Searching for Home Insurance Online

Buying home insurance online is probably the easiest and most efficient way to get your coverage. If you do, you will receive free quotes almost as soon as you hit the enter key. Much of the purchasing power comes in the back-end, or your research to understand what you need to make the right insurance policy for you.

The best advice to take to heart is to shop around every year for insurance.

Why? Well, it is generally assumed long-time customers get the best deals.

Often, they do not. They are pushed aside as insurance companies vie for new customers, who they might toss low teaser rates that last a couple years.

The other reason to shop around for insurance every time your policy comes up for renewal is relevance. You need to go through your insurance and make sure it all still applies.

Use the FREE quote comparison tool above to start your search instantly!

If you had storage for your antiques on your property, but since sold off the priceless possessions, guess what? Your insurance could drop drastically to account for unloading those expensive items.

If you were wondering, expensive jewelry, art collections, and antiques usually require a special insurance rider to accommodate the higher ticket items.

If your kids left home and actually took their belongings with them, you may want to adjust your coverage downward as well.

Home Offices and Rentals

If you decided that it’s time your house helped you earn money, you are not alone.

You might have thought about opening up your kid’s old room as your home office, or renting out your other kid’s space for a small family.

If either of these are the case, you need to have extra insurance policies in place.

If you are renting you may need landlord insurance, which would cover your fixtures if the tenant damages your house.

In addition, they are responsible for buying renter’s insurance. If you are bringing your business home to the home office, you need business insurance.

Keep in mind you need to make it a point to have separate space and declare it all on your taxes.

Covering Four Big Areas

There are four main parts to homeowners insurance coverage.

1. Dwelling
2. Personal Possessions
3. Other Structures
4. Liability

When purchasing coverage, take into account different things to buy each portion of insurance.

For instance, make sure you buy the amount of insurance it would cost to rebuild your house, not its market value. If it burns down, it would have a market value of zero, right, and zero dollars would not be enough to rebuild.

The way to determine how much it costs to rebuild your house is by hiring a contractor and a home appraiser. They together will come up with an up-to-date estimate of the cost to build your house. In addition, get investment guard.

This product insures against the added pricing pressures and price gauging that may happen after everyone in the region is forced to rebuild after a huge tornado.

In addition, if you set your insurance and forget to look at it a couple years, the insurance guard would adjust the amount your insurer pays to build your house to keep pace with inflation.

However, always make sure that you buy at least 80 percent of the cost to rebuild, or your insurer may actually drag its feet or deny your home insurance claim.

Take inventory and figure out how much your belongings cost to determine how much personal possessions coverage to buy.

In addition, if you have sheds, boathouses, gazebos, fencing, decks, and other structures onsite, structures insurance covers these in your homeowners policy.

Make sure you determine how much each of those cumulatively would cost to rebuild. Then buy the limit that most closely resembles the cost to rebuild those structures.

The only portion of coverage that has no deductible is the liability portion. However, be careful and maintain your property.

In general, insurers consider a liability claim, where a visitor to your home is injured, to be negligence related. That type of claim is like a death knell for your insurance policy.

In addition, is considered a bad practice as well, which may lead you to exorbitant home insurance rates, non-renewal, or possibly denial of an insurance policy.

A Bad Surprise

What you may not realize is that the previous owner’s insurance claims count against your insurance as well.

So, before you buy, you may want to find out what kinds of claims the prior homeowners made.

Otherwise, be prepared for some sticker shock.

Claims will influence your car and homeowners rates adversely. In addition, you may not realize it, but so much as asking your insurance agent about a potential claim is a flag that may increase your rates.

In addition, even if the insurance carrier denies your claim, it will count against you.

Typically, the average homeowner may make a claim less than once per decade.

Go beyond that average, and make two or more claims per decade, and you may find more than just steep insurance increases.

You may find it hard to get insurance at all. That’s not good if you are like most homeowners who carry a mortgage, which requires you to have homeowners insurance.

Ways to Bring Down Rates

Saving money is a happier side to shopping for homeowners insurance. Compare companies side by side using the speed of the Internet quotes.

In addition, feel free to make tiny changes to see how increasing your deductible may help you save money. As long as you have not bought the policy yet, you are free to shop without penalty.

Always tell the truth on insurance policies and when shopping. If you are caught lying, your insurance carrier will deny claims and will block you from getting future insurance policies with other carriers.

Increase deductibles as much as you can afford.

You should not use homeowners insurance unless it is an emergency. A catastrophe that destroys your house is a good reason. Burglars stealing your items out of your fireproof safe that you bolted to the floor is a good reason to file a claim, because you were trying to prevent your most prized possessions from being stolen.

Do read the policy. Find out if your insurer will cover loss of cash, fine jewelry, artwork, or if you need to get a safety deposit box instead. Try additional riders as well.

Do check out the insurance guide from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

In addition, make sure you look at your own state’s guidance for handling region-specific natural disasters. For instance, earthquake insurance is a separate purchase, while hurricane insurance is an add-on. Make sure you buy your coverage before a storm hits.

Buying insurance is not too painful. Taking the time out to purchase the coverage that is right for you may save you a lot of money in the long run. In addition, it will ensure that you have the peace of mind if you need the insurance.

Be sure to use the FREE quote comparison tool below!