Welcome to another installment of

“What Really Burns Me!!”

Ladies and gentlemen here we go again, another Insurance scam, in my opinion.

As many of you will know the utility companies specifically water and sewer provide a type of insurance that is supposed to protect you from the high cost of a water main or sewer main break on your property.

And many of you have probably been receiving the mailers that you get offering this insurance to you for a low low price of $5.99 a month.

And yes the electric company does offer the same thing but things have changed over the years to bring this about.

As you recall if you had a branch hanging on your electric line your electric company would come out to your home cut that Branch off the line and that would be that.

But now that is not the case it has become your responsibility whether it’s the tree from your neighbor’s yard that has that Branch hanging on the electric line or your own you have to pay the cost to get that branch removed or do it yourself.

Doing it yourself can risk bodily injury or other problems but that is no concern of theirs.

And if a line goes down and it’s on your property naturally it becomes your problem or you can pay for an insurance that will cover that cost.

The water and sewer has the same type of insurance but surprise surprise it doesn’t cover very much.

So here’s how the water and sewer lay this out for you.

In the mailer they send you they provide handy dandy pictures  to illustrate what they are providing as if we are not very bright.

These pictures depict your property line and two pipes and a picture of your home and the way this works is, the property line runs across the two pipes that are shown.

The sewer line is a dark colored pipe and the water line is a white, outlined, pipe.

Now according to the insurance provided by the water company your coverage for the water pipe would be from your property line to your home and for the sewer it is from the main sewer line to your home that means outside of your property line.

The problem with all of this insurance is what it covers. it describes that the average cost for a repair on a water line or sewer line is about $4,500. And it says minus deductible for the water line that is inside of your property line. and the sewer line inside of your property line is also covered but not the sewer line that’s outside of your property line. you have to pay for that pipe that’s outside of your property line out of pocket

And to top it all off they have a $1,000 reimbursement for any type of repairs to the property that is caused by them tearing up the ground to repair the lines and they will do this with a contractor of their choice that will work with the insurance. You notice I said reimbursement. Even if the repairs to the property were only $1,000 and it could be reimbursed to you who has $1,000 laying around nowadays for that kind of repair or the time to wait for the reimbursement

Here is the problem with all of  this. first and foremost most of us that buy a home were there when it was built we didn’t pay for it to be built we didn’t ask for it to be built. it was built however many years ago with lines and pipes already attached. And the way It used to be it was that if  something happened do any of the utilities they would come out and fix it and the only thing you would have to worry about is your own property i.e. dirt, or concrete or whatever needed to be replaced that was on your property.

But wait there’s more a lot of those houses were forced to have City water and sewer they were told that they could no longer use the wells that were around their home of course these are homes that are outside of the city limits but they were forced nonetheless.

They even made it into a law that you could not use your wells anymore for your water source you must use their water.

why you ask well because they own the water rights meaning they own the water that’s all around our city, inside and out, in our pipes, the aquifers, everything.

Why do you think that you’re not allowed to use a cistern or to collect rainwater because they own the water rights including the water that falls from the sky.

And furthermore they also know that the amount of money it would take to repair any type of property damage while repairing those pipes will well exceed the $1,000 reimbursement that they’re claiming to provide for you.

And the whole time that this is all happening to you they’re taking that money that you’re paying for that insurance and they’re putting in their pockets and getting kick back from me contractors to make sure that the contractor comes out and does excessive damage to your property so that you have to continue to pay for it.

I have a friend who had to have his property and pipes redone after the original repair.

the original repair cost him over $4,000 just for the pipes not to mention another 3500 for all the property repairs and the 2nd pipe repair.

The contractors and the water and sewer companies naturally work together to supposedly help the customer when there’s an issue as well as them working with the insurance for your protection and less money you have to pay out of pocket.

And that may be true that you have to pay less money but you’re still paying and exorbitantly high amount not to mention being taxed on water and sewer and paying a monthly bill that covers all of the pipe repairs and everything else that happens under the city streets and the sewer line that are not on your property but you’re sure as hell paying for it.

And then you flip this all around and you look at the current and immediate cost.

The price of water and sewer has doubled nearly tripled in the last two years I went from paying every other month for my sewer approximately 35 bucks and every month for my water approximately 45 to paying $118 every month for water and sewer combined not to mention storm water runoff every 6 months.

So I pay for the water that comes out of the sky that runs into the storm drain and flows right into the sewer and goes right back into the sewer treatment plant which takes that same water filters it and supposedly cleans it up to a point where it’s drinkable which that water goes right back into the drinking water.

And if you think that’s not true just ask the sewer company what happens to all the water after it’s cleaned and purified it is either stored in a giant water cistern to be saved in case we have a drought or it’s immediately put back into the environment by being dumped out into some open land or creek or river somewhere. And it is also well known that is how they dispose of purified sewer water. or it is put directly back into the drinking system in many cities including Fostoria.

So as you can see the issues went from an insurance that makes the utility companies and water companies millions of dollars a year on top of the millions upon millions that they already make all the way to a point where now you know that you may be drinking sewer water because whether or not it’s dumped into the drinking water directly or dumped into the land that water runs down into the ground and into the rivers and creeks where you get your drinking water anyway.

Kind of reminds me when they found out here in Ohio that farmers were receiving fertilizer that was made from human excrement from the East Coast.

Now don’t you feel like you’re getting screwed no matter which way you turn.

Insurance in any form in any way is a scam they may cover some things but they sure don’t cover near enough whether it be medical, whether it be property, whether it be land or any other type of insurance it is a scam to make them billions upon billions a year.

Once again this has been another installment of

“WHAT REALLY BURNS ME”

And as always the majority of what I tell you is my opinion. Except for those pesky facts that are always seeming to pop up. Those can be researched

Thomas Domich

#pissedoffredneckveteran