Hartford Homeowners Refused

[FrederickS306548]

 I am seeking a new home insurer and called Hartford as they are connected to AARP. After two long discussions on the telephone answering questions with their "agents" (you cannot align with one) they gave a telephone quote that was realistic. They would go ahead and process the payment but I needed a day to move some money for this so they emailed the quote and said to call back with the payment.

     I called the next day to start payments and to my surprise they began asking more questions. One question was whether or not I work from home. I do a few hours of 1099 electronics design work from home (no office, equipment etc). They put me on hold and several minutes later responded that they would not insure me due to my 1099 work. It was made clear that I am retired.

  Fair enough if this is their policy but I find this peculiar. Especially for retirees I cannot imagine that it is an unusual situation. Furthermore other insurers did not seem to have a problem with this. 

 Has anyone experienced this? I find it surprising that AARP would support them under these circumstances.

  thanks Fritz

[robin24]

Shop around, I have been working at home over 35 years and have never had a problem. I currently have State Farm and their rates were the best that I could find last year. I compare prices every 1-2 years, auto and home owners.

[AARPConsumerCare]

Hi @FrederickS306548, I'm sorry to hear you had trouble with The Hartford. I would like to get more details about this and share it with our Member Relations team. Please send me a private message or visit https://help.aarp.org/s/article/contact-aarp to chat, text, or speak with a representative. - Diana G.

[FrederickS306548]

Debora

  is this the correct way to connect to your private message or do I need a separate email?

thank you

Fritz

[AARPConsumerCare]

Fritz, you may need to enable your private messages first. Please follow the steps in our article: https://aarp.info/47hWcl7 - Diana G.

[FrederickS306548]

Diana--after much navigating about your web pages I see no "message envelope" or private messaging options. Apparently chat is down for the night. I would certainly like to talk to you on this. Please advise and thank you--Fritz

[FrederickS306548]

Diana G.
After two long sessions today with your help staff for the forums, they decided that they cannot get my messaging to work as the menus no longer apply.
Is there a way you can get directly in touch with me via my email?
thanks
Fritz

[AARPConsumerCare]

I apologize for the inconvenience, @FrederickS306548. Please call us at your earliest convenience, our toll-free nationwide phone number is 1-888-OUR-AARP (1-888-687-2277). Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. — 8 p.m. ET. - Diana G.

[FrederickS306548]

Diana

   I called the number you suggested and apparently they do not have a way to contact you directly. If you can email me directly that would be best since the AARP messaging system is not working according to your chat-representative-Fritz

[AARPConsumerCare]

I'm sorry for the confusion, Fritz. Let me clear this up for you. To take a look at the issue you're having with The Hartford and connect you to our Member Relations team, we need some information that we cannot ask in this public forum (such as your address and phone number or email). When you call our team, they won't be able to transfer you directly to me but any of our phone representatives can forward the information to them. Thank you. - Diana G.

[GailL1]

@FrederickS306548 

Can’t speak to The Hartford particularly but as a person that was self-employed the entire time of my working career and also with a portion of my home that act as a business ( art studio), I did find that many insurers would not cover business property so we had to find insurers that would write the homeowners policy + business property.  In my case, this was easy since the business portion of my home was very separate even with a separate electric and water meter.  The business property was the major concern - since it was much more than a desk, chair and a computer.  

So, The Hartford is not alone in not covering businesses in the home.