Finding the right home insurance policy for your unique needs can seem overwhelming. Good thing we are here to help! We can make things simple by creating a home insurance policy just for you.
When reviewing your home insurance options, consider the coverages listed below. You can also explore these options with our interactive graphic here.
Fire
Risk Factor: Most fires are devastating. Besides the emotional impact the physical damage to your home can be significant. If you lost your home to fire, do you have adequate insurance to replace your home and its contents? Remember, inflation rates on building materials and construction costs rarely track with real estate values. As a result, rebuilding a home can often cost significantly more than expected.
Solution: Make sure your home insurance policy contains guaranteed replacement cost coverage. This protects you if the costs to reconstruct your home is higher than your current limit of coverage. Also be sure that your insurance includes rebuilding your house to code. Very often, local ordinances and building codes change over time, which may require additional costs.
Personal Property / Contents – Property Damage
Risk Factor: When your home suffers damage due to an unexpected event, your personal property is also at risk. Items like furniture, appliances, clothing, electronics, and other personal items can all be damaged or destroyed.
Solution: Your home insurance policy typically covers personal property. This includes the contents of your home and other personal items owned by you or family members. Therefore, make sure your homeowners policy includes replacement cost coverage for personal property. This makes sure you always receive the full cost to replace whatever item is damaged.
Additional Living Expense / Loss of Use
Risk Factor: When there is substantial damage to your home due to unexpected events such as lightning, fire, or a storm, you may not be able to live in your home until it can be repaired or rebuilt. This means you will might incur additional living expenses for lodging, food, and other daily needs.
Solution: Ensure that your home insurance policy provides additional living expense or loss of use coverage to compensate you for the additional costs you incur for reasonable housing and living expenses if a covered event makes your house temporarily uninhabitable while it’s being repaired or rebuilt.
Jewelry, Fine Arts & Collectibles
Risk Factor: If your diamond ring disappears or valuable artwork is stolen, your standard homeowners policy may not compensate you for the loss. Homeowners policies include coverage for your belongings and personal property. However, some special items like jewelry, furs, silverware, antiques, collectibles, and other valuables have limited or no coverage and need to be insured separately.
Solution: Valuable possessions insurance covers personal property that may have unique value, cannot be replaced like regular personal property, or is subject to special types of losses such as breakage or mysterious disappearance. For most valuable possession categories, there is no deductible applied at time of loss. Valuable possessions insurance can be added to your homeowners policy or may be written as a separate policy.
Medical Expenses
Risk Factor: If a guest is injured while on your property, you may be required to pay any medical expenses associated with their injury. Even when it’s due to a friendly game of baseball.
Solution: Your homeowners policy should include medical expenses coverage to take care of injuries and treatment – generally not of a serious nature. In the event a person is injured on your property and requires medical attention, you would be able to submit the injury-related medical expenses to your insurance carrier. You can usually pay a Medical expense without filing a liability claim against you.
Personal Liability
Risk Factor: If someone slips and falls on your property, you may be liable for any injuries that result.
Solution: Your homeowners policy includes personal liability coverage to respond to incidents where injuries or damages occur to a third party where you may be deemed negligent. However, you should consider purchasing a personal umbrella or excess liability policy to provide additional coverage limits. This helps protect your assets in a lawsuit.
Miscellaneous Coverage
Risk Factor: The trampoline in your back yard can be a lot of fun. However, it can also be accompanied by serious risks. Your standard homeowners insurance policy may not cover these risks since coverage varies from state to state and between insurance companies.
Solution: You should make sure your homeowners insurance policy covers your trampoline. Many insurance providers refuse to take on trampoline liability and exclude the item from coverage.
Personal Injury
Risk Factor: Young people are usually very active online. However, using social media and other sites can increase the possibility of them directly or indirectly damaging someone’s reputation. This might expose you, the parent, to a lawsuit.
Solution: Your homeowners insurance policy includes liability coverage for property damage, but it may not cover rumors or statements that damage a reputation. You need to add an endorsement to your policy to expand coverage to include liability protection that covers personal injury.
Umbrella/Excess Liability Coverage
Risk Factor: You invite guests over for a pool party. One of your guests dives into the shallow end of the pool and injure themselves permanently. They hire a lawyer to represent them and after a long legal battle, you and your family are left financially responsible for their injuries. Do you have enough money in savings to cover your legal responsibilities as well as the legal defense costs?
Solution: An umbrella or excess liability policy increases your personal liability limits by adding protection over and above your current auto, boat, or homeowners policies. This provides real financial value, as well as priceless peace of mind. Excess liability insurance is available either by an endorsement to your homeowners policy or available as separate coverage.
Flood Coverage
Risk Factor: You do not have to live near a body of water to suffer loss due to flooding. With the changing weather patterns and more damaging storms occurring around the globe, flood losses are becoming more common in places that are not normally prone to flood damage. Your homeowners policy does not cover damage from flood. could your home be at risk.
Solution: Purchase a flood insurance policy to protect your home and covered contents from certain types of flood losses as designated by the National Flood Insurance Program. You can purchase a flood policy as a separate policy through the federal program (NFIP) or through a servicing carrier known as a write your own carrier.
Secondary Home
Risk Factor: Owning a secondary home has the potential of increasing your liability exposures.
Solution: Be certain that you extend the liability coverage under your homeowners policy to include your secondary home. You should also consider including the secondary home under an excess liability or umbrella policy to provide for additional liability limits.
Collectible Cars
Risk Factor: Collector vehicles often have significant value and therefore require specialized insurance coverage and claims handling.
Solution: Schedule your collectible vehicle on a separate collector car policy. By doing so, you are protecting the vehicle for either the appraised value or market value.
Wine Collection
Risk Factor: If you are a connoisseur of wine, you know that it is susceptible to outside environmental exposures that can ruin it. If the collection is damaged, coverage from your homeowners policy is a possible recourse. However, the damage is only insurable if it is a covered cause of loss as outlined in your homeowners policy. A deductible would also apply.
Solution: If you have a sizable wine collection, you may want to consider scheduling the collection on your homeowners policy. Doing so expands your coverage and eliminates the deductible in case of a loss. You can also consider unique coverages for wine, such as for spoilage.
Water Back-Up
Risk Factor: Most homeowners policies exclude coverage for water back-up damages as a result of a clogged drain, sewer, or sump pump.
Solution: Water backup coverage can be an addition to most insurance policies. Consider adding it so you have the coverage you need if you ever find damages caused by a clogged drain, sewer, or sump pump.
Off Premises Theft
Risk Factor: Surprisingly, standard auto insurance does not cover personal property or contents stolen from your car.
Solution: Most homeowners policies offer an option to include off-premises theft coverage as an endorsement. Therefore, you are covered for theft of your personal property away from your residence.
Contact us!
Do you need a quote? Click here! Or call one of Risk Advisors at the location closest to you. We know you still have questions, and we are ready to answer them.
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OR visit our website at www.noahinsurancegroup.com