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Joel Ohman
Certified Financial Planner
Joel Ohman is the CEO of a private equity-backed digital media company. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, author, angel investor, and serial entrepreneur who loves creating new things, whether books or businesses. He has also previously served as the founder and resident CFP® of a national insurance agency, Real Time Health Quotes. He also has an MBA from the University of South Florida. ...
Certified Financial Planner
UPDATED: Mar 22, 2022
It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right coverage choices.
Advertiser Disclosure: We strive to help you make confident car insurance decisions. Comparison shopping should be easy. We are not affiliated with any one car insurance company and cannot guarantee quotes from any single company.
Our partnerships don’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own. To compare quotes from top car companies please enter your ZIP code above to use the free quote tool. The more quotes you compare, the more chances to save.
Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about auto insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything auto insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by auto insurance experts.
UPDATED: Mar 22, 2022
It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right coverage choices.
Advertiser Disclosure: We strive to help you make confident car insurance decisions. Comparison shopping should be easy. We are not affiliated with any one car insurance company and cannot guarantee quotes from any single company.
Our partnerships don’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own. To compare quotes from top car companies please enter your ZIP code above to use the free quote tool. The more quotes you compare, the more chances to save.
On This Page
Some of the best things in life are free. For instance, homeowners insurance quotes, come without a price tag and offer you a great chance to save lots of money. Learning to save the most while getting the insurance product you need paves the way for peace of mind now and well into your future.
Be sure to use the FREE quote tool above to start comparing home insurance policies instantly!
The idea is to do the following:
- Buy at least 80 percent of the cost to rebuild your house.
- Cover your personal possessions.
- Buy insurance to go to bat for you if anyone is injured at your house or property.
Now the difficult part is getting up the energy to find the answers to the questions that are probably going through your mind after seeing your new to-do list for buying insurance.
The first task is for you to find out the cost to actually rebuild your house.
It is not the same as the real estate market value for your house. Think back to 2006. Maybe your house would have sold for 700,000 dollars. In 2008, maybe it had dropped to 200,000 dollars.
Determining Costs to Rebuild
The purpose of having insurance is essentially to pay to rebuild your house following its catastrophic destruction. Insurance is about preparing for the worst.
- Hire a trustworthy building contractor
- Contract with a dedicated housing appraiser
The housing appraiser and the building contractor need to work together to prepare an estimate of how much your house would cost to build today. Keep copies of these reports. Send them in to the insurance companies you are choosing among.
When you are buying coverage, make sure you set limits for your dwelling that are at least equal to 80 percent of the actual cost to rebuild.
To make up for huge inflation and building supply shortages that increase building costs following a natural disaster or widespread catastrophe, buy inflation guard.
Otherwise, you may find your estimates for rebuilding fall short. This is because of the spikes in costs when supply shortages cause huge spikes in building supply prices.
Be A Stellar Homeowner
Be the superstar for the insurance companies. Go above and beyond by demonstrating your attention to what matters to the underwriters. Show them the facts about how much it would cost to rebuild. Show them additionally that you are prepared with a home inventory of all of your personal possessions.
Giving the information on all of your belongings to the underwriters is extremely helpful for them. It is also a list that you should keep in your house, with further copies online, on file with the insurer, and with family far away from your region.
The idea is to give the underwriters information that they can use to determine that you are a lower risk.
Providing the details gives the underwriters the knowledge to know exactly what kind of risk you pose.
It helps get your claims paid more quickly as well.
The reason is that when you prove what you would be losing, with a proper inventory, you make it easier for the insurance carrier to pay your claims. If you are showing efforts to prevent damage that is another win for you.
What you may realize once you start shopping for insurance is that the homeowners dwelling policy indicates how much your personal possession will cover. Personal property coverage is generally a percentage of your homeowner’s insurance.
How to Make an Inventory
The inventory for your homeowners insurance needs to include the following:
- List everything
- Include video and photographs
- Include serial numbers
- Keep copies of receipts
Did you know that your personal possession insurance covers your belongings even when you are carrying them with you.
Finding Savings When Buying Insurance
Even the U.S. Government publishes helpful ways to lower the financial burden when buying homeowners insurance.
- Buy multiple lines of coverage, or policies, from the same insurance provider.
- Install security alarms and monitoring systems
- Shop around
- Check financial stability of insurers at A.M. Best or Standard & Poors.
- Increase deductibles to the highest level you can afford. After all, you should only call on homeowners insurance for serious issues, such as a house fire.
- Ask your insurer for tips to save further money.
- Good credit saves you more. Pay bills on time.
If you need further tips to learn how to buy insurance, check out tips for buying insurance. For instance, in addition to your dwelling, and personal property, you need to focus on further structures on your property, and liability coverage.
Loss of use is another area of insurance that you need. For instance, if your home gets destroyed, you need a place to stay while it is rebuilt. That is what the loss of use provides for you.
When you are talking to your contractor and the home appraiser to find out an estimate of how long it would take to rebuild. You might want to add on a couple extra months just in case.
Medical payments and liability insurance cover for two types of injuries. Medical is for you and your family. The liability coverage pays for injuries that occur on your property.
Usually the cause is some type of negligence. The idea is to prevent liability claims because it will increase your insurance, probably considerably.
Another excellent guide provides reviews of the various insurance companies from an effective practical perspective.
Battling Insurance Claims
According to customer responses, if your claims is more than 30,000 dollars, then the insurance company is much more likely to drag its feet or fight you on the dollar amount for your claim. That is the reason that you need to have documentation proving what you are doing to prevent claims, and to prove the value of your possessions.
It is worth mentioning that you should not file claims regarding everything that happens on your property.
If you have a legitimate, large claim, then contact the insurer. If it is something like a broken window on the garage door, then replace the glass.
It is most likely going to cost a lot less than getting into a mix with the insurance carrier. It will otherwise increase your premiums going forward, cost you the deductible, and make it harder for you to get insurance.
Buying Special Coverage
If you live in earthquake, tornado, or hurricane country, then you need to buy additional coverage. For hurricanes, you will find that your deductible is a percentage of the losses. It can costs thousands to file a claim.
Earthquake coverage is difficult to live with paying, but worse to live without it. Tornadoes are another issue all together. If you live in a flood plain as designated by the government, you need to buy insurance through the government.
How to Shop for Insurance
- Get quotes
- Evaluate the financial background of the insurance carriers
- Go with insurance carriers who pay the legitimate claims
- Make attempts to save that are in this article.
- Buy the lowest cost policies of the best insurers.
There are many considerations to make when you need to buy homeowners insurance. It is an investment in yourself and perhaps your most expensive investment.
Use the FREE tool below to start comparison shopping for homeowners insurance now!
Enter your zip code below to view companies that have cheap home insurance rates.
Secured with SHA-256 Encryption
Joel Ohman
Certified Financial Planner
Joel Ohman is the CEO of a private equity-backed digital media company. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, author, angel investor, and serial entrepreneur who loves creating new things, whether books or businesses. He has also previously served as the founder and resident CFP® of a national insurance agency, Real Time Health Quotes. He also has an MBA from the University of South Florida. ...
Certified Financial Planner
Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about auto insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything auto insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by auto insurance experts.