Just guessing here, but he’s probably telling you to stain (seal) the deck for protective, not cosmetic reasons.

ETA: Looks like Lucille and I posted at the same time! Had I read her comment first I’d have just said, “Ditto!”

As far as I know staining does not protect the wood. You need something that seals it. So I agree with you that it is cosmetic and not an insurance company concern. Perhaps the insurance guy is thinking "stain" means some all-in-one product, or is even less informed on wood protection than I am.

Lucille, this is not a pretty old porch - if it was, I'd leave it! It's a narrow deck with no roof over it. It looks out of place.

The porch is in good shape - staining or painting it might help protect it, but again, if it rotted away the insurance company wouldn't be involved in any way. I could see if it had warped boards and they were concerned about someone tripping... but there's not even a walkway to the front door at this point! lol

When we shorten it up, we'll stain or paint it then, but not going to waste money on doing the whole thing now.

Fortunately, I got insurance on my new home, and I haven't stained the back deck yet. The weather hasn't cooperated until now and I plan to stain it in May. They didn't say anything.

My previous home, when I changed plans, they had me remove trees that could potentially fall on the house, and fix the woodpecker spots on one side. Willing to comply on that!

No never heard of insurance company getting that involved. I would not like that. My neighbor decided to change insurance companies and the new one sent someone to see the house. She got a report that she needed to cut down some trees and severely cut back others. She is a tree lover and she was furious. We live in a very old forest and we treasure the beautiful old trees.

I haven't had the exact problem, but yes...I've been hassled by insurance companies. One rental has metal ribbed siding on 3 sides, then wood composite and shake shingles on the front. After being inspected, an inspector drove by, my policy was cancelled. He said it had asbestos siding. I called and they said I needed a letter from a contractor or "expert" to say it wasn't. Used our companies letterhead, agent said that was fine, wrote them a letter & we were reinstated.

In another house, I purchased it from a coworker & allowed him to live there free, to get back on his feet, while we remodeled it. I explained to the insurance company, he wasn't a renter, but the prior owner. We kept getting letters from our insurance company saying they'd looked in the downstairs windows and "no one" was living in that mess(there is a huge hedge, the lower windows can't be seen from the street). Yes, the house was occupied....it's a 3 level house. I called, the agent, she said she had NO idea why we were getting these letters from her company, she confirmed they were issued from them & requested they stop further inspections (The insurance allowed the house to be empty). Yet we received 3 letters(even with new blinds/can't see through & closed). I called to say it was rented & the letters ceased.

Many of the better insurance companies won't sell through independent brokers. I'd get a few direct quotes to calibrate.

Well our agent/broker came over today and said a lot of insurance companies are hiring out this type of inspection to freelancers - if they can't find something legitimate to complain about then they do stuff like this to try to justify their cost to the insurance company. He agreed this was not something they should even be looking at and he was going to call the insurance company.

We have no problem leaving them for another company since we've only had them for the past 2 years.

Funny thing about trees - we have 2 huge ones that are obviously dying. We are just waiting for it to get dry enough for the tree contractor to bring his heavy equipment onto the property without getting stuck. The inspector never even brought anything up about them.

Insurance companies are getting very difficult. Property inspections are very common now. If there's been a claim, their reinspecting at renewals and most will inspect for new business. Some of the big ones are using drones now, ours does. Sounds like op's insurance company is nit picking but rental properties are a different beast.

Insurance companies don't want trees overhanging the structures. High winds and heavy snow, they come down and do allot of damage.

Ours did an inside inspection and wrote us up for a dripping kitchen faucet. We were aware of it but my husband was still in a Cast from surgery and was going to fix it when we got the cast off. We received a letter giving us x amount of days to fix it or would cancel our policy.

Wow Lisa that's awful!! I would've cancelled them first!

Wow Lisa, I've never heard of such a thing. We do inside inspections but only for our high value homes where we may have some unique construction or high end appliances and such.

I'm surprised that an insurance company would inspect inside a home.

But, I can understand why they would want faulty plumbing issues repaired.

We recently came home to a flooded house and understand the damage that can be done by water. Ours was caused by a split in the waterline to the refrigerator ice maker. All flooring throughout our house is being replaced.

My summer (part time) neighbor said her insurance company told her to cut back her foundation plantings because they were a fire hazard. Hydrangeas - really???

My neighbors were told by their mortgage company that in order for the mortgage to be approved, the house would have to be painted either before or immediately after closing. What a waste. They slapped on paint to get the job done without doing the normal prep work in order to meet the target date.