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Posts Tagged ‘insurance’

Tiny House Living: Security and Simplicity?

By on February 22, 2013   /   Uncategorized   /   37 Comments

After Ryan’s post earlier this week, I got to thinking about sense of security. Living in a tiny house definitely decreases dependence on money but living the tiny life does not necessarily mean a life free of worries.

happinessBefore jumping in, I have to say that the completion of La Casita came at a time of great upheaval in the lives of my fiancee and I. Our rental had been foreclosed on, the bank had kicked us out, the tiny house was 3/4 done and we were essentially homeless. Luckily I had family in the greater Charleston area that took us in but it was a harsh reality for a couple of months. Since moving in to our house, life has been easier in terms of money but in terms of legal shelter there have been distinct challenges.

I guess my first question for someone thinking about a tiny house would be:zoning do you mind living in an illegal situation according to most zoning codes? If this doesn’t bother you then my second question would be: does possibly not having a home address, which can make acquiring a driver’s license, a post office box or your citizenship difficult, concern you?

These are some of the realities we’ve faced living in a tiny house. Without a home address, it is very difficult to get our driver’s licenses in Vermont. Without a home address my fiance can’t start his citizenship application and in Charleston I couldn’t get a po box without a street address. Not everyone has this issue when it comes to tiny living but it has been a constant for us since moving in to La Casita and I never considered this would be one of the issues I would face.

Having just moved to a new community in Vermont, we’re slowly meeting folks and people are incredibly nice and open to what we are doing but we’ve already had a town official contact us about living in the house and its questionable legality. In a town of 3800 people, it’s not going to take long for us to be noticed. In a city of 100,000 it was much easier to hide from zone enforcement although they would roll by in their truck about once a month. They never stopped and asked questions but the possibility was there and we knew it. La Casita was a “temporary studio space”  to anyone official who asked but it was fairly obvious we were living in it. Luckily, we planted it in the ghetto where cops and officials were more worried about busting drug dealing than some illegal zoning issue. Don’t get me wrong, I loved that neighborhood and living there was wonderful. We had great neighbors and no one ever messed with us but if we had parked anywhere else in the historic district of downtown Charleston, I’m certain we would have been forced to move.

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Taking Tiny Houses To The Next Level

By on September 27, 2012   /   Tiny House   /   25 Comments

There has been some discussion on our site about Tiny Houses whether or not Tiny House have “arrived”.  I personally think we are there or close enough, but certainly we will keep on growing.  It got me thinking, if there were a few things that I’d like to see in the coming years, what would they be?  Here are the top five things I think would take Tiny Houses to the next level.

1. Tiny House Lending

I think this is pretty self-explanatory; Tiny Houses face many barriers to getting capital to build their Tiny House.  While I am generally against having debt, Tiny Houses often are about the cost of rent for 3 years if you build it yourself, but most don’t have the money all at once.  I’d love to see a 3 and 5 year mortgage option for Tiny Houses.  I wrote more on this here

2. Tiny House insurance Co-Op

I firmly believe that there is a need for a nonprofit insurance company, that doesn’t have shareholders.  The idea that profits should be generated above paying staff and direct costs to the provider is something I take issue with.  So let’s have a nonprofit cooperative insurance group that specifically ties into the tiny house community.  I think much of the success of this will hinge on getting enough people involved and the establishment of plain language building code.  More here

3. Accessible Tiny House Building Code

What if building codes were written in plain English?  What if building codes made special provisions for Tiny Houses?  I have struggled with this one; do we want to bring in a formal building code?  It is a tough call.  I think in order to establish safety standards and open a dialogue with municipalities this is something that will inevitably come, so it might be better if we write the code instead of someone else calling the shots for us.

4. Tiny House Land & Communities

I would that getting land might be one of the largest barriers to Tiny Houses, to put it simply, land is really expensive unless you want to live in rural areas.  I’d love to see some land open up that is near a city and is opened up to Tiny House folks for a small yearly fee.  I have kicked around the idea of purchasing land and opening it to those who want to bring their Tiny House.  I’d charge a reasonable fee; I just need to figure out how to arrange it legally so I can protect myself from liability and squatters.

5. Tiny House Convergence

I would love to see a mass gathering of Tiny Houses and Tiny House people.  I often refer to our community of Tiny Houses people and I think an event like this would bring our close knit community even closer, generate a lot of discussion and make strides in progressing the Tiny House cause.  I would love to see it held where we could make a big splash media wise; just imagine a swarm of Tiny Houses converging on the National Mall in Washington DC one weekend!  The trouble is that we are spread out over a good distance so everyone would have to travel a good distance.

Your Turn!

What things do think need to happen next for Tiny Houses?

 

 

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Tiny House Insurance

By on August 6, 2012   /   Tiny House   /   16 Comments

In the wake of the recent Kim’s Tiny House fire I found myself thinking about insurance options for Tiny Houses.  Now I have heard many people speak about their efforts to get insured by traditional companies through various approaches.  Many were not able to and the one who did are few and far between.  Where I get hung up at is even if you were able to get insured from an insurance company and had a claim, I see it going only one way.  Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think it is stretch that once that claims adjuster comes to your property, takes one look at your Tiny House, they will be on the phone working out a way to get out of paying.  They will come up with some way out of paying, leaving you high and dry after being a dutiful customer.

Inherently a business makes money by increasing it’s income and decreasing it’s expenditures;  the gap equals profit.  So a for profit insurance companies ensures it profit by being efficient internally and minimizing the money paid to it’s customers.  In a perfect world they could do this while maintaining ethical standards, but we have seen that is far too often, that is not the case.  So what is the solution?

The old adage, if you want something done right, you’ll need to do it yourself.  So what if we were to create our own insurance company, a non profit entity, maybe even a Co-Operative?  A entity that was dedicated to Tiny Houses, that protected it’s people in a fair and just way.

Members would pay a monthly fee, which would be gathered into a non profit bank account, we could position the funds (or part of them) to earn a certain interest rate to ensure that we keep ahead of inflation, but it would be a extremely low risk option.  I think it would be prudent to have a $500 (maybe $1000) deductible to minimize very small claims.  By doing this, it would mean that who ever is running it isn’t spending hours processing dozens of claims for a $50 claims.  So it saves the insurance funds from being whittled down in little chunks and save on a lot of costs of staff time.

What would be interesting is after a member has been with the insurance company for more than 3 or 5 years without a large claim, their rates could drop to half the original rate.  The idea being that you have paid enough into the system that it has amassed to enough to cover a big claim.  We would have to decide if their rate would rise if they were to submit a large claim.

The real trick is to get enough people involved so we could get some economy of scale, the large number of people we have, the quicker the fund could grow to a point where it could take several total loss claims.  So that is some of my thoughts on how to approach this issue, protect our tiny houses and build a stronger community.

What your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!

If you had a Tiny House, would you be willing to pay for insurance?

  • Yes - A fee that is reasonable with market rates (86%, 195 Votes)
  • No - I would keep $20-$30,000 in bank (self insure) (12%, 27 Votes)
  • No - I'd just chance it (can't afford to insure) (2%, 6 Votes)

Total Voters: 228

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What is the MAXIMUM you would be willing to pay for Tiny House Insurance?

  • I'd pay a max of $30 - monthly ($360 annually) (36%, 442 Votes)
  • I'd pay a max of $10 monthly ($120 Annually) (21%, 258 Votes)
  • I'd pay a max of $20 - monthly ($240 annually) (20%, 250 Votes)
  • I'd pay a max of $15 monthly ($180 annually) (13%, 156 Votes)
  • I'd pay a max of $25 - monthly ($300 annually) (10%, 135 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,239

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