Home Insurance Tips from a Pro
If you’ve gone online lately for home insurance rates, your search probably returned over a dozen pages of companies wanting your business. The problem with shopping for your homeowner’s insurance is that any quote you receive is an indication and not a firm quote. I believe that this is a good thing. Buying insurance for a $300,000 asset is important enough to get advice from a licensed agent.
Not that all agents will give great advice, but they will be responsible if something goes terribly wrong. Home insurance costs depend on many variables having to do with your home, your claims history, your credit score and even your driving record. Unless you are prepared to offer this personal information online, you are unlikely to get a firm quote. Get the indication and then call the company or agency to confirm.
Most homeowner’s insurance quotes are built on a package of coverages. Buying the generic package could leave you suffering out of pocket expenses after a loss. Homeowners should make certain that the policy will cover things like water backup, sinkhole and mold remediation,
which are usually endorsed onto the policy and cost additional premium. Also determine if the policy is valued at 100% replacement cost for hail and windstorm. I have discovered lately that some of the major companies are automatically adding an endorsement to their policies that will reduce claim payments for hail and windstorm claims on the roof surface. For example a major insurance company, in the state of Georgia, is not paying 100% replacement cost for these types of claims if the roof is over 5 years old.
This could be an expensive lesson to learn after a hailstorm passes over dropping golf ball size hail on your 10 year old roof. It surprises me that area lenders are allowing a loan to close on a purchase where Allstate is the insurer, which makes me wonder if the lenders are even aware. Consumers should place their priorities on the coverage they are getting rather than the homeowners insurance cost.