[Cob] Announce: New insurance list for alt building

[billc_lists at greenbuilder.com]

Hi folks,

An important question that continues to resurface with regard to 
"alternative" homes is that of INSURANCE.

It appears that many insurers hesitate to insure alternative homes, 
and those that have in the past are tightening up their belts and 
dropping anything which is even slightly out of the ordinary.  Or 
hiking the rates.

Part of this of course is because insurance companies work by 
averaging risk, and alternative homes (and espeically owner-built 
homes) are unknown quantities to them.  They don't know if there will 
be qualified contractors available to repair any problems which might 
occur, and they don't have any solid data on the cost of such repairs.

Recent discussion on at least a couple of discussion lists indicated 
interest in   pooling the interests of builders and homeowners from 
the alternative building community in order to find solutions to this 
continuing problem.  Ideas such as cooperative self-insurance, or 
working an arrangement with some of the more open minded insurance 
companies have been suggested.  Perhaps you have other ideas, and are 
interested in moving them forward.

Here's my holiday gift to the alternative building community:  a new 
listserv for discussion (and hopefully some solutions) regarding the 
question of insuring our unconventional homes and other buildings. 
Without any annoying advertisements, I might add.

To join, send an email to:

	AltHomeIns at lists.greenbuilder.com

with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Sign up, let's get talking.

If you don't want to join but want to read what goes on, the list 
discussions will be archived at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AltHomeIns/ (open to all).

This message is cross-posted to the lists below.  Please feel free to 
post to other alternative home building lists that you participate in.

Cob			coblist at deatech.com
cohousing		cohousing-l at cohousing.org
ESSA			essa at csf.colorado.edu
Greenbuilding		GREENBUILDING at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Green Bldg Alliance NE	gbane at yahoogroups.com
Straw Bale Assn Of Tx	SBAT-1 at yahoogroups.com
strawbale		STRAWBALE at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
SB-R-Us			SB-r-us at yahoogroups.com
-- 
Bill Christensen
http://greenbuilder.com/contact/

Green Building Professionals Directory: http://directory.greenbuilder.com
Sustainable Building Calendar: http://www.greenbuilder.com/calendar/
Green Real Estate: http://www.greenbuilder.com/realestate/
Straw Bale Registry: http://sbregistry.greenbuilder.com/
Books/videos/software: http://bookstore.greenbuilder.com/