paying attention. They updated the form just this year, finally, and now they actually have a six different types of wire. They want to know exactly what kind of wire is it? Is it copper, clad, aluminum? Is it? Aluminum is it solid? Copper? Is it stranded, single strand? I mean, they're getting into the weeds on this stuff. Why? Because you're not. I mean, if we're looking to buy a house, yeah, right. See this? This goes to the importance of the insurance industry is controlling the market, and people don't realize it, right? The real estate market is finally starting to see the effects of the insurance industry putting their thumb on this stuff because of what you just said. How do I know? I can't tell you there's so many houses on the market right now, it's, it's crazy, but most of them don't pass that four point. And the homeowners, they'll know it, right? So they're, they're up here with their value, and I'm coming in and going, well, it's might, might be here because you need a panel, you need a roof, and you need a re pipe. That's 100 100 150 grand. This matters. Now we're not talking about peanuts, yeah. So yeah, pipe type is a big deal. Pipe age, big deal. Re piping a home. It used to be some rare thing that happened to people when they had, you know, reoccurring leaks. Now it's just a chart. It's an age, 20 years, sorry, new pipes, and they're talking about the now they're talking about the drain systems. They never asked about the drain lines before, but now they realize that the cast iron drains that they put in in the 80s are all corroded and junk, and they're under the slabs, and they didn't think about it, and they're paying those claims. They're not doing it anymore. They put it on the new form, and they said, What kind of drain pipe is there? I mean, it's getting in the weeds on specifics, and the rates are only getting worse. The coverages are getting less, and you're getting the industry to tell you that it's getting better for them. That's what they're saying, right? And they're saying there's new underwriters, there's new opportunities out there. I hear it on the news that, you know, insurance rates are going down. There's new new policies out there. It's not really good news. It's not it's a manipulation of market. It's not in your favor. And like you said, it very much matters what you're buying now, especially in this market where the hidden things matter so much, and almost nine out of 10 people don't get it. They don't understand. They don't know what those words mean, and they just assume, like everything's the way it used to be, and it's a whole new market, right? And that's part of what we do. When we come and do the inspections, we have to confirm and show photos of the proof. This is what this is. So I got to open up the panel, and I got to do all this checking and make sure there's no fire hazards, and you got the right wire, and they're attached right it's the right brand, and the right brand in the right box, because I can put, you know, a square d breaker in a Siemens panel, but the UL underwriter didn't test it right. So the insurance company goes, Well, you got a mismatch manufacturer right there, and it caught on fire. That ain't my fault. Well, they they went in the same and it might even not be the case, but it ain't gonna pay, right? And the AC guy, he only got a couple of breakers in the truck, and he don't pay attention to the label of the panel, and he puts in what works, and now you've got mismatched stuff. So this is what's going on every year as they start asking for these inspections. And these inspections are starting to occur on condos, right? And a lot of times, the condo will get done as a whole building, you know, because they want to know what's what's the wire, what's the pipe, what's the roof attachment, what's the system types, what's the ages of these products. And then they go into the units and they want them done on the specific units, because they want to know what's going on inside your particular house. What are the conditions of your valves? What are the conditions of your outlets? Right? Because everything's different in everybody's house, and then we have high humidity. You're here by the ocean, you've got a lot of salt in the air. Corrosion is a real thing with the humidity. It rapidly ages stuff, especially the heat and humidity, right? So things just don't fundamentally last that long. Air Conditioners maybe 15 years. At the high end, you'll get out of an AC a hot water tank they won't insure past 12 years. I mean, it could be brand new. I just saw one yesterday. It was a 99 the older ones tend to last. The new ones, they don't even make them to last anymore. I mean, it's normal now, see a six year old hot water tank that's it's leaking, you know, and it's just the waters corroded through the tank and it's just disintegrating, and the insurance doesn't want to be part of that either, right? So the details are coming up and getting relevant, the the expectations are getting just really kind of hard to accomplish, or they're baselined off of that life expectancy chart, and you kind of held hostage to it, right? And then there's the other form that goes with those, and that's the augmented thing that you know, the uproar created when citizens started and the rates went up originally, back in the early 2000s and they said, Okay, well, you did this four point thing. You came and told me, I need a roof, an AC, you know, a panel and a hot water tank and probably some new socks. But why do I have to pay so much? Well, how can we make it better? So they created the wind Mitigation Program, which is also known as the Florida my safe home program, which you sometimes hear about in the spring, because the government funds it small amount, and then the pot gets hit. And, you know, 10% of the people get something, and then it's depleted for the year, and they do it again next year, right? So there's an opportunity, if it's like a lottery, you know that the state says, Hey, we're going to pay 50% of these updates to improve the stability of your home, to make it more storm resistant, we want to bring the older homes that were built under that international residential code to the new Florida building code. Well, that can be expensive, and to encourage people to do that, that's why they started the my safe Florida home program, where they so much give you money, but they don't, and then they said, well, let's do a discount program, and we'll call it this wind mitigation certificate, right and the windmill, you may have heard of because it's been commonly asked for, because it's the discount, right? The 4.0 damn, they asked for the four point they might probably have repairs. The win mint didn't say anything about good, bad, pass or fail. It just asked, what were the techniques used to do certain things? The first one they wanted to know was, what was the building code? What's this thing built to you? When was it built? Right? Is it built to the International Code? Is it built to the Miami Dade Florida building code? Or is it built to the south Florida building code? Because South Florida accepted the Florida building code up in Tallahassee, when it was the Florida building code for the state of Florida, they still refused to recognize it, and they still built to the international code and let the builders do the cheaper thing, even though it was straight against the law, because they said, we don't get hurricanes in the panhandle. Yeah? Michael showed up and said, Hi, I'm a hurricane. And they said, Damn news. They showed all the beach photos, and they're like, the whole town's devastated, but that one house unaffected. How about that? Yeah? Well, that house was built to the Florida building code. The other ones weren't right. So Florida building code is the first thing they give you a discount. And the reason I gave you that brochure is on the last page of it. Let me show you. Okay, so this stuff here is stuff that's on the four points. This is products that they're. Not wanting to deal with. And it's just a identification kind of knowledge stuff, and then arc fault and GFI ground fault. When were they required by the building codes? It's just a chart for informational purposes, but people often ask me, Well, why doesn't my house have ground fault outlets in the wet locations. You know ground fault is when there's another pathway for the electricity to go from the source to ground, which is generally you when you're wet. So you touch something wet that's charged, and now you become the wire and you're the ground fault, right? So when that happens, those outlets sense that switch, that surge and current, and they turn off to prevent that from occurring. Well, the other side of that are these outlets where you can put your plug in there, and sometimes it arcs, right? So as outlets age, go around and they're loose in the wall. Well, every time you move the outlet in the wall that that wire in, there's going and it's getting loose and it's getting weak, because every time you turn it on, it gets hot. When it gets hot, it expands, and then you turn it off and it contracts, and it cyclically does that over time, and it gets loose. So now it's loose at its terminal. The box is loose in the wall, and you're jiggling the outlet, the plug. Now there's arcing going on in there. And then it could be a fire, right? And, you know, extension cords dust behind our furniture that we never move, and it's been there forever. This is how we get room fires from outlets that are aged out well. Now in the new building code, they're saying we don't want that to occur. We think we should have some way to protect against the arc. So now they're arc fault outlets in the original first generation of the outfall arc fault stuff was a nightmare. It just because the arc induced pulse was a very threshold line, and they just kept tripping. You're just always off, like these things suck. They work too well, and they don't let power through. And they worked on and worked on them. And now they've come up with, typically, they're a combo now they're arc fault, ground fault combo, and they're, they're required on the new building codes. This is not something they're asking the house is to get updated to yet. But when you have them asking you to replace your panel, you have to bring it up to the new standard, right? So if you replace your panel, you have to replace all your No, you have to, you have to put in a new stack of breakers, right? So now you putting in those arc fault and those ground faults where you didn't have them before, right? So the whole thing just gets more expensive, no, this stuff is all the same. I mean, you want to make sure it's secured. And if it's loose and it's corroded, then it is a problem and they should be corrected. And you know, that is stuff that's in the four point that they ask in those check boxes. If you look through it, there's, you know, scorching, loose, this loose that all you know, they're looking they want us to check those things, and then they follow up behind me and check if I checked it, right. So it is getting paid attention to, and they're paying attention to it in fine detail now. And like I said, they updated the form and they added more stuff to pay attention to, because they matter, right? So now we got the discount thing going on with the windmill, and that went on, you know, what year was the house built, as per what building code it was and and just as a curiosity thing, the code your house is built to is the date that you applied for the permit. So when the when the construction guy went to the city and said, I want to build this. Here's my application. That day's building code is what they were approved for. So that's the year your house was built. It could have gotten built four years later, and they just extended the permit and in 2001 in 2002 when they were enacting this change in the building code. That happened a lot, because right before March one, 2002 when it was mandatory on February they were getting bashed at the building department for new construction permits. They hit that they didn't know when they were actually going to build a house or so. So, yeah, there was an extension period, but there's a build by
Unknown:date. They change the Electric Code, six permitted by. The building completed by 2007 you had to use the 2000
Rick Kooyman:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay. So the next thing on the discount side of stuff in the wind Met world, this is kind of stuff that matters to the condo owners. Now, because some of the units you can, you know, update yourself. You can change your doors and windows. Some buildings, they have to do the whole one because they want to maintain the look, you know, but that's a discount now, impact rated products, you know. So since they implemented the Florida building code, now they had to make products that were approved and tested, Florida approved, impact tested products, and they had small missile and large missile, which was a four pound ball and an eight pound two by four. And now they just go with the large missile rating. And there used to be a discount for the small missile. They they ask, but they still, they won't give you a discount. So doesn't matter, and now it's literally they shoot a two by four at 32, miles an hour, at everything, and they see if it takes it, right? So they don't just test the window, they test the frame and they test the mounting. So the thing gets shot three times, and then it gets approved, and now it costs three times as much, right? So and again, as we update and we change our stuff out, they want you to get to that new building code. So every time you want to change like, for like, it's like for impact rated like, yeah, or you have to put a shutter over it, which is the cheaper option, right? So you can buy the cheaper window, but you have to have impact rated protection on it. If you change it, they want it corrected, right? So the older these structures here generally don't have the impact rated stuff in them, and it goes to every penetration. Is what it's called. So garage door matters. Oftentimes, the garage door, again, this giant house. It's got 50 windows in it. They're all impact rated. The garage doors got the top panel with the plastic windows in it not impact rated. Sorry, no discount. Yeah, it's 100% it's everything or nothing. So, you know, it gets expensive, right? And oftentimes all the windows get changed, but the outswing steel panel door, that's an entry door, is original to construction. Well, there was no test when it was made, so it couldn't possibly be impact rated, even though it's a steel door, right? It Right. It doesn't have the label. It didn't get tested, not going to get the discount right. So you get, you get, like in here, it says on this last panel, there's an explanation of what some of the discounts amount to, and they're not straightforward. So I had one of my insurance buddies give me a bunch of different versions of policies from different underwriters, and I just compared them. And this is just how I wrote it down, just to say, you know, I got four. And this is what the four came back at on these seven questions, right? So the first one, the FBC thing, I think it was 10% discount. No, actually, that one is the most. That one would go up to 68% for some underwriters, right? So that was a huge discount to get if you were built to the residential Florida residential code, not the national residential code. And then the impact rated stuff is another discount. It's another, you know, 20, 30% depending on who you do. And then How old's the roof? Well, okay, one, what was the permit application date? And then they want to know what kind of product is it, what type of roof covering is it? And then they want to know a bunch of stuff about what's going on in the attic, about the roof. So they want to know how many nails are in the roof deck, holding the decking to the truss. Right? That used to be that you could put they wanted. The standard code was six inch spacing around the perimeter and 12 inches in the field. Now they want six inches everywhere. And they used to put in Staples. You know, here the guys with the stable gun putting the deck down. Now, Staples not accepted. That was one of the big things that just pulled apart really easily. So they wanted that majorly corrected. So that was one of the big things the insurance industry said, Hey, anybody that gets a new roof, every roof has to get re nailed. Now the county doesn't inspect it, because when they tear the old roof off, they got to get it covered back up before the afternoon rain. Well, ain't nobody going to get there to inspect it in time. So the roofer signs an affidavit that said, Yes, we re nailed it. Yeah. Well, then they want that on that form, and they send me into the attic with a metal detector to find the damn nails. Take a picture. There you go. So there you go. That's the next question. Is that next thing after staples was the six penny nail, and it was just a little smaller. And now they want an eight penny nail, right? And then, typically, it should be a ring shank nail. And they do make a hell of a difference between pulling out a six penny nail and pulling out a ring shank nail. Or like trying to compare a screw to a nail, that nail was on the other side. There are what we call shiners, and those are misses, where the guy on the roof deck is looking at the truss line, and he tipped the gun and it shot on an angle, and it came out the side of the truss, or just so I'm looking for missed shots. Well, that gets ugly too, because a lot of times they missed all of them. You look and I got to take a picture, and now it's just nails. It's just like a field of nails shining. Guess what? That sucks, because even though the roofer says, well, they went and re nailed it again, the insurance industry just looks at that damn picture and goes, Oh, hell no. Not only do I not believe you, but you probably just perforated the crap out of the truss cord, and there's too many nails in it. Let's just say that, right, so that the sheets been penetrated so many times it's it's no longer got the resistance and that nail head, and they're just like, Yeah, whatever. Put a new deck on it. Now, way to go, right? And that's really expensive, yeah? Because a roof, a re roof, a roofer does the roof, covering the underlayment and the product that goes on top of the underlayment. And down here in Florida, a tile roof is considered a decorative cover, right? The underlayment is your roof, as far as the insurance industry goes. So whether you put, you know, metal shingle, tile, they're all considered decorative. And that's why, when the roofer says it's a 60 year metal roof, I go, it's a 20 year underlayment. And the insurance industry keeps asking these questions, and they won't take Boo from anybody, right? So roof length that the nail staple, nail length to the big nail. So now that's the next district, the next discount, like 10% and then how's that truss held onto that wall up here at the corner, right? So when the storms come and you see the roofs flying away, that's what they don't want to see. So they want to know, how is that truss attached to that wall plate? That's a big one. Yeah, originally it was toenailed Even better, which is where you cross, nailed on an angle, through the wood and into the top plate. What's that? Yeah, and again, I've been in construction my whole life, so I know from practice when you shot the nail, it chipped the edge of the cord and it just broke the damn thing. So now it's like this little sliver of wood sitting there with all these nails stuck in it. It's so good. So now it's a well, how's the roof attached? You know they want, they want strapping. There's a bunch of different ways it can be strap attached. One of the newer ways they have is a big, long screw, which is a problem for me, because I can never see it. It once it's put in, it's gone, because it literally goes in from under here, up through the bottom plate, into the truss cord, and it's put in, it's, you know, this long, and it's put in straight, generally it doesn't miss, because then you really ruin stuff, and you can't ever tell. So when I go in there, I'm like, I don't know there's no attachment. Well, it's only on new products right now. So fortunately, we haven't gone down the road of trying to figure out how we're going to identify these new attachment systems that they're coming up with when they keep asking us to fill out these forms and show them a photo to see the damn strap. And they don't want to just see the strap. It has to have no gaps. They don't want it to be able to if you could pick up the truss and wiggle it around, because the strap is loose, no good. It's got to have three nails in it, and the three nails got to be in the right locations. Otherwise, no discount, right? What is the underlayment product? Is another discount question, right? Because they want to know to them that's the most important thing when the roof. Ring gets blowed off. What's under it that we're putting our money on? You used to be able to use tar paper, you know, lightweight tar paper, or two layers of tar paper. And this goes back to Irma, one of the big roofing problems, because the roofs that were mainly damaged by Irma, that were 20 years old. Ish, you know, they were right around 2000 year age when those houses were built, those roofs were assembled with what they called a mortar Patty system, where they mixed up roof cement and they took a big blob of it on top of the tar paper, and they set the tile in that that mortar well over time. Hot, cold, hot, cold, all that mortar detached from the roof tiles. And there were hella roofs where I could go up, and all the tiles were just sitting there. Nobody had ever checked or thought about it, you know, because it had been years since they'd have a wind storm that came and took them all away, and that was one of the things that caused the insurance uproar, because now, even if your roof only had a little bit of damage, and they couldn't get the tile, or it was a mortar Patty system, they had to replace those roofs. And again, they paid the whole damn thing, right? And for that than a child, you mean, like a shingle, shingles be better than not better more affordable. They're better and more No, they're more affordable, they're more affordable, right? But I don't
Unknown:think asphalt shingles would do what you
Rick Kooyman:just talked about. They do blow off. Yeah, they do. They will. They will. Some of them, some of them get really well attached to each other from the tar tape sets in them, and they're hard as hell to get apart. Most of them don't they get hot, they get brittle, and they're like cards once, once you start peeling the deck open, then it just starts coming apart, right? So that the shingle roof, in my opinion, is the most affordable, reasonable. They're 3035, year products. They're still going to ask me the same question, and they're still going to say it five years. We're only going to give you one, so I don't know if your HOA makes you buy the tile, the clay tile, the blue tile, good luck. That stuff is expensive. Yeah. I mean, it looks nice, it does, but yeah, right, right, for sure. And up north, you could have an 80 year old tile roof that people are super proud of and like it's my golden prized possession of our house, Not here, no way. Yeah, right. When we did the roofs up north, our roof coverings didn't leak. So the underlayment was, you know, a guard, it was the secondary layer. That was how we built roofs, when we put them together, and we're like, you know, now you that now the guy who sells the roof is so far removed from the roof actually getting done, generally that the quality is just pathetic, right? And they're just crew after crew. They just go through and hire, you know, one dude has four friends, and they form a crew, and they sub jobs, and they hire the crew for a season, and they just give them go do these, and then the materials will be there. And then if it's not good, they try to get that crew to go back and fix it, or that crew just disintegrates into the air, and you're left holding the roof right, and you got to deal with the workmanship, which is always the problem of everything down here. I'm always saying, well, it's functional, but the workmanship isn't so good. What was that? Shape Up. Yeah, shape up. Cruise, the tune up. Cruise, for sure. So the underlayment was the other thing. Make sure I'm missing one for you guys. We did the roof, we did the openings, we did the attachment. We did clips. Oh, the roof shape, right? Roof shape. You know what a gable is, triangle, right? So, in a flat side of an end house, there's a triangle at the top. That's the gable end, right? Those gables are little kites, big kites for hurricanes, right? And often, in the original building code, they were toenailed to that top plate. And it's a big pressure wave, and it just popped that. Thing off and it flew away, right? So that Gable became a high risk item for the insurance industry, and they said, We like hip roofs, and that's what you see where the it's a crown, where the peak is in the center, right? So the roof doesn't have any triangles. The easiest way I tell people to know if it's a gable is if you're looking at the edge of the roof, covering product, whatever it is, tile, shingle, metal, if you're looking at an edge of it, at the edge of a wall, that's a gable. It might not look like it because we have clipped gate clipped hips, or Dutch hips. Which are, you know, you take and you clip off the top of it and you put a little triangle up there, for some architectural reason, I don't know, but, I mean, they're all just architectural features, but they're all different insurance rates now, because that what they want is that that that hip attached all the way around, so it's like a dome. And if you have those gables, they used to make us check and make sure that they got reinforced and re braced. And now they don't even ask, because again, it came to so much confusion in who was doing it and it not being done correctly that they literally stopped asking. He said, We can't even get this straight, so we're not even I see gables all the time. I go up and it's just one little one by raised diagonally from original construction when they set it up there to just hold it in place long enough that they could get the rest of the trusses up to attach it all together. And that's how it ended, and that's the only brace. So it's nailed at the bottom, and it's nailed at the sheeting, and it's just sitting there like a drum blowing in the wind, because it's it's a pressure thing that takes the roofs off of houses, right? It's the low pressure outside that causes the roof to pop off the house, and that's where the high wind stuff comes from, right? So again, it goes to the window penetration thing, and why they say it's 100% because if you burst that pressure vessel, you let the pressure in, and it blows the roof off, right? So they want it all enclosed with a nice little tight hat on the top of it,
Unknown:right? So you have all the windows in your old house that are updated,
Rick Kooyman:but your door has windows, no good, yeah, even if it's that little round thing, it's like this big, that's a glazing, and it's not had a two by four shot at it. It ain't worth it to them. So
Unknown:it's better to not get a fancy door with lots of windows.
Rick Kooyman:Well, you can't it just got to be impact. There's impact grade stuff now. But the other thing is, is people replace the door panel and not the frame. Well, the frame got tested too. And not only did the frame get tested, the attachment requirements are way different than what that door was put in with and packed in there with a couple of nails and shimmed in place. Now it's, you know, six inch, five inch leg flag bolts, you know, on 12 inch spaces, right? So, yeah, this is where we're going. It's not going to change. And it's literally changing the market, because the older houses have to adapt and adjust and get implemented into this new system. And in the meantime, our communities like here, are all aging together, right? And it all comes to a head at some point, like nobody's immune, right? Even the big towers, the high rise towers right now are like the world of don't touch it because of, you know, Surfside that, you know, the reserves that everybody has to get together now is just making the market stale. Is all get out because everybody wants, you know, $3 million and then there's, you know, the community assessments going on, and the communities might write an assessment out of the blue for 100 grand, especially in these condo those high rise places, I see assessments come in for the front entry pool that's $100,000 isn't even in the parking lot. Yeah, so this is where we are questions. Well, how are
Unknown:we supposed to know, as people
Rick Kooyman:going about? Yeah, I tell people you, you can get the four point for your own purposes of knowing what to expect in the future. You. Right, and understand when your insurance is about to expire, especially if it's in the summer, because if there's a hurricane in the ocean there, they're not writing new policies, right? They won't write a policy under a storm watch, because they're just going to wait till the storm goes away, not taking that risk. But not only that, if you get, you know, you get the letter, and it's two weeks from the end of the month, and the insurance agents going, Hey, your policy is expiring. We need these documents. Why? Kim and I fill out that four point form? Check box, check box, check box. Every one of those is service contractor. Service contractor. Need something done. So that takes time. Your policy might expire, right? And then the storm comes and they won't write you a new one. Yeah, within three weeks of it, what's
Unknown:the deal with that our insurance, our insurance agents won't even talk to us unless our policy is it like three weeks or four weeks of expiration. What's the deal with that?
Rick Kooyman:I couldn't tell you. I'll have to ask my insurance agent friends, because that's an Yeah, yeah. And I could, I can speculate that what that is going on is the background changes for the underwriters that are bringing in these newer, smaller companies, and like, what was a no go for everybody else, like polybutylene, for example, is a pipe system that insurance doesn't want anything to do with. Well, all of a sudden, there's three or four underwriters in the state that'll write a policy for polybutylene. They're not going to pay you anything on anything that ever happens to it, but they will give you a policy even though you have polybutylene in there, and you're going to pay more, but you didn't get the house re piped and they're like, cool, I win. And then next year, that insurance company goes, cool, we're out of here. And that's what's happening. So why can't I shop outside of my policy term? That's probably why. Because there's this, this flux of companies coming and going, really where they won't let you shut
Unknown:they won't even talk to you, tell your
Rick Kooyman:policies at the end of the month. Yeah, and
Unknown:for the general for Bay Forest, too, same situation.
Rick Kooyman:Yeah, I'm not sure I'll ask that's a good question. When, when you're allowed to shop for it. But I mean, that still doesn't change the idea of knowing ahead of time what's coming at you might be in favor of, you know. And I tell people, you know, they think I only come out and, do you know $500 home inspections? Well, I do consulting this hourly service. You know, I come out and help you with anything. Help you come out and understand what your contractors up to. You know, oftentimes I get, I've had the I've had three different roofing companies come and tell me three different things I want to know the damn truth. I got no bone in the fight. I'm just here to tell you the truth, right? Yeah, different. Yes they did. Yes they did, yeah in their own way. So anything you guys got, if you got questions, just give me a call. You know, just here to help.
Unknown:These are jack of all trades. We've got a couple different seminars lined up with Rick, um, actually wouldn't mind helping you guys. So we're starting to get out, I think I mentioned last time, trying to get out of communities, not stopping communities. But we're getting into some churches, working with AAA, some realtor Association, so I don't know if churches might be a good opportunity. We're talking to three churches right now, because there's value in bringing education to the congregation, plus it also brings eyeballs into the church or synagogue or whatever. So you know, if you guys have any connections at you know, religious organizations, let us know. Sure. Us know. Yeah, there you go. I mean, I know we've talked to Saint Leo the Greta, know, an electric church and spread in the corner, but we were supposed to go there, and office politics got involved. But yeah, we're talking to several churches right now about coming in and and bringing our speaker series to their to their church. So if you have any, you'd love to talk to him. I was talking to mornings park down the Presbyterian Church. I was talking to their pastor last month, and he loved the idea of, you know, bringing in the speaker series, covering a variety of topics. So that'd be great. Wayne, you got anything hurricane, if we don't see these, if you don't. To see these folks before hurricanes, you got any words, words the wise that they need to be thinking about from your perspective, prepare. Make sure you prepare. If you've got, what I would say, generators in that, make sure you got it and board up. Because if you get the air inside, the pressure that it's gonna, it's gonna ruin everything in your home. Just make sure you've got all the cracks in your stucco and everything like that taken care of so water doesn't get inside and cause problems later. Check coughing around your windows, things like that. I have a question about wiring. You said that there's stranded, there's solid there's copper, aluminum. I used to live in a house that had aluminum wiring, and I found out that's not a good thing. And so what is a good thing?
Rick Kooyman:There's actually not anything wrong with aluminum wire, and to the point we all have aluminum wire as our source power, right? I'll tell you why. Okay, I just want to make clear the mystery. There's nothing wrong with aluminum wire. The problem with aluminum as a material is it expands more than copper does with heat cycling, right? So if you had aluminum wire, the component that it attached to had to be an aluminum compliant attachment point. Well, that means every single place there's a wire knot, a screw that had to be aluminum. And it's not reasonable to verify that that happened. So the insurance industry said we're not doing aluminum wire. That's why aluminum turned out to be a no good thing, and honestly, they're going back to it because copper is so damn expensive that they're doing copper clad aluminum now. Yeah, fishing coils, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the new the new systems that they're making us, you know, they're changing the gas requirements years and years and years, getting rid of gas now they're bringing it back. Yeah? But the really stupid part of that is for down here is when the system leaks out slowly, and it goes down the old system, the 410 our systems, and the 22 hour systems. You could top them off, and if they were slowly leaking, you know. And it took a couple of days to get parts, and it was hot as hell out they could get the unit to run again. Now that one it's either running or it's not, and you got to wait for parts. And they went back to propane based stuff so it's flammable. Yeah, it's an ongoing battle of, why are we doing this? So hip
Unknown:rooks are preferred over
Rick Kooyman:that's the biggest discount, yep, for sure that everybody wants. And then the multi featured ones, you know, like the hip with a little bit of triangle stuff on it. It's a 10% rule, like perimeter measurement. 10% of that total perimeter can be those little triangle things, or portions of which, often they don't look like triangles. Which is why I say it's the edge of a roof covering system, because there's these Dutch hips and stuff that have these little sections of gable on them, and people don't realize it, and then they lose the credit, because I know how to do my job, right? And they're like, well, we used to get the credit, and you took it from me, and I'm like, I didn't do it. I just added it up.
Unknown:Thank you.
Rick Kooyman:My pleasure.
Unknown:Let