Amaretto's activity

very glad to see this being raised here. There is a meeting in San Severino at the Cinema Italia at 1730 this Fri 25th which I think will be well attended. I will be there with a group of other stranieri Inglesi. If you have a home in this beautiful area please do join the preserve group on facebook or the Italian group No elettrodotto Macerata group for updates and information. its going to be tough to fight things agreed 'oh so quietly' years back but it seems that finally people who live here are understanding what was agreed without their knowledge and they are not happy at all. The consequences for health, the beauty of the area and tourist income are all dreadful. Please spread the word, we must fight this.

A very kind friend helped me get a policy today which will be c800€ rather than the intasure quote around double that via an extremely helpful broker here today. The cover is slightly less but enough to allow me to sleep ok and includes earthquake damage. I think that cos like intasure are so handy for people that dont speak brilliant Italian and are not in situ that they think they can get away with some cheeky prices, The Po policy also looks ok and definately covers terramoti and may well be worth others checking out before they accept these hefty increases. Just hope if I do have to claim I wont regret going with an Italian insurer, only time and luck will tell (plus a lot of bolts and cameras).. Am

Sigh, just had my renewal from intasure - up from £900 to over £1500. Some of the increase - about £250 of it was because we had a claim last year. Amazes me that they can punish you because the very thing you insured against happened but understand thats what they all do. At least they did pay out. Excess has sneaked up to £250 from £150 too. I could reduce the premium by £500 if I exclude earthquakes. Tempting. Then I see there were 2 5.0 quakes near Parma this morning. Oh. Hmmm. Currently doing lots of research and getting some quotes which are almost entertaining in their vastness.  Copelands said £3.5k at least. Good grief, what to do. Am

if you understand some italian try this - http://www.dossier.net/guida/calabi.htm   and we have printed out and used this form at the post office to pay - they are usually very helpful re filling it out correctly http://www.spcon.it/images/BOLLETTINIICI-2005NEW.GIF   most likely it will be the same amount you paid last year, you need to know your cadastral value for the  calculator. Hope that helps.. Am

Thanks for the links, though the more I read, like Gala,  the more my mind is boggled. I am determined to try to understand at least a little more but my head hurts.. On a global level Mr Am reads a lot of the comments on http://www.zerohedge.com/ some of which I understand, some of which might as well be in a very foreign language. None of it is telling me 'everything is going to be alright' though personally I am not too worried re the Mayan dates as I am not a great believer in everything being ordained. In the meantime the Aljazeera footage of current events in Egypt is shocking and quite horrible. What extraordinary times. Am  

Penny I think Max is always worth a listen though I do find his voice puts me off, can't bear it. I didn't know that about the Whitlam Gov ( before my time) but at least it was ratified by elections soon after. I make no judgement about whether this is the best thing  for Italy - it may well be, it just surprises me that votes only count to a point and goalposts seem to move when its deemed a crisis. Will certainly check out your links, thanks. Am

For an alternative viewpoint I have been finding Beppe Grillo's blog - available in English here - http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/ interesting and educational. I wonder if the US or Uk populus would accept a totally non elected government? It may be the best thing for Italy right now but I am finding it hard to get my head around. Not as hard as I found it to understand why any woman would have voted for Berlusconi  though, all those showgirls in positions of power - multo bizarro to me. What happens to them?  If anyone can recommend any good sources of info about the Italian system thats written in English I would be very grateful, I live here full time now and want to understand the hows and whys better than I do but my Italian is not good enough yet to get to grips with the analysis in the papers. This article is scary but very interesting - is it really Goldman Sachs running the whole show now - the Indie seems to think so http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-pr... Am

Paolo my intasure policy is almost £1k iirc, it does cover earthquakes (but possibly not first £2k of costs I think) again standard £1m rebuild and only £30k of contents, no accidental damage, I think Badger had a great offer. I was tied into a 5 yr deal before with Generali which had no earthquake cover and that was £600 a year. We are also full time occupants. I think its outrageoulsy expensive compared to Uk but am very glad I did have the policy in place. I think the Post office may well be worth investigating - will have a look tomorrow. Am

I can vouch for intasure - they paid up when we were burgled this summer. I can also concur with what Sebastiano said re thieves going for money and 'all that glitters' - they took all my jewellery, silver (most of which was plate so worth very little, so annoying) and cash we had taken out of the bank because we were worried about the banks here (doh). They did not touch even our laptops, let alone TV, stereos etc. Intasure put it into the hands of loss adjusters who were very fair, asked a lot of questions then offered us a lump sum - no arguing over individual items worth which I was expecting - though maybe I had under valued my losses! Intasure deal with both holiday homes and full time residences, they are not cheap - I hate to think what we will be quoted next year but they do pay out and they will cover you if you are planning to let your place out plus they also cover for earthquakes. We were told that holiday homes are not such major targets for thieves - currently non Italians living here full time are bigger targets as - unlike sensible Italians - we do not put everything in a safe and do have a few nice things being mostly middle aged middle class. I can highly recommend if you do have any good jewellery leave it in the back of the cupboard you put baking trays and saucepans - NOT on dressing tables or drawers in a bedroom. I am spending much of the payout on new security systems, sad to have to do it but anyone thinking that the countryside is crime free here is sadly mistaken and I have a nasty feeling its going to get much worse. I do not think Italsure still do any household insurance but the Post Office policy may also well be worth investigating. Am

Finally got my residency sorted a few months ago so was looking forward to the leccy bills going down a bit but seems as we have 6kw I can save myself a trip to the PO fax machine to show Enel my residency cert, it'll be the same price anyway...3kw would be ok in winter but the pool pump which runs at about 1.3 in summer means we really do need the extra potential then and I guess you cant switch to a lower limit for half the year of course. It does make looking at an off grid PV system even more interesting as prices drop, can anyone confirm if is possible to take your leccy off grid in winter (say with a set up which supplies about 3k) and  top up with the lower 3k supply from enel at the cheaper price when needed? Anyone here have experience of running a non grid tied system  in Italy? As so far we have failed to have the address for the bills we are sent changed from no 20 to no 17 on the same rd despite 4 phone calls over 18months from native Italian speakers requesting the update (and each time being assured that it was all sorted) I hate to think how hard it may be to agree a system combining a lower demand rate with an independent off grid supply ...aaargh. Am