House and Home Insurance: A Guide to Evaluating the Worth of Your Home and Belongings
You know that you have to get home insurance of some kind to protect your dwelling, but there are so many options that you might feel overwhelmed. It’s important to determine just how much insurance you’ll need to adequately protect your home, property, and contents. Don’t forget about the items inside your home, either. Some basic insurance policies only include coverage for the property itself. Ideally, your search for house and home insurance covers everything, including walls, furniture, appliances, carpet, jewelry, electronics, and so forth.
At the minimum, make sure you get the insurance that covers the property itself, contents, legal liability should anyone become injured on the property, and loss of use so that you’ll be able to pay for temporary housing while the house gets repaired. If you want money for the actual REPAIRS, you’ll need additional coverage such as floods, fires, windstorms, and so forth. Depending on where you live, flood and hurricane insurance might be required anyway.
Think about how much it will cost to rebuild the home, and how much money you’ll need to replace all of the belongings that you lost. House and home insurance are designed to help you plan for the absolute worst, whatever it may be. Don’t just simply consider the cost of rebuilding, there are going to be market fluctuations to consider as well. Plus, the value of many of your belongings is likely to go down over the years. If you’ve done any remodeling or added new features, that will affect the overall value of the home.
House and Home Insurance for Worst-Case Scenario
How much will it cost to rebuild and replace in a worst-case scenario? This is something you might want to work with an agent, as well as the contractors who helped with the renovation.
Is a broader policy right for you or do you want specific add-ons? Is there anything you want to exclude? If you live in an area that experiences cold temperatures during winter months, you might want to consider a policy that includes protection against freezing pipes. If you live down in a valley and could potentially lose your home to mudslides, or have room damage from falling rocks, consider a policy that includes protection from falling objects.
As for the contents of the home itself, go around the room to room taking inventory. In addition to approximating the costs of valuables such as jewelry and electronics, you should also remember to include furniture, goods, appliances, wall art, and so forth.
Start looking into plans offered by companies such as Lemonade. With its helpful tools such as an artificial intelligence bot, you can get an estimate for house and home insurance in just 90 seconds. Lemonade discounts are among the best in the industry, and the company is very transparent.
