Checking Your Home is Really Insured

It’s a pretty rare case to find a home owner who doesn’t have insurance for their home - but it’s not rare at all to find people who don’t really know what their home insurance actually covers, and I’m afraid to admit that I’m one of them. I signed up for a standard home insurance policy but don’t know for sure what is and isn’t included on that - for example, if my home was flooded I don’t know if it would be covered adequately.

It seems obvious to hear but checking your home owners’ insurance is sufficient and appropriate is something many of us need to do. Your home is likely to be the most expensive thing you own, so making sure it is covered in the case of an accident or emergency is really important.

In the United States, for example, many basic home insurance policies do NOT cover events like flooding and water damage, earthquakes and power failure, unless you specifically ask for the cover and pay an additional premium. You should check what your policy covers, and even more important, what it doesn’t, and consider the likely risk of these events happening in your area or to your home. Check the costs for additional insurance and make an informed decision about exactly what your insurance covers and at what cost. Paying a slightly higher premium, or even just being aware of what is and isn’t covered, is a whole lot better than discovering in the middle of a crisis that your insurance doesn’t cover what you thought it did.