10 Things to consider when buying Home Insurance:
1. You Need Home Insurance
As a Homeowner, you need to buy home insurance to protect your home and personal property. In addition, if you rent, you will need the insurance to protect your furniture and other personal property.
Generally, you need protection against any accidents that damage your property or injure other people.
2. Actual Cash Value or Replacement Cost
When insuring your home, you can either insure it to cover costs of replacing your belongings, or you can insure it for the actual cash value.
Replacement cost will cover expenses to repair damages without depreciation deduction, while actual cost value will cover expenses to repair or replace damages to your home after depreciation.
3. How Much Coverage is Needed?
Sometimes it’s determined by the lender how much coverage you need. They may say you need a minimum amount of coverage on the policy.
If that is not the case, make sure to choose a coverage that includes the value of your contents and personal property, and a coverage that suits your budget.
4. Compare Deductibles
It’s necessary to compare deductibles when you buy home insurance.
First, you have to choose a deductible that you feel comfortable paying if a claim arises. Second, you need to compare prices for different deductibles. Deductibles could influence policy premium greatly, so you may want to quote with different deductibles to see what suits you.
Keep in mind that the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. A $500 deductible should cost you less than a $300 deductible.
5. Shop Around
This has always been a good rule of thumb for insurance. It never hurts to shop around and compare prices from different companies.
Having an independent insurance agent like Bottom Line helps you with the process of finding what coverage and price works best for you.
6. Policy Packages
You can save money in many cases if you combine your home insurance with your car insurance as a package.
The more business you do with a company, the more they feel obligated to give you discounts on their policies. Even if you don’t have a package policy, you can still save money by buying your different coverage with the same company.
7. Special Discounts
Speaking of saving money, if you have an alarm system installed in your house or you replace your roof, that could qualify you for a discount on your home insurance policy.
8. Review Your Policy
Make sure you read your policy once it’s available. As an insured, you are required to maintain standards for your house and safety.
There are also exclusions that could prevent you from getting your claim paid. Again, this is something our agents at Bottom Line Insurance can help you with.
9. Check Your Home Insurance Annually
As soon as you hear from us about your renewal, we will ask you about any recent changes so we make sure your coverage is up to date to meet your needs.
Our agents will make sure your policy language is adequate and will look for any discounts to save you money.
10. How to Buy Home Insurance
We make things easy for you. You can get a free quote immediately on our website, and our agents will give you a call to review the quote with you and help you bind coverage that fits you and your budget.
Prefer to speak live? Call (708) 599-2915