Month: June 2014

It’s important that you know the difference between homeowners’ and flood insurance policies, so you can choose adequate coverage for your property. Don’t get caught with insufficient insurance coverage. Call our offices so a knowledgeable agent can discuss the difference and help you choose the best protection for your home.

Flood Insurance Coverage

To be considered a flood, water must reach ground that is normally dry. Flood loss occurs when the flood rises over dry land and flows onto your property. These damages might occur after events such as heavy rainfall, mudslides and overflowing lakes and rivers.

If a flood caused damages in your property, your flood insurance policy takes care of your loss up to your policy limits. Your homeowners’ insurance policy doesn’t cover flood losses. You can get coverage for this loss through an insurance agent, but the National Flood Insurance Program writes the policy. You also can get the coverage through Federal Emergency Management Office.

Homeowners Insurance Coverage

Your homeowners’ policy covers losses caused by water that did not touch dry land first. So, if rain filters through your leaky roof and damages your home, you’re covered under your homeowners’ insurance policy. If the storm smashes your windows and rain gets in, your homeowners policy also covers your losses. If your washer overflows, your homeowners’ insurance policy pays for the repairs up to your policy limits.

Coverage for Low-Level Areas

Flood insurance covers flood-related cleanup of items installed in specific areas and connected to power sources, including items such as your washer and dryer, deep freezer and air conditioning units. This limited coverage also applies to basements. Homeowners insurance pays for accidents that cause overflows, including food in your deep freezer and the carpets in your basement.

If you are tired of looking at your outdated kitchen and decide to do a remodel, you will need to budget for the expense. You can get the money from your savings, you can borrow it from friends, or you might even take out a home equity loan. You can not file a claim or ask your home insurance company to pay to finance the costs of home repair or home construction in such a scenario.

In a similar light, if you hire a contractor and he does a terrible job on your remodeling project, you have no basis for filing a claim under your homeowners policy. Your action would be against the contractor for the shoddy work he did. Insurance is not there to protect you against poor workmanship when the home repair is not related to a covered loss.

Now, your homeowners insurance may pay to cover the cost to repair your home due to a poor construction remodel if it was related to damage suffered by a covered peril. For instance, if a storm tears off half of your roof, you are entitled to have the roof repaired or replaced so it is in the same or better condition as it was in before it was damaged.

It is not unusual for an insurance company to require you to hire an approved contractor before they will issue a check for a home repair that is covered under your policy. They may even pay the contractor directly as the work is completed. If it is later discovered that the roofing work was not done correctly, and the roof starts to leak, you should not have to pay to fix the problem. In such a case, your insurance company will pay to have the job done right and then have the option of seeking restitution from the original contractor.