What is covered by your home insurance policy will depend largely on the type and level of insurance that you have opted to take out. There are several different levels of home insurance that cover different types of assets or aspects of your home. To understand what is covered in your home insurance policy, it is helpful to review the different types of home insurance available. Each type of insurance covers specific aspects of your home.
Basic Types of Home Insurance
The most basic level of coverage will insure your home against lightening and fire damage. This is the simplest and often the most affordable type of home insurance policy available. Most people feel that this does not adequately their assets and will generally opt for a slightly higher level of coverage.
The next level of home insurance is known as broad coverage. This covers damage to your home resulting from fire, wind, hail, theft, an explosion, smoke damage from aircraft or vehicles, and glass breakage. It also covers the removal of property from the premises if there is a threat of fire, vandalism, riot or any of the other perils above. A distinct advantage of the broad coverage is that it also covers mechanical or system failures in your home. An example of this would be pipes bursting or freezing over, damage to a heating system, or damage to the roof caused by the weight of snow or ice. This is the one of the most common forms of home insurance as it covers all the major perils and provides protection of your home.
Specialized Types of Home Insurance
If you have a large property, there may be buildings that are not attached to your home. This could be a garage, store room, studio or separate apartment. Make sure that they are specified in your policy so your home is adequately protected. The majority of homeowners seem to opt for a special form of insurance coverage. This type of insurance is a broad level of insurance but has some specific exclusions listed. For example, if you live in Florida, it is unlikely that you will ever need insurance for snow damage so this would be a specific exclusion for that geographic area. What this type of home insurance does is tailor the policy according to your needs. In other words, you will not be paying for insurance coverage that you don’t really need.
If you have a complete household, it is likely that you will want to insure your contents as well as your home structure. This is what is commonly known as tenant insurance. Tenant insurance covers your furniture, clothing and household items against perils such as fire, wind, water, smoke, and snow damage. It is called tenant insurance because many people rent apartments or homes. Their assets are the sum total of their household contents and they want to be able to insure and protect their assets.
If you reside in a complex building and own only one unit in the building, there is a separate insurance policy that it tailored to your needs. In most cases, the building itself will be insured through the building owners’ association for fire, storm and other physical damage. This generally refers to the communal living areas and overall structure of the building. Often the internal walls, pipes and plumbing are not covered very extensively under the general association policy. In this case, condominium owners can take out an additional insurance policy that covers their unit as well as their household contents.
The last form of specialized insurance is for older homes. Most insurance policies will specify that if any damage occurs to the home that the same materials or methods of construction must be used to repair or rebuild the home. In some older homes, this may not be the best long-term solution. If, for example, the home is a wooden home and the floorboards and walls have become infested with termites and insects then it may not be a good idea to repair the home with the same kind of wood. It would be better to use artificial or treated materials that won’t be as susceptible to infestation by insect swarms. Similarly, an old stone house may have areas where the mortar is crumbling and weakening the structure. If the house is more than 100 years old, it is possible that the mortar used is a mixture of mud and stone. A modern-day mixture of cement would be a far more practical manner in which to repair the damaged walls. The older homes insurance allows for more modern and practical materials and methods to be used to repair a home.
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