Reduce Financial Risk With the Right Homeowners Coverage

Accidents, crime, and severe weather are all a part of life. Every home experiences loss or damage at some point. You can't predict when it will happen but you can protect yourself from the financial damage of a property loss.

Not all home policies are the same. You need an experienced independent insurance agent who has your best interest in mind to find you the right coverage at the right price.

What Does Homeowners Insurance Cover?

Homeowners insurance covers you for a potential loss resulting from risks such as burglary or theft, severe storms, fire, and personal liability.

Your home liability coverage protects you in the event someone is injured on your property or you are responsible for damage to someone else's property. For example:

• Your dog bites a visitor to your home
• A dinner guest gets food poisoning and is hospitalized
• A neighbor is injured on your backyard swing set
• Your child throws a baseball through a neighbor's window

How Does Remodeling My House Affect My Homeowners Insurance?

Envision your house transformed into a welcoming space with fresh updates and extra room for the things you enjoy. With a remodeling project, you can open up walls, add lighting or upgrade the flooring to create a stylish look and improve the efficiency of your home.

Renovating your home can be exciting and overwhelming, and the last thing you may consider during the process is your homeowner's insurance policy. If you didn’t think about this, you’re not alone! Communicating with us when modifications are made will help prevent your house from being underinsured and policy limits from not being enough to cover your house in the event of a loss.

In order to ensure your home is properly insured, our agency utilizes a replacement cost estimator (RCE). The RCE is a tool used to assess the cost to rebuild your home with similar materials if it is damaged or destroyed.

When adjustments are made that may impact the replacement value, it’s the homeowner’s responsibility to inform us so we can adjust the estimate. The replacement value of the home cannot be calculated correctly without us knowing about added features.

Keep in mind some updates can save you money on your homeowner's insurance. For instance, replacing the roof, installing security features, sprinkler systems, water shut-off devices or a backup generator may lower your rates or even offer a discount on your premium.

If you anticipate making renovations to your home, whether it’s adding a new deck or remodeling your kitchen, ask us how this could impact your insurance policy to ensure you are protected financially during and after the project.

Renting Out Your Home?

Have you tried to sell your home, but decided to rent it out instead? Or did you recently inherit your parents’ house and now your sibling or child are temporarily living in it? Whatever your situation may be, if you own a home and do not live in it, your homeowner's policy may not cover damage from a claim. 

Homeowner's insurance policies are intended to cover residential homes that are occupied by the owner.

If you own a home and you do not live in that home, the house, personal belongings and your personal liability on that location will not be protected under a homeowner's policy. However, you can purchase coverage for these types of situations with a dwelling fire policy.

Each type of insurance policy is designed to cover a specific kind of exposure. If a claim occurs at a location with the wrong type of policy in force, you may not have the coverage you need. A person wouldn’t expect an automobile policy to contain the proper coverage for a house. Similarly, a homeowner's policy does not contain the proper coverage for a rental house solely occupied by someone other than the owner.

A dwelling fire policy is similar to a homeowner's policy in that it will cover damage to the house, other structures like a pole barn, and your liability if somebody is injured on your property. However, a dwelling fire policy also covers your liability as a landlord, as well as reimbursement for lost rental income in the event a claim occurs where the home cannot be occupied for a period of time. 

If you decide to rent out a home and become a landlord, or if you have experienced other life circumstances where a house you own is now occupied by someone other than yourself, ask about a dwelling fire policy to ensure you have the coverage needed when a claim occurs.