Golden Valley, Duncan's Creek, Sunshine Insurance Rates May Incerease

Karen here:

I received a call from an upset home owner yesterday – the story is long but here’s the gist. You might get a letter from your insurance company about an increase in insurance rates since it’s significant. Evidentially this is NOT affecting everyone, just the insurance agencies that have subscribed to a certain mapping service.

Here’s the short-short: if I understand correctly, a mapping company has geo-coded our area (served by the Cherry Mountain Fire Department) for Insurance Districts. In order to get the best rate you have to live within 5 miles of our fire department. Anyone/any household falling outside of the district (and this is as the vehicle drives and not as the crow flies) is billed at the higher rate. People are not actually losing their rate, it seems that they’ve been getting a break and with the new mapping they won’t be getting that anymore. To add an interesting twist to the story, the mapping is from the old fire station at Bostic Sunshine and Duncan’s Creek and not from the new station. Consequently, for now, it’s a muddle.

If this turns out to affect a lot of people I’ll talk with the Fire Chief and will do an indepth article about it. Meanwhile, I am telling people to contact Randy McKinny of Allstate for insurance information. He is local; so he’s aware of the situation and its ramifications. 828 287-8010.

February 2, 2012