Bye Bye Oil Tank

As we are converting to gas in the "new" house, we need to remove our oil tank (thankfully, this is located in our basement and not underground). The building contractor will handle removing the old burner and installing the new gas burner, water heater, etc. But, you need to have a specialist remove the oil tank (and empty it, if needed). So, we put the call in - its a few hundred dollars to do it. But the oil company we use says they cannot get to it for a month or so. The builder says the sooner the better, but that the tank being there will not stop him from starting the work.

Renter's Insurance - Should we?

I heard back from insurance agent I was working with. She said renter's insurance for $20K plus $100k of liability on house would be about $150 a year. It seems that our current homeowner's policy should cover this, but I am not 100% sure and cannot get an answer from them. Do I waste the $150???

Hello Again, Trailer!

OK - we travel in a large circle. Yesterday afternoon, my wife went to town hall to "discuss" the fact that we were not able to get our trailer permit approved for side lawn, when others in town were. Well, she must have spoken to the right person or said the right thing, because they have now approved the trailer to be on side lawn. So, we are back to ordering the trailer - our builder told us today it will now not be until middle of next week until we have trailer. So, we won't be moving much this weekend - only the smaller stuff we are taking to our temp house, plus the beds, mattresses, etc that we are taking.

Bye, Bye Storage Trailer

Uh oh! After some struggling to get our town to approve a 35-foot storage trailer for the side of our side, for us to store our stuff while the house is demolished, they finally approved, but will only allow us to put the trailer in the backyard, not visible from the street. This seems ridiculous, especially seeing we know for a fact that others in town have identical storeage trailer parked in their driveways. OK, though, not a big deal. Well, today the builder stopped by to look over the site, and said there was no way they could get the trailer into our backyard - thanks to trees and bushes, etc on both sides of our house. So, we are now going to look for a self-storage facility - what a pain!

More Insurance Fun

Spoke to rep at StateFarm in town who was very knowledgeable. She said: (1) we are probably covered for possessions, regardless of where they are - so, if we have stuff in storage or stuff in our rental house, it should all be covered. (2) she spoke to an underwriter who said it makes sense to have a builders risk policy once the foundation is set - before then, during the demolition, they see too much risk and would not do this. So, I should call them a couple of weeks before the foundation is done, and have this policy written.

So, for now, it looks like I do not need to make any changes. One thing to note - she mentioned that the current insurance company (Clarendon) may drop us if they find out we are doing work on house (I cant believe this is true - weird). So, she said, if we get dropped we will have 30 days to find another policy. We could call her at that point, set up a builders risk policy and then switch to homeowners when done. If that is the case, we would need some liability coverage in addition to the builders risk coverage.

She also asked if we have an umbrelle policy on our homeowners, which may be good to cover us in the rental house. I should check into this.