Whether you’ve recently purchased your new home or have owned one for a while, you’d know that home insurance is something you should never miss. It’s a safeguard for homeowners that provides financial coverage during disasters like theft, fire, and natural calamities. This essential policy can also help cover repair or rebuilding costs and replace and repair valuables. Moreover, it can give you financial protection if someone gets hurt on your property.
Being a responsible homeowner is educating yourself about common coverage mistakes. While making blunders in the insurance industry may seem ordinary, these slip-ups can lead to expensive mistakes.
If you want to ensure your property gets well-deserved protection, this article will enumerate four common but costly home insurance mistakes to avoid.
1. Not Protecting Your Valuables
Your valuables are some of your most significant investments, and it can be devastating to lose them from theft or natural disasters. If you have anything that has a financial or sentimental worth, such as electronics, jewelry, antiques, and collectibles, you should include them in your home insurance policy. It’s also crucial to constantly update your current policy with the latest ones. Otherwise, your insurance company won’t give you the total compensation if they’re stolen or damaged.
2. Not Considering Water Coverage
Water damage can have devastating consequences for any home. Besides posing health and safety hazards, it can also wreak expensive or irreparable damage to your property and valuables.
Most insurance companies traditionally considered “fire insurance” for home insurance policies because it was the typical damage homeowners faced. However, as extreme weather events like storms became more frequent due to the climate crisis, water damage has become a significant risk that needs additional coverage.
Investing in overland water or flood coverage can protect your home from water damage. This policy will protect your property against flood damage, which a sewer backup coverage plan won’t cover. You should also speak to your insurance company to determine your overall coverage against water damage.
3. Not Getting Enough Tenant Insurance
One of the most costly home insurance mistakes is not getting enough tenant insurance. Renters must protect their investments like other homeowners by purchasing tenant insurance coverage. This insurance policy will cover their belongings like clothing, electronics, and furniture during fires or theft. It will also protect liability against lawsuits when someone gets injured inside the rental space.
Moreover, most landlords will ask tenants to sign a lease and provide proof of tenant insurance with at least one million dollars in liability coverage. Additionally, renters must understand the landlord’s insurance won’t cover their possessions.
4. Not Correctly Determining How Much Home Insurance Your Property Needs
Being a responsible homeowner means getting enough home insurance for your property. Unfortunately, some homeowners aren’t aware of the importance of getting enough coverage.
For this reason, you should always get the right coverage to protect your house. For instance, the Guaranteed Replacement Cost average ensures that the insurance company covers the rebuilding costs for your home during a disaster.
You should also remember that a reputable insurance broker will help their customer assess their property value and recommend they insure it for that amount. If the customer doesn’t get insurance for the estimated weight, their policy will only cover the home’s actual cash value. This expensive mistake could be significantly less than the costs to replace or rebuild the house if it suffers from any damage.
Remember that you’re insuring the house for the reconstruction expenses, not for how much it currently costs in the market.
Conclusion
No property owner deserves to suffer from devastating events because of negligence. You can avoid these expensive mistakes by educating yourself on common home insurance mistakes and working with a reputable insurance broker and company.
Cooke Insurance offers reliable home insurance in Saskatoon to help homeowners enjoy a secure property, even in disasters. Contact us now to get a quote!
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