<story><title>Mercury Spill</title><url>http://www.jefftk.com/p/mercury-spill</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ccvannorman</author><text>It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-]&lt;p&gt;In all seriousness, cool story, glad you&amp;#x27;re okay, and this makes me think &amp;quot;insurance&amp;quot; as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nostromo</author><text>Insurance is such a scam.  A friend of mine made two claims within about five years: once for water damage and once for a burglary.&lt;p&gt;The insurance company agreed that she was covered.  So they paid her and then dropped her.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  Once you&amp;#x27;ve made a claim or two against your insurance, it can be very hard to get any new insurance company to cover you.  She finally did find a new insurer, but the price has gone way up -- negating her original claims.&lt;p&gt;Did you know every claim you make goes into a CLUE report?  It&amp;#x27;s like a credit report, but few people know about it.  Once you make &amp;quot;too many claims&amp;quot; - even if they&amp;#x27;re legit and beyond your control, you become an insurance pariah.&lt;p&gt;Because of this, I avoid making any claims unless absolutely required.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mercury Spill</title><url>http://www.jefftk.com/p/mercury-spill</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ccvannorman</author><text>It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-]&lt;p&gt;In all seriousness, cool story, glad you&amp;#x27;re okay, and this makes me think &amp;quot;insurance&amp;quot; as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nathanb</author><text>When one of my upstairs toilets started leaking in my house in the US, it finally got so bad that I noticed a stain on the garage ceiling. The insurance inspector said that insurance would not cover a &amp;quot;slow leak&amp;quot;. I was very nice and polite and pointed out how soaked the subfloor was and that there was no way to know when the leak started (which was true). She wrote her recommendation that it be covered, which the company apparently accepted since they wrote me a check.&lt;p&gt;Definitely not $50k (more like $2.5k), but it&amp;#x27;s still disturbing that the line between insurance covering it and not covering it was so thin.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if a more thorough inspection would have caught it. Surely houses built around that time are routinely inspected for asbestos, lead-based paint, etc before purchase anyway. (Actually, going back and reading the comments, he actually addresses this point: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jefftk.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;mercury-spill#fb-752340840802_752343036402&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.jefftk.com&amp;#x2F;p&amp;#x2F;mercury-spill#fb-752340840802_752343...&lt;/a&gt;. Perhaps he could have made it a condition of purchase, that the seller pay for a mercury vapor inspection? Perhaps it&amp;#x27;s not such a common problem that such a requirement would be reasonable. Hindsight, etc.)</text></comment>