When To Increase Your Homeowners' Insurance Coverage

Insurance Blog

Your homeowners' insurance coverage shouldn't be constant. You need to evaluate it periodically, with a specialist from a place like East Tennessee Mutual Insurance, and determine whether it's adequate or not. For example, it makes sense to boost your coverage:

After Remodeling

Any improvement, remodeling or upgrades you make increases your property's value. This means subsequent damages would cost more to replace than they would have cost before the upgrades. Therefore, you need to increase your coverage to reflect the improvements. Of course, this may not be necessary if all you have done is to paint the garage. However, upgrades costing thousands of dollars (some carriers have specific cutoff limits) should be reported to the insurance company.

Every Year

You probably know that it is a good idea to increase your coverage every year. You might think that this increase is due to inflation, but that is only part of the reason. After all, your coverage is probably automatically adjusted yearly to shield you from inflation.

However, construction costs also tend to increase every year.  There are so many things that can cause construction costs to increase – severe weather, increase in oil prices and demand for construction materials. Increasing your coverage ensures that you can still rebuild your house (with the increased prices of materials and labor costs) in case it is damaged.

After Purchasing Valuable Items

Since homeowners insurance covers both your house's structure and its contents; it makes sense to increase your coverage if your contents increase. Sure, you don't have to call your insurance company every time you buy a few clothes, but you should do so if the increase is substantial. For example, if you recently bought that rare piece of painting you have wanted for years, then you need to protect it by boosting your coverage.

When You Start Working At Home

If you have been working away from home, but now starts working at home, then it is time for coverage increase. This is especially the case if your work involves clients coming to your home. The increased number of guests increases the likelihood of personal injury claims. For example, your guests can trip and fall on your stairway, or they can even be injured by your pets.

Not only is it annoying to learn that you don't have adequate coverage, but it can also be costly. For example, the knowledge can come when damage has occurred, and you have submitted your claim to the insurance company. Don't assume that you are covered – confirm it by evaluating your coverage.

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31 March 2015