Auto Insurance – Saving Some Bucks

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

Our HHR is nine years old, ten in just a few more months.  We have had it since March 2011, and in nearly eight years, we have put on around 90,000 miles, with the most miles put on in the first 13 months of ownership as I was driving back and forth from Arkansas to Florida a few times each month when Marcia was not staying in Arkansas with me after we got married.  Our auto insurance has been with the same company all that time…never had a claim, never had an accident, never had a ticket (or even pulled over).  Yet our car insurance has more than tripled during this same time period…with largest increases these past two years and for the upcoming year.  Well…time to look into this…

The Internet is great for finding car insurance quotes.  However, amazingly so…I did not even give it a try.  Why?  Just did not want to deal with the massive amounts of phone calls this would produce, and because they are out to sell ‘cheap’ insurance, and I wanted good coverage at a good rate.  So I turned to our motorhome insurance company. 

We have used Diversified Insurance Management ever since we had our first motorhome in November 2011.  We like both of the insurance companies that they hooked us up with.  Blue Sky took care of our “Storage Fire” incident with pure professionalism, and a fair settlement.  Last year in September Diversified informed us that Blue Sky was no longer going to offer motorhome insurance coverage to us because their underwriter, RLI, "...made a significant corporate decision to discontinue providing insurance policies for recreation vehicles...decisions like this are not uncommon..."  They found us an equally good company, Foremost, and we have been happy with them.  In fact, even with the change in companies, our costs are essentially the same as back in 2014.  So I contacted Sarah, our contact person, and asked about auto insurance.  She gave me a quick quote with Progressive, without all the facts as to where we live (since we store the motorhome off site all she had was our PO Box), and it looked pretty good.  However, after she put in our Holiday Florida address, it was still 1/3 less expensive than our current insurance company…but I wasn’t sure it was going to be the best.

Marcia has been using Brown & Brown Insurance for her insurance needs for a few decades.  They are our agents for our condo insurance through Citizens (State of Florida owned Insurance Company) and our flood insurance through Wright Insurance.  So I contacted them via email late yesterday afternoon, and today Hamlet, a nice lady who works under our primary agent Rick, provided a quote from Auto-Owners Insurance.  This quote is like 1/3 our current price, and includes $100,000 per person, $300,000 per accident for liability coverage, and a $500 deductible on our car which, frankly, would probably be totaled in anything but a minor accident.  There are a few other things…but good coverage, and equal coverage to what we sought with Progressive.  Another thing, currently we pay monthly…we will now pay every 6 months via credit card.

The difference being…Brown & Brown are here in Florida and deal with Florida related insurance companies.  Auto-Owners is actually in Michigan…but they cover insurance for Florida.  Florida has some stipulations with insurance companies…for instance, front window glass replacement can have no deductible attached to it.  Florida Statute 627.7288 requires auto insurers in Florida to replace or repair their policy holders damaged windshield with zero deductible, or, in other words, for “free.”

I guess you all know how we feel about this change…

Yes, it has been 10 days since my last blog post.  We have been weathering the heat, enjoyed a bit cooler temps on a few days and nights, and in another few weeks I think the majority of hot humid weather is behind us.  Hurricane season is all but behind us now.

This being the first time being in Florida during Hurricane Season, the National Hurricane Center has been my go to place to watch for possible problems.  Today there is just one situation in the Atlantic, it is moving north, and has a small chance of becoming anything, and even smaller chance for us to have to worry about it. 

Other than a quick trip up to South Carolina for something…we have not been doing to much around here. 

Just a JOKE mom, not a lie…

We didn’t win, but did get 2 numbers.

(Maybe the Powerball will pay off…)

Fighting Blog and Email Spam

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

I got my first email address with Hot Mail back in the 1996 or early 1997, I also opened a Yahoo Mail around the same time period…but gave it up just to resurrect a new one around 2007, I still use both today..  By 1998, I had a email server going at the Library, and all full time staff “HAD” to use it.  It was like pulling teeth for the first year.  By the year 2000 communicating via email was standard for everyone in the library, but only a few part time workers were issued a library email address.  Only problem was, by 2001, email spam was killing us, so I started a black list (blocking list) which cut down the spam a lot, and subscribed to a service by 2003 which cut it down even more.  Today, most email services have automatic spam controls, and for those few that get through, you can add them to your spam list real easy and future spams will go right into the spam box.

Only problem is, sometimes a GOOD EMAIL gets into the spam box, so you have to monitor it all the time.  Above is a portion of my spam mail box…about half way down you can see one from TWITTER, which I clicked, and it was a good email about a recent logon attempt I did from my computer…so it turned out to be nothing.  However, I have found important emails in the spam box many times.

I have two other email accounts…a Gmail and our GoingRvWay email.  Both of these automatically send all email to my yahoo account, all I need to do is go into these to accounts a few times a year and clear out the inbox.  My Hotmail account became my “junk” account very quickly back in the ‘90s.  I still use that account when I have to give an email out to someone or some entity that I don’t want to give my good email to.  In other words, it is all junk….I just clear it all out a few times each year.  My hope is that by the end of this decade, PHONE SPAM will have gone away much like the email spam has.  Yes, I still get email spam, but it is nothing that bothers me anymore…I don’t have to wade through mass amounts of emails just to read the few good ones like I use to have to do.

Blog comment spam, on the other hand, has grown.  You followers rarely see any of the blog comment spam because most of it gets caught before hitting the blog page…and those few that do, I move to spam very quickly.  This means I have monitor the blog a few times each day.  However, up until earlier this year, all of the comments, good and bad, were sent to my email…but blogger made a change and I don’t get those emails anymore.  I have been writing this blog since March 2012.  I have now written 917 blog postings (counting this one).  I have had around 3,000 comments, and nearly 300 spam comments.  The problem is over 200 of these spams have come just in the past 15 months.  These folks are ruthless.  Here are a few examples below:

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Hey there, How is your marriage going? Be honest…how is it ACTUALLY going? If you’re reading this e-mail right now, then chances are your marriage isn’t what it used to be… and maybe it’s so bad, that you feel like your world is falling apart. You feel like all the passion, the love, and romance have completely faded. You feel like you and your wife can’t stop yelling at each other. And maybe you feel that there’s almost nothing you can do to save your marriage, no matter how hard you try. But you’re wrong. You CAN save your marriage — even if your wife says she wants to get a divorce. You CAN rebuild that passion you felt for one another when you first kissed. And you can bring back that love and devotion you felt for one another when both of you said, “I love you” for the first time. If you feel like your marriage is worth fighting for, then do yourself a favour and watch this quick video that will teach you everything you need to know about salvaging the most important  (link removed)

Combating Spam Calls

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

The FCC’s website says, “Unwanted calls – including illegal and spoofed robocalls - are the FCC's top consumer complaint and our top consumer protection priority.”  I have  been following the “Robocall Task Force” for a few years now, and the FCC has instituted the following to help stop these calls:

• Issuing hundreds of millions of dollars in enforcement actions against illegal robocallers {spam callers}.
• Allowing phone companies to block certain types of calls that are likely to be unlawful before they even reach consumers.
• Empowering consumers to use call blocking or labeling services for calls to their telephone number.
• Working to develop ways that phone companies can authenticate Caller ID to reduce illegal spoofing.
• Making our complaint data available to enable better call blocking and labeling solutions.

However, the number of spam calls, as I call them, are up this year over last…and last year 30.5 billion spam calls were made in 2017, up from the previous record of 29.3 billion in 2016.  The number one way to stop these calls is by not answering calls from unknown numbers. If you answer such a call, hang up immediately…but your number will certainly be fed into a “good phone number” database that these type of calls are searching for.

Some phones, like the Apple Phone, have a way to block bad calls immediately after they call you…that must be nice.  Verizon, our carrier, will allow you to block up to three, yes only 3, phone numbers for up to 3 months…and you can re-enter the numbers over and over and over…but that is not very good as far as stop spam calls, although I have used it to stop a few very persistent spam callers.  And Smart Phones can use phone apps which will also block calls…some of the better ones will block calls that many other people using the same app are blocking…these are called black lists.  But, if you have a dumb phone, as we choose to use, you are pretty much out of luck…but there is one way you can survive…

             

What Marcia and I do is we add all spam calls to our contact list.  We name the contact as “Zspam#”, with the number getting larger and larger.  We start with the letter “Z” so that they will always show up at the end of our contact list, which we can easily get to by going backwards instead of forwards when we browse through our contacts.  Each contact can hold 5 phone numbers.  And this is the important part…we set each of these spams as a “NO RING”…so WHEN they call a second time, and most of the time they will, the phone will just let out one short yet low pitched “beep” after the call is not answered.  When that happens, we don’t feel pressed to have to answer or not answer the phone…we already know it is spam.  However, sometimes they will leave a message…and that does make a noise…but most of the time they don’t.

Then on Monday ALL HELL broke loose.  At 9:18 am my phone goes off.  I don’t know them, I don’t answer, but they leave a message.  “Hi Pam, this is Jason from Quicken Loans needing to talk to you about the loan application you filled out, please call me at….”.  Of course, I add this to my spam list.  By noon I had 15 of these type of calls.  By the end of Thursday, I had 90…yes 90 of these spam calls.  Today, I had to do something about it.

I had started putting the numbers into Google, and never did the number give the company name, even when the company left a message.  Messages revealed that the companies were Ameritrade, Quicken Loans, Reality Debt Solutions, Secure Rights, LoanDepot, etc.  So this morning I called Quicken Loans from the toll free number they advertise in google.  I tell the person my situation, give her the phone number they called from, and the toll free number they told me to call back on, but she did not recognize either phone number…and told me it may be a fraud.  So I called the toll free number they left in the message, and got transferred to Kim.  She said, “If you give me your phone number I will look it up.”  I was calling on our Skruffy Phone, the pay by the minute phone that we put on Skruffy’s back when I leave the Condo so if Marcia falls down, Skruffy will run over to her, and she has instant access to a phone.  I also dialed *67 before I put in the phone number, so they won’t have access to Skruffy’s Phone number.  I kept telling Kim that unless I knew for sure that I was talking to Quicken Loans, I was not going to give out any of my information.  I finally got her direct line, which she said the last five digits is her extension number.  I then called the Quicken number found in Google, put in her extension, and sure enough, it was her.  I gave her my phone number…and five hours later, no more spam calls.  I also did the same for Ameritrade Mortgage, Reality Debt Solutions, etc. 

Now to get all this done, I first made a database of the various phone numbers that I was called from, then I sorted it.  Next I entered the numbers from each of the 90 phone calls that came in the past four days, and then I sorted that list.  Those numbers which called back repeatedly, I called on the Skruffy Phone with *67 at the start, and either the number was not recognized as a good number, they did not answer, or most of the time, I got the name of the company that called.  I then tried to find a good number in Google for that company, and proceeded to do the same thing I did with Quicken.  Twice the only way I could communicate was through a online submission from their website…and of course, they demand a name, phone number and email address.  Well, I used Pam’s name, I used the phone number they called me from, and used Pam@Yahoo.com as the required email address.  In the comments area I explained the situation, told them to stop calling (gave my real phone number) and informed them that if I get another call from them, the FCC would be notified (there is a online way to tell the FCC that I have used before).

The interesting this is that many of the calls came from the 727 prefix, which is our prefix.  I asked the lady at Quicken how this is done, and she said that they have phones numbers all over the country that they can use.  People are more likely to answer a call from their own prefix than from a 800 number, or a prefix from some major city far away.  She said all their phone representatives are there in Michigan where she was.  One thing I had read about a year ago is that the spam callers, those who are calling without you initiating the phone request (or in my case, where someone gave the wrong number) … that these spam callers are also using local prefixes.  I have been collecting these Zspam numbers for a couple of years now, with over 400 phone numbers now.  In the first 50, only 5 had the 727 prefix.  In the last 50, 35 had the 727 prefix.  Talking to our neighbor a few weeks ago she said that she only answers the local calls…I think I have her convinced to not answer anything she does not know…if it is someone she needs to talk to, they will leave a message.

What to do now?   Time to go find PAM …

Hurricane Passes 200 Miles to our West

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

Around 6:30 Tuesday night I went to one of our favorite gulf picture taking locations, Crystal Beach Florida.  This is looking out to the west…the group of islands out there is Honeymoon Island State Park…beyond that is the Gulf, and those clouds out there are part of Hurricane Michael.

The flag at Crystal Beach, which is a community within Palm Harbor…not really a ‘Beach’ as one would think of Clearwater Beach, or other real beaches in our area…but the flag was flying due west, but it was a light wind…had I got the picture just 15 seconds earlier, the flag was still. 

Last night we have a few downpours, had a constant 10-15 mph wind with a few gusts up in the 20’s to 30’s, and just a few downpours which lasted for very short periods of time…as shown in the picture above.

    

Marcia and I went back around 11 am today to see the difference between last night and today.  Around 1:15 it will be high tide, and they are expecting another foot or so from what it was when we went by.  Above you can see that the pole on the far left with a bird on it does not show up in the picture to the right…and in the picture to the right where a bird looks to be standing on water, it was standing on the pole which is clearly above water in the picture to the left.

    

These two pictures above clearly show how much higher the water is.  Now compare that to the same trees taken back in December 2016 below…

…the vegetation is much more mature today…but look at how low the water “normally” is!  A vast difference.

   

Here is the fishing pier taken today (left), and the same pier taken back in December 2016.

And this is what happens when you take your lens off in a air conditioned car, step out to take a picture in the 85 degree, 110% humidity … my eyeglasses did the same thing!

Here is an area in Tarpon Springs.  The boat dock, which does not float, has only another foot or so before it is under water.  The sea wall has about two feet before the water comes over it.  Last night there was a fisherman here and I asked him how high it was last night compared to other times.  He said that last year during the hurricane that passed through to the east of Tarpon Springs, that the water level was way, way down…the winds were pushing the water out away from shore, unlike the hurricane Tuesday which was to the west…it all depends upon which way the wind blows.

      

As I write this, the category 4 hurricane has hit the Mexico Beach area of Florida, just to the east of Panama City and Tyndall AFB, and just to the west of Port St. Joe and the Apalachicola River Wildlife area.  Devastation is going to huge…wind and storm surge has never hit this area during our the history of our nation.  The storm will do damage all the way up into Georgia..and in the Carolinas.  By Thursday it will be in the Atlantic…leaving a wake of clean-up…and who knows how many deaths. 

Dodging Hurricanes, Visiting Family

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

As of October 7th, this is the forecast of the late season hurricane that is going to hit Florida.    Impact was forecasted at Destin Florida…

As of this morning…the impact has moved 60 miles to the east, closer to Panama City Beach.

As of 3 pm, they are talking about a ‘major hurricane’, but still hitting the Panama City Beach area.  Good for us…bad for them….a major hurricane has winds over 110 MPH, and gust at 120-130…tropical storm winds in the Tamp area…not good.

 

Above is what a Category 5 storm will do…from a 1 through a 5.  This storm looks to be a Cat 2, perhaps a cat 3.  “IF” a Cat 3, our roof may cut loose…but as long as it keeps heading north, we have nothing to worry about.

Don’t know if we will need to, but we are prepared to bring the motorhome over to the Winn-Dixie near our condo ‘just in case’ we lose power.  With MS, Marcia needs to have an air conditioned environment…and frankly, without MS, I do too. 

For the past week we have been visiting with family, and just settling in.  Above is a picture of Marcia’s youngest brother Skeveos (father’s side) and his wife Linda. They came by on Saturday to visit…it was a short 4 hour visit.  They live in Brooksville, about an hour north of us, and we did not see them at all last time we were home, so that was very nice.  The night before we went to Mama Maria’s in Tarpon Spring with her brother Mike and wife Sandy and grandchild Logun.  Logun brought McD’s with him…his favorite place to eat at, along with his Nintendo Switch.  Logun is autistic, about 10 years old…when his Nintendo froze up, he brought it over to me, I restarted it for him, and he was so happy that it wasn’t broken. 

On Tuesday of last week we met Marcia’s brother Dean (mother’s side) and wife Caryl at the Lakeland Cracker Barrel for an early lunch.  After a couple hours there, we headed back.  We took the motorhome because it is so much easier on Marcia on a long trip like that…and we parked fairly close to the door…which was nice (see red line above).  On the way there and back the traffic was fairly light…however once back to the condo, after dropping Marcia and Skruffy off, I heard that there was a major wreck off Interstate 75…

A news report told it this way:  “

The multi-vehicle crash occurred after 4 p.m. Tuesday. Florida Highway Patrol troopers said a 40-year-old female driver was entering the northbound entrance ramp of I-75 when she lost control of her 2004 Toyota Sequoia. Investigators said the SUV rotated across the northbound lanes of I-75, and into the path of a tractor-trailer.

Both collided, sending the SUV into a barrier wall along the overpass and the truck over a wall, and down onto Fowler Avenue. Troopers said the tractor landed on another vehicle, killing the driver inside. The wreckage ignited a fire which burned for more than 20 minutes.

WOW!  This was about 45 minutes after we had passed this intersection!  That sure makes one think about things, that’s for sure….

As of 5:30 pm this is the latest on Hurricane Michael.  Yes, we are in the ‘red’ (bottom right of the red), but outside of the path.  This storm is a fast moving one…so even if it does hit us, the rain will come and go pretty fast.  Tomorrow I will take a few things over to the motorhome…today I turned on the fridge just in case we lose power.  By Wednesday night, on the way to church, I am sure all I will have to do is shut everything down.  However, we are prepared to bring it over to the grocery store near us if needed…it just does not look like that will be needed.  Always better to be prepared….