When talking about “what does homeowners insurance cover?” the first thing that comes to mind is “What is homeowner insurance” and “what does it cover”. One thing you need to know is that one of the requirements for mortgage lenders is that you need to provide homeowners insurance coverage. Learn more about what does homeowner insurance covers?
Understand that your home is more than just a roof in which you rest your head. Your home serves as a valuable asset and can be used can collateral when acquiring a loan. This is more of the reason why you need to protect your home by finding a suitable homeowner insurance policy that can protect your home as an investment. But before you go into the coverage, you need to know what homeowners insurance means.
What is homeowner insurance?
There are lots of definitions of what homeowner insurance actually means. Actually, homeowner insurance is an agreement of policy to help cover the cost of expenses of repairing or replacing your home and belongings due to an unforeseen event or accident caused by threats like fire, theft, unfavorable weather, and more.
Homeowners insurance is an important factor in ensuring the safety of your home when an unforeseen event happens. This helps to you to be able to rebuild your home with a new item which the expenses will be covered by the insurance company. Meaning, it can help to cover the cost of liability exposure, for instance, when someone gets injured on your property. Actually, the main work of homeowners insurance is to:
- Repair your home
- Repair or replace your personal belongings
- Pay for the cost of living somewhere else while your home is under repair.
- Coverage also includes personal liability.
However, based on required by law, you don’t actually need homeowner insurance. But it is important when requiring for mortgage because most mortgage lenders do require homeowner insurance.
What Does Homeowners Insurance Cover?
Initially, the homeowners insurance policy also known as HO3 policy coverage includes your home and personal property. This policy will help to cover the cost of repair if your home is affected by an unforeseen accident. Here is the following homeowners insurance coverage:
- Fire
- Windstorms
- Hail
- Lightning
- Vandalism
- Theft
- Heavy weather like weight of ice, snow or sleet
- Freezing of plumbing, heating, air conditioning, or others.
Generally, damage to homes as a result of floods or earthquakes isn’t included in the basic homeowner insurance policies. You can try to opt-in with optional homeowner insurance coverages and policies which might include other cover damage.
What does homeowners insurance not cover?
Even the biggest home insurance policy does not include all coverage. There are certain events homeowner insurance policies can cover and there are some that homeowners insurance does not cover. This includes the following:
- Flooding
- Earthquakes, landslide and sinkholes
- Nuclear hazard
- Government account such as war.
- Wear and tear or neglect
- Power failure, and more.
However, there are other additional homeowner insurance coverage you can also purchase that includes flood insurance, earthquake insurance, and others.
Types of Homeowners Insurance
Generally, what makes up a homeowners insurance policy includes types of coverage, coverage limit, and also deductibles. There is the following type of home insurance coverage:
Dwelling coverage
With dwelling coverage, expenses for repairing or rebuilding your home are covered by the insurance company if it damages by a covered event.
Personal property coverage
Personal property coverage helps to cover your personal items in your home caused by damage from unforeseen events. However, this covers items like furniture, clothes, sporting goods, and more.
Loss of use coverage
Loss of use coverage is another type of home insurance coverage that covers the expense of the additional cost of living when you move out of your home temporarily while your home is repaired.
Personal liability coverage
Personal liability coverage helps to protect you by paying for the treatment of accidents done on your home. For instance, if someone gets injured, with personal liability coverage, you can pay for the treatment.
How much does homeowners insurance cost?
According to reports, the average cost of homeowner insurance is about $1,765 per year. But the price differs, meaning it can be lower and higher based on factors that include location and also the amount of coverage you want to buy. For most states, your credit score is also a determining factor for the cost of homeowner insurance.