Considerations When Purchasing Home Insurance
Home insurance allows you to meet mortgage requirements, protect your home and possessions. While most homeowners appreciate the benefits of home insurance, navigating through the policy can be an overwhelming task. This article highlights the most critical factors to consider when purchasing home insurance.
Consider Your Coverage Options
Home insurance provides different coverage options. Thus, one must review the policy to ensure they are adequately covered. Typically, the insurer will require you to have building insurance covering damages to the home structure resulting from identified perils. Then, a homeowner must maintain contents insurance that replaces any personal possession kept in the house. Also, you may want to include a personal liability policy to cover legal and medical costs for unintentional injuries and damages incurred by third parties. You can have a separate insurance policy for temporary relocation. As such, the insurance company would meet the cost of temporary relocation when your house is inaccessible due to an insured incident.
Consider Endorsements for High-Value Items
The contents policy insures your property up to a given limit. The policy may not provide coverage for expensive items exceeding a specified dollar amount. Such valuable items may include jewelry, antiques, designer clothes, electronics, and sporting gear. However, this does not mean that your valuable items have to go uninsured. Instead, the insurance companies allow homeowners to have an endorsement policy that supplements the coverage limit for expensive items. Take time to create and constantly review your home inventory for the most valuable belongings. This way, you will know when you need to have an additional sub-limit for the costly property.
Think About Flood Insurance
In the insurance industry, flood events fall in the special category of "Acts of God." Thus, a typical homeowner's insurance policy does not provide coverage for floods event. Instead, the insurance only covers flooding from plumbing leakages and sewer backups. Yet floods and related perils such as hurricanes and hail storms cause severe damage and loss to buildings and contents. The only way to protect your property from such natural calamities is to have separate flood insurance. Even if you are not in a high-flood zone, it is essential to have a level of coverage against flood events. Insurance companies determine the premiums based on the level of flood risk.
Consider Your Unique Needs
The type of home insurance policy you select will also depend on your specific needs and circumstances. For instance, you may want to get coverage for contents that you usually remove from your insured home. Such items may include things that you take to work or property under the possession of your children living away from home. If such property gets lost or damaged away from home, the standard home insurance policy may not cover such items. You may also wish to spend considerable time away from your insured residence. Typically, home insurance policies may limit coverage to unoccupied homes for a specific period. Establish the limits of the allowed duration of un-occupancy.
Take time to review the contents of a home insurance policy, compare the plans and select the best-fit coverage. Notably, get an insurance agent who understands your needs.
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