Homeowners Insurance: Options That Cover Your Assets

When taking out a Greensboro homeowners insurance policy, you'll be presented with lots of options of ways to fine-tune your protection to best fit your specific needs. Sometimes these various options can seem overwhelming and are best handled with the assistance of a trusted insurance broker who can help guide you along the path of obtaining the best coverage for the best price.

At its most basic, your Greensboro homeowners insurance coverage will be designed to protect your investment in your home as well as protect the financial risk your mortgage lender carries in the event your home should be destroyed as a result of a covered peril.

What Your Policy Covers

Homeowners insurance policies are made up of a variety of coverages meant to protect you financially. If your home were totally destroyed as the result of a house fire, your dwelling coverage should be sufficient enough to cover the costs of rebuilding your home back to its pre-fire state, according to today's building costs. If your dwelling coverage limits are too low, rebuilding your home after it's been destroyed will mean dipping into your own personal assets to pay the difference between the costs for rebuilding and the payoff from your insurer.

Personal Possessions

Your Greensboro homeowners insurance policy should also have a section that provides coverage to protect you from financial loss related to the damage, destruction or theft of the personal possessions in your home. It's important here to have limits high enough to cover the repair or replacement of these possessions at today's costs. You may have the option to choose coverage that pays true replacement costs or actual cash value (replacement cost minus depreciation).

Certain high-value personal possessions such as jewelry, artwork, furs or collectibles will have specific payoff limits on a standard policy. Adequately covering these items (and your assets) will require buying additional coverage by way of a rider (or floater).

Liability Coverage

An often overlooked but extremely important part of standard homeowners insurance policies is the liability coverage. This may, in fact, be your biggest asset protection in your homeowner's coverage, especially if you have risky items on your property such as a swimming pool, a treehouse or a trampoline.

Liability coverage protects you against financial loss related to someone becoming injured or killed while on your property. It even covers you if your dog bites someone off your property.