How To Know When To Add Riders To Your Home Insurance Policy
Many homeowners believe that their home insurance policies cover everything they own, personal belongings and all. While this may be somewhat true, there are things most people own that are generally not covered in full by their home insurance policies. To compensate for the value of things that are not covered, you can add riders to your homeowner's insurance policy.
The purpose of a rider
Before you can decide if you need to add riders or not, it would be beneficial for you to know what they are and why you might need them. A rider with any insurance policy is like an add-on to the policy and is designed to offer protection over a specific item that is not fully covered under the policy as the policy is currently written. A rider lets you pay a little extra to have an item covered that is not currently covered, and this can come in very handy for a lot of different things you might own.
The types of things that might need riders
There are a lot of things you can add riders for, but a perfect example is for a diamond bracelet you own. If this bracelet is worth $5,000, and if your house burns down, the insurance company will not reimburse you for the full $5,000 if the bracelet was destroyed. Instead, your insurance policy might only reimburse you $1,000 for all the jewelry you owned, even if you had 10 bracelets like this. This occurs because a home insurance policy only gives up to a certain amount of coverage for items like this. If you add a rider, you can insure the bracelet for its full value and receive the full value of compensation if the item is destroyed or stolen. You may want to add riders for jewelry, musical instruments, antiques, guns, and other valuable items you own and keep in your home.
Other things to know about riders
You can choose to add riders for any items you have, and you can insure them for amounts that are equivalent to their values. Each rider costs a little extra for your policy but will give you the protection you need. If you are not sure what your policy covers, you should consider talking to a home insurance agent to find out if you need to add riders to have the coverage you need for everything you own.
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