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My insurance sent me a letter today that they are cancelling my home owner's insurance, because I supposedly have "asbestos siding" on my house.

I don't really know what counts as "asbestos siding", but I'm 99% sure my home is using wood shingles (redwood or cedar). I don't think the inspector took any samples of the paint or the singles themselves. The home was re-painted fairly recently.

The insurance company's inspection report does not contain any explanation, other than a picture of my house from the street and the comment "this is asbestos siding". No lab report or anything.

Is this "asbestos siding"?

Edit: Located in California - might be one of their attempts to kick Californians off their policies.

enter image description here

Nelson
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mitchkman
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    I don't know of any wood or paint having asbestos. You can send a sample off to be tested, the only way to know, but it sounds like your insurance is just trying to drop you and came up with a weak excuse. I would check if your area/country government has an office that oversees insurance. – crip659 Jul 19 '23 at 17:46
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    Send a sample, or two for testing - only way to be sure and have evidence the insurance co should accept. – Solar Mike Jul 19 '23 at 17:47
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    Easy to tell. Light it on fire. That piece would make pretty good kindling if it's wood, and will sustain a flame. If it's asbestos it won't burn at all. There is no such thing as paint containing asbestos. The scary stuff found in paint is lead, so don't eat it - otherwise it's not a big worry. However, what's underneath that? It may have been applied over some sort of hard-board siding. They may know that neighborhood development was built that way. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jul 19 '23 at 17:50
  • Underneath it is just another wood shingle. I lit the piece on fire, it burns pretty well. So definitely wood, right? – mitchkman Jul 19 '23 at 18:02
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    Home insurers are looking for any and every way to cancel polices in CA and FL right now. This seems like a fishing expidition in an area where several homes probably had/have that type of siding (not that it's prohibited anyway, to my knowledge). Same thing happened to me this spring. A lot of homes in my neighborhood have open eaves with the roof framing exposed. Mine doesn't, but they sent the blanket cancellation anyway. Correcting them got me a renewal, but next year it'll be something else. – Chris O Jul 19 '23 at 18:26
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    ...although with their main concern for CA insureds being fire loss, I don't see how canceling for fire-retardant siding makes sense. :) – Chris O Jul 19 '23 at 18:28
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    Maybe optimistic but a company this bad at risk assessment will have rising premiums and a falling stock price. Shop around. – jay613 Jul 20 '23 at 08:36
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    I dunno what goes as "asbestos siding" but that isn't asbestos, it is wood. Asbestos for roofing or tiling was usually added to a mortar/cement mix and would look... "tiley", or it could be woven and look wallpapery (now there is a job you don't want; asbestos-weaver). Used as insulation it could be raw and look fibrous/stony or like rockwool. Asbestos was for a time a positive word, you could get synthetic rockwools that due to fibre length classifies and then all bets are off, any pressed board or rockwool/fibre mat substance from the right era could be asbestos, but that, sir, is wood. – Stian Jul 20 '23 at 08:53
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    Who is your insurance company and what is their twitter handle – Ken - Enough about Monica Jul 20 '23 at 11:10
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    I used to have asbestos-cement siding on a house. On a broken tile like that it would look like grey powder in the middle; like cement. If you drilled into it it would turn to a find sand. It looked nothing like wood except for the fake texture of the surface. It was very smooth and painted very well unlike your picture that looks like it has the natural pits and valleys of wood. – Brad Jul 20 '23 at 13:02
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    @Brad it looked like cement because it was cement. (Asbestos' long tough threads were effectively "rebar" in the thin concrete sheets.) – RonJohn Jul 20 '23 at 14:25
  • I would also have a lawyer look though your insurance contract, I imagine most of the big and little words in the fine print, we might not read the same as a lawyer would. – crip659 Jul 20 '23 at 20:24
  • Do you have an insurance agent you can talk to, or is your contact with the insurance company a 1-800 number or website? – spuck Jul 20 '23 at 20:46
  • Asbestos siding doesn't crack; it shatters. "it looked like cement because it was cement." - "If you drilled into it it would turn to a find sand. It looked nothing like wood except for the fake texture of the surface." – Mazura Jul 20 '23 at 23:58
  • @Mazura "Asbestos siding doesn't crack; it shatters." Because it's thin concrete. – RonJohn Jul 21 '23 at 01:03
  • To reviewers, please dont approve image enhancements. There is no visible difference. The only reason the old one looks faded is because of the review mode – Rohit Gupta Jul 21 '23 at 03:00
  • If your house was built in or before the 70s and the siding has not been replaced, it has asbestos in it. But Every single house built before then is absolutely loaded with asbestos and still insured. It's in the drywall, the flooring, the caulk, the texture, the insulation. Pretty much EVERY SINGLE THING in an old home contains asbestos. – jesse_b Jul 21 '23 at 16:14
  • @Harper-ReinstateMonica: Asbestos was actually a very common additive in both household and automotive paints until the 1980s. They really put the stuff in everything until it was banned, and it's still not even fully banned in the US. It's still allowed in certain applications. – jesse_b Jul 22 '23 at 12:12
  • @Mazura while it wasn't hard to shatter, it can crack too. My parents had a number of asbestos shingles on their house which were split in half through a nail hole and at least some of the time damage would break a corner off as a 1-3 inch triangle. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Jul 22 '23 at 18:24
  • Are the shingles all the same width? I'd think that asbestos shingles are sort of uniform in their dimensions (I'm not at all an expert). Cedar shingles, on the other hand would be irregular. A pic of the house from the street, might clarify things. – Schneb Jul 22 '23 at 23:44
  • "split in half" - It cleaves, it doesn't partially fracture. – Mazura Jul 29 '23 at 19:07

3 Answers3

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Just as we here in internet land cannot tell without a lab report, neither can the Insurance company.

Ask them for the lab report that verifies that your home has asbestos siding.

When they cannot produce it advise them that you are reporting them to your State Insurance Commission for canceling you without due cause.

The whole thing may go away. Or they will find another reason to cancel you because that is what Insurance companies are doing now. But if they are being a PITA to you you might as well return the favor.

RMDman
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    Especially if you post on social media... – Solar Mike Jul 19 '23 at 17:49
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    I do find it amazing how fast companies bend over backward to help after you get one of the media's consumer watchdogs after them. – crip659 Jul 19 '23 at 17:52
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    @crip659 Yes, it seems the modern day corporate modus operandi is to screw people over and only consider doing the right thing if someone raises a big enough stink. Sad. Perhaps I'm biased because I just watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Lv2j7y_Bw – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 20 '23 at 10:43
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    TBH, I'd consider changing insurance companies after an act like this anyway. Get them to reinstate you then cancel it of your own accord. – FreeMan Jul 20 '23 at 13:55
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    @FreeMan Ah the classic "You can't fire me! I QUIT!" – MonkeyZeus Jul 20 '23 at 18:32
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    @FreeMan: Might go the opposite way. This insurance company is going to have difficulty denying any claims on this property after they've been caught red-handed falsifying material facts (obviously keep the evidence). I mean, they've shown they are willing to try, but any court is going to give the homeowner full credibility and the company none after seeing that the insurance company already attempted fraud. – Ben Voigt Jul 20 '23 at 18:54
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    BTW, the inspector should be reported for malfeasance to the appropriate licensing board and will lose their inspector license. – Ben Voigt Jul 20 '23 at 18:58
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    Upvoting because I also strongly believe in shifting an annoyance onto the party that created it. – T.E.D. Jul 20 '23 at 19:37
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    @FreeMan If I am not mistaken, getting insurance once you have been cancelled/dropped is both harder and much more expensive, unless you change companies yourself before it happens. – crip659 Jul 20 '23 at 20:18
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    It probably is, @crip659, hence my suggestion to change after getting them to reinstate coverage due to their incompetence. – FreeMan Jul 21 '23 at 17:01
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A lot of asbestos siding was textured to look like wood. Newer mineral siding looks exactly like asbestos (and so, like wood) siding but contains no asbestos. And may still be called "asbestos siding" by some people when the distinction is not important.

For your insurance company to make that call from the street is ridiculous.

The sample in your hand looks like wood to me, but that's not worth much more than the walk-by assessment done by the insurer.

Does it behave like wood? Does it splinter? Do small fibers of it become soft? Does it absorb water and expand like wood? I would say "does it smell like wood", but if it's asbestos you don't want to be sniffing it.

jay613
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    For what it is worth, it burns like wood (no I did not light the entire house on fire). – mitchkman Jul 19 '23 at 18:04
  • I did a fast google search a few days ago about asbestos bans. It seems the US still allows/has not ban it, so as a building material , insurance seems off to cancel. Health insurance is a different matter. – crip659 Jul 19 '23 at 18:04
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    Now that I looked at it closer, I remember helping a friend side his house with stuff that looked just like that. It was concrete based, similar to Hardy board. Absolutely no asbestos. HOWEVER!!!! it looked just like the siding on other homes in the neighborhood that supposedly did have asbestos in them. Those homes were built in the 30s and 40s. – RMDman Jul 19 '23 at 20:58
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    @mitchkman I'm no expert at all, but I thought the point of using asbestos was to act as a flame retardant. So if it burns like wood, it seems like the asbestos content may be low or nil. But, as I said, I'm no expert at all. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 20 '23 at 10:46
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    @mitchkman Then it’s probably not pure asbestos (asbestos melts before it ‘burns’, but you have to get it really hot (as in thousands of degrees Celsius hot) to have that happen). It might still have some asbestos content though, so you should still get it properly tested. – Austin Hemmelgarn Jul 20 '23 at 14:46
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Take down a COMPLETE shingle and see what's stamped on or taped to the back of it, if anything. Manufactured boards often have branding labels on them, so you can reorder more of the same pattern. Look up whatever you find.

If you think it is wood, then do a simple burn test on a SMALL, unpainted chunk of it. Use a lighter and if it doesn't start making coals or ignite after 15 seconds, it's in question. DO NOT INHALE. Lots of other chemicals and crap in there.

Bee Kay
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