July 17, 2012

Buying a homeowners insurance policy can be a confusing and arduous task.  These are a few of the specifics to the homeowners policy that you will want to pay attention to, to insure that you have your home properly insured. 

1.  Insure To Value - Often times people look to the appraised value as a benchmark for what the insured value should be, when in fact one should be looking at the reconstruction cost in the event of a total loss. The appraised value is fair market value (what your home should sell for) the reconstrcution cost is the cost to rebuild based on the specifics of your home.  So when you are asked about what kind of flooring you have and how many bathrooms there are, that is all inforamtion that goes into building a replacement cost value through a cost estimator.  That is where you want your home's insured value to be.  

2.  Liability Limit - This is protection which pays sums that an insured is legally obligated to pay, or that an insured has agreed to pay, as damages to others as a result of the insureds negligence.  This coverage provides for Bodily Injury or Property Damage of others.

3. Water and Sewer Backup - In the event that the city sewer backs up most carriers will not cover the loss, unless you have asked to add this coverage to your policy.  There are specific monetary limits to this coverage.  

4.  Valuables - Guns, Furs, Jewelry can all be covered on a homeowners policy, but most will have limits as to the standard coverage amount unless you list them specifically on a floater policy with a specific appraised value.  

There are many more important components to the homeowners policy, be sure you check with your agent as to the specific language of your homeowners policy.