Do You Have Enough Coverage to Rebuild Your Home?

Your top-rated Greensboro Home Insurance Agency remains dedicated to not only providing you with the best possible choices in obtaining comprehensive homeowners (HO) coverage but also to educating our policyholders regarding the intricacies of their HO insurance and also the importance of knowing exactly what their policy covers. You may already be aware that your homeowners insurance protects you from losses resulting from covered damages occurring to the structure of your home and its contents and you may even know what specific perils are covered and which are excluded, but there's more to know.

What you may not know is whether the coverage you're carrying is designed to rebuild your home to its pre-loss condition. According to the non-profit consumer advocacy group called United Policyholders, two-thirds of the homes in the U.S. are under-insured. According to this Forbes Magazine article, under-insuring their home is the #1 mistake homeowners make regarding their home insurance.

Are Your Policy Limits High Enough

You may have bought the minimum amount of homeowners insurance required by your mortgage lender, in which case your policy limits may have been just high enough to cover the amount of your mortgage at the time you purchased the home. Things may have changed since then and these changes should be considered when determining whether you're carrying enough coverage. Think about these factors:

• As your home appreciates in value, especially if you've remodeled, upgraded, added extensions, etc., your insurance limits should also be increased to reflect true value.
• Replacement cost coverage pays for repair or replacement using similar materials as were used originally. If a major disaster affects your entire area, labor and materials may be in high demand, causing excessive costs. Extended replacement or guaranteed coverage can be added to handle this.
• Earthquake and flood insurance are not parts of standard home insurance and must be purchased separately. Unless you've done this, you're not covered for these two perils.
• As building codes are routinely updated, damage to an older house may require additional costs, beyond policy limits, to bring the structure up to code. Adding an Ordinance or Law Endorsement will cover this need.
• Something called an Inflation Guard can be also be added to your policy which will automatically increase your policy limit to reflect current constructions costs in your area.

Speak to your trusted Greensboro Home Insurance agent to go over your policy to see if you're fully covered.