Homeowners Insurance Spotlight
Spotlight on Homeowners Insurance…
Many people own their own home and you need to have your Dwelling and contents protected by a Homeowners policy. Lets look at a standard homeowners policy which is required by all lenders when you purchase your home. This policy will provide coverage for the Dwelling, other structures on the property, contents, loss of use, and liability and medical payments to others. The biggest problem we see when reviewing policies is that most often a client will be underinsured for the true replacement of their home, the question to be answered is what would it cost me to rebuild my home TODAY! Don’t look at market values they can go up or down, look at the construction costs in your area. To help you get an idea of costs we use $150 per square foot as a starting point for homes on long lsland. Of course each home is different and your’s can cost much more depending upon the materials used in the construction. Remember if you are underinsured at a time of loss you may not recieved enough money in the insurance settlement to fully replace you home. Check on this value yearly.
The second important part of an insurance policy whether it’s a homeowners or renter’s policy is the amount of contents you have in your home or apartment. Many policies are written with replacement cost which means that the insurance carrier will replace with similar like kind and quality the items lost or damaged due to an insured loss. Again take an inventory of your possessions to make sure you are covered properly. Remember to take photos or video to prove that you own these items. Another important note ,remember that not all contents are covered. Some items such as jewelry, guns, watercraft, silverware and fine arts should be covered under a rider though you may get some coverage under a standard homeowners the it’s better to have these items listed seperately.
Finally, liability this part of the policy provides coverage for bodily injury and property damage to others. This can be a trip and fall on your property, perhaps your child was in a fight at school and he or she injured another child you could be held liable. A errand golf shot that strikes another player can cause you to be involved in a lawsuit. The concern here is that we don’t know when we may need our insurance but it’s important to have enough when the time comes. Always purchase the most liaiblity coverage that you can afford. The difference between 300,000 and 500,000 is about $11.00 per year is it worth it?
