OF course deductible and and amount covered will be mostly a financial decision. I don't know anything about OP coverage. I suggested he ask since he doesn't have $6K kicking around.
In my case and likely most this is small potatoes on payout vs marring of no claims . I carry a $2500 deductible .
Holy hell, mine is $500 and it was waived because I'd never had a claim previously.
$1000
That's what I did, was told it was forgiven for being the first claim, and because I had no claims, there was no deductible. Made it a no-brainer to run it through insurance at that point.
Take a peek at raising it. I have had no claims ever and the few hundred it costs for low deductible x 30 years of ownership , adds up. $2500 deductible is a bummer not a problem in life for me.
The cost of my home insurance is so low compared to what I pay for auto, I'm not sure it would be worth the bother. Plus, in this situation, it ended up being a bonus as I wasn't out $8,500 to fix my service.
Congrats, you now have a record in a general insurance database for better or worse. What insurance companies do with this info is up to them. I found out there are no secrets that you can hide from insurance companies. When getting quotes for my 2 cars once I retired last year I wanted a policy for 3 family members who are in my household, my daughter moved out years ago and got married so I never mentioned her as needing coverage as she has her own life and car. Well she had a claim about 7 years ago while living at home and they dug it up from database. They would not give me a good rate unless I could prove that she now has coverage from another company. 2 companies dug this info up although I never mentioned her name at all. All the companies claimed that they offer first claim forgivness with no impact on rates but you know how insurance companies are. My long time company kept rates high for years why but never told me why, I did save quite a bit by moving companies after jumping through the quote hoops.
The total is going to be right around $8K. I can write a check for that, but it puts quite a dent in my savings. I can live comfortably for about 5.2 minutes. Kidding. sort of. LOL
I haven't contacted them and don't intend to.
Our RAM has been in two accidents and got taken out by a few large tree branches in this same recent storm, so I'm not really worried about having a record. I have everything insured with the same company. My Jeep is obscenely expensive to insure unfortunately because it has high theft risk and I have my 21 year old insured on the policy, and apparently they tack it onto whichever vehicle has the most coverage, and since the Jeep has All Perils, it's that one, so that's $1,000 on top of what I already pay.
Im a retired electrical contractor in Kentucky. 5 grand seems a bit high seeing how they only have to put up a new mast. If you are still allowed to use service entrance cable like in you PIC it would be an easy fix. Even adding a ten foot stick of rigid conduit straight up from the top of the meter is pretty simple and basic. Does your state really require a whole home inspection just for a service repair? Maybe prices have gotten a lot higher since I retired but even using my Union electricians the cost would have been half what you were quoted and thats with replacing the meter base and new grounding.
We've had several cities make people do all those upgrades whenever the power was disconnected. I was against that nonsense. Luckily they didn't require it statewide and they still let homeowners do their own electrical work. My company did volunteer work with local churches for those that couldn't afford it and I paid non Union guys and also helped myself when I could get out of the office. Many retired folks couldn't come up with an unexpected ten grand just to have their electric turned back on.
It's why I put my deductible to 15 or 20k. Unless the place burns down or falls over, I have no use for insurance.
