To Cover Me or My Family
Home, Condo, and Renter’s Insurance

Like auto insurance, replacing or restoring your property is just one part of a home, condo, or renter’s policy. These policies protect you from a lawsuit resulting from an accidental injury or property damage (to someone else’s property). In addition, the stronger policies protect you from losses due to identity theft, liability related to volunteer work, and even cost overruns when rebuilding your property after a covered loss. Here are some of the important features that you should consider when reviewing your policy:

Replacement Cost vs. Actual Cash Value

If your four-year-old large screen TV is damaged or stolen, will your policy give you enough money to buy another four-year-old TV or will they give you enough money to purchase a brand new TV at today’s prices? The stronger policies offer “replacement cost” coverage.

Additional Replacement Cost

Many policies have a limit as to how much they will spend to restore your home to the condition that it was in prior to a covered loss. The strongest policies will provide an additional allowance of 25%, 50%, or even 100% of “extra” coverage to protect you from cost overruns by the contractors that are working on your home. What would you do if your insurance company stopped paying the contractor before the work was complete to restore your home?

Identity Theft

This important coverage pays for expenses incurred to regain your identity. Some policies include coverage to replace your income for missed time at work, legal work, and more. In most cases, the insurance carrier also has employees that will actually do the leg work to restore your credit.

Jewelry/Fine Arts Coverage

While almost all policies have this type of coverage included in their homeowner policy, many have very small limits of coverage, forcing you to purchase additional coverage for these items. Some carriers provide as much as $10,000 of coverage in their standard policy saving you the additional premium that you would have spent on the additional coverage.

Mold Coverage

This is often overlooked and can be very expensive to treat. Claims for mold can include replacing walls, carpet, and even payment for temporary housing during the restoration process.