Home Insurance Guide

Flood Insurance Isn’t Included

insurancewatch — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:47:37 +0000

Does your homeowner’s insurance include coverage of damage as a result of flood? Chances are it doesn’t because most home insurance policies don’t cover damages as a result of flood or earthquakes (or themonuclear war, but if that happens the last thing you need to worry about is your home). What should you do?

Unfortunately there’s only one thing you can do, get independent flood insurance. You’ll probably want to go to FloodSmart.gov, the official site of the National Flood Insurance Program. From there, you’ll want to fill out the flood risk profile to the left and use it to help you find an agent.

Good news is that the NFIP can help, the bad news you’ll need to pay for more insurance.

Be Careful With Space Heaters

insurancewatch — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:49:55 +0000

Space heaters can be a great way to save some money in the winter, why heat up empty rooms when you can just heat up the room you and your family are in? One word of advice though, keep space heaters away from other objects because a house fire can nullify all those energy savings in one unfortunate accident.

Space heaters are the leading cause of home fires during December, January, and February.

Smart Money’s Six Ways to Save on Homeowners Insurance

insurancewatch — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:08:24 +0000

Smart Money recently published an article listing six ways to save on your homeowner’s insurance. Homeowner’s insurance is one of the annual costs homeowners face and it’s one of the great places to turn to if you want to save a little extra money. You should always be re-evaluating your insurance needs every single year because you never know how much you can save. It doesn’t take long at all and homeowner’s insurance is one of the simplest insurances available (unlike car insurance or medical insurance).

The six ways you can save are:

Maintain a healthy credit score
Ask about discounts
Increase your deductible
Disaster-proof your home
Monitor neighborhood changes
Pay promptly

6 Ways to Save on Homeowners Insurance [Smart Money]

Most Expensive States to Insure

insurancewatch — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:36:08 +0000

How much you pay in homeowners insurance really depends on the calamities your home is likely to face. Urban areas are often more expensive than suburban and rural areas. Higher risk geographic regions, such as the high winds in the Great Plains and hurricanes in the Gulf region, are often pricier areas to insure. Then you have Texas, the most expensive state, where you have both the high winds and the threat of hurricanes!

Most expensive states to insure:

Texas: $1,372
Louisiana: $1,144/yr
Oklahoma: Not listed. (oddly)
District of Columbia: $963/yr
Mississippi: $939/yr
Florida: $929/yr
California: $895/yr
Rhode Island: $849/yr
Alabama: $847/yr
Kansas: $836/yr

Most Expensive States To Insure A Home [Forbes]

Lightning Damage Coverage

insurancewatch — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:07:28 +0000

Lightning is one of the standard named risks or perils in most homeowners insurance policies, double check yours to be certain it’s listed, and one that has seen its claims rise in recent months. With the rise in claims, it’s important to double check what is considered lightening damage and what is typically covered.

As a named risk or peril, it’s treated just like theft, fire, smoke, and wind damages for your structure/dwelling and property. What about personal property such as electronics? Again, personal property is covered but you need to prove that the damage was caused by lightning and not something else (user error).

Average Dog Bite Claim: $24k

insurancewatch — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:15:13 +0000

Insurance Journal reports that the average dog bite claim is over $24,000 in 2007, with claims totaling $356.2 million. That’s an increase of over 10% from 2006.

How does this affect you? Well, you need to be aware of the three types of laws governing pets and which ones affect you:

Dog-bite statute: The dog owner is automatically liable for any injury or property damage the dog causes, even without provocation.

“One-bite” rule: In some states, the owner is not held liable for the first bite the dog inflicts. Once an animal has demonstrated vicious behavior, such as biting or otherwise displaying a “vicious propensity”, the owner can be held liable. Some states have moved away from the one-bite rule and hold owners responsible for any injury, regardless of whether the animal has previously bitten someone.

Negligence laws: The dog owner is liable if the injury occurred because the dog owner was unreasonably careless (negligent) in controlling the dog.

Public Protection Class (PPC)

insurancewatch — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:34:14 +0000

ISO, Insurance Services Office Inc., has a Public Protection Classification service that gauges a local fire departments ability to respond to fires. They collect information regarding the responsiveness and effectiveness of local fire departments, analyze the data using their Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS) and then assigns a Public Protection Classification from 1 to 10. A rating of 1 means the best public protection while a rating of 10 means there’s no recognized protection whatsoever.

How does this information benefit you? The lower the rating, the lower the homeowners insurance premium for residents of that area since the severity of any fires should be mitigated, at least based on the protection class. ISO currently covers over 44,000 fire-response jurisdictions.

Residents of Dawsonville, GA recently discovered that their rating of six, down from 7-10, meant lower premiums for their residents.

The lowering of the PPC is effectively passed on to citizens in the form of savings on property insurance. According to Thurmond, “If you were a class nine or seven before this evaluation, you will save money on your property insurance.” Thurmond said this could mean an annual savings of $800 for a $250,000 home that was formerly rated class nine and will now be rated class six.

Get Flood Insurance Coverage

insurancewatch — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:42:45 +0000

Do you have adequate flood insurance? Flood insurance is not on the typical homeowners insurance policy and every year a quarter of the flood losses happens to homes considered “low to moderate flood risks” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). That’s right, 25% of flood losses occur in areas where they’re not expected. This is made worse by the fact that if you don’t expect it, you probably aren’t insured, which means especially painful losses.

The Consumer Federation of America recommends getting flood insurance if there is any doubt you could be at risk, which goes against general insurance advice. It’s so significant that some mortgage lenders require it.

Independent Jewelry Insurance

insurancewatch — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:08:28 +0000

Your homeowner’s insurance will often have a jewelry provision in which there is a maximum payout in the event of a jewelry related claim. If you want higher levels of coverage for your jewelry, you’ll need to get a jewelry rider or separate jewelry insurance. When we had a piece appraised at a local jeweler, he included a brochure about an independent jewelry insurer and told us we should compare our homeowner’s rider premium against the independent insurer’s premiums.

What’s interesting about jewelry insurance is that it has nothing to do with you at all. The insurance is based on the value of the item, your deductible, whether you have a security system, and which county you live in. For example, everyone in Alabama will pay 1% of the appraised retail value of their piece each year as insurance if the piece is under $15,000. Everyone in Los Angeles County will pay 2%. Live in Delaware, pay 1.1%. If you have a central station security system, you can get a small discount.

Jewelry Coverage in Standard Homeowners Policies

insurancewatch — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:34:13 +0000

Despite what you may have heard about endorsements or riders regarding jewelry, your jewelry is partially covered by your base homeowner’s policy. If you lose, damage, or otherwise destroy your jewelry, you can still make a claim with you homeowners insurance provider. Usually the upper limit is capped at your coverage limit of either $1,000 or $2,000 depending on your policy minus your deductible. So if your limit is $1,000 and your deductible is $1,000… unfortunately you’re “covered” but you will get nothing back. If you’re limit is $1,000 and your deductible is $500, you’ll be able to recover $500 – which may or may not be worth the effort (you may have to prove its value as well as file a police report so that an official record exists).

This is true for anything high dollar that could go missing or damaged, such as paintings, scultures, fine china, silverware, etc.