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Archive for the ‘Homeowners Insurance’ Category

I am closing on a home on 9.26 and was told to purchase homeowners Insurance. It is my first home and I am not sure what I should be asking and/or looking for in a carrier. I live in Minneapolis, MN if that helps at all.

Do you have a real estate agent? They should be able to offer some suggestions for you. Maybe you mortgage lender could recommend an insurance company too.
You could contact the mainstream insurance companies like Geico or State Farm (do a web search for their websites), they offer Homeowners Insurance. You might even be able to get a quote by filling out your information online, if not, just get their phone number off the website and give them a call. If this is your first time, you might want to get a few different quotes. It’s similar to automobile insurance, you have a deductible and a coverage amount. They will give you a quote on standard policy amounts but you can change those amounts (higher or lower) if you want to. The amount to rebuild will be X amount of dollars, the amount to replace your contents….well you will need to estimate that. It’s not as confusing as you might think and most of the time, if you let them know it’s your first home purchase, they explain everything really well. Hope this helps…..

You want to get homeowners insurance but you don’t want just any insurance, you want to get the best insurance at the best price. Here’s how to get the best cheapest homeowners insurance.

Best Homeowners Insurance

The best insurance is insurance with a reputable company that will give you good service and will pay your claims on time. There are two websites where you can check up on a company’s service and claims reputation:

* J.D Power (jdpower.com) rates insurance companies based on how customers are treated, how they like their policies, how they like their policy’s price, and how they like their agents. This is a good site to get an overall perspective of a company from the customer’s point of view.

* You state’s department of insurance records consumer complaints that have been filed against insurance companies. If your state’s Insurance website doesn’t list this information, you can go to the California Department of Insurance website (http://www.insurance.ca.gov) to get it.

Cheapest Homeowners Insurance

In order to get the cheapest homeowners insurance you’re going to have to do a little comparison shopping.

Thanks to the Internet, comparison shopping for homeowners insurance is a piece of cake. All you have to do is go to an insurance comparison website, fill out a simple questionnaire, and wait to get quotes from A-rated companies in your area.

As you fill out the questionnaire you can request all the discounts you’re eligible for and get the deductible you want. If you have any questions about discounts, deductibles, or anything else, the better sites let you can talk online with an insurance expert to get answers to those questions.

Bottom Line

Many of the Katrina hurricane victims found out too late that they had too little insurance coverage or didn’t have the right insurance coverage. Don’t get caught in the same trap. Do your homework.

It only takes a few minutes online to get cheap homeowners insurance quotes , and a few minutes more to check out a company to make sure it’s reputable and reliable.

Visit http://www.LowerRateQuotes.com/homeowners-insurance.html or click on the following link to get the best cheapest homeowners insurance quotes from top-rated companies and see how much you can save. You can get more insurance tips in their Articles section.

ryan@thesatellitetvguide.com
http://www.articlesbase.com/insurance-articles/how-to-get-the-best-cheapest-homeowners-insurance-138773.html

Homeowners Insurance is the ideal way to protect one of your lifetime investments, your house and also the pricey things kept in it. By purchasing this policy you insure your house and possessions against several threats such as natural disasters, theft etc.

While purchasing a homeowners insurance the first issue of extreme concern is the amount of coverage you want. A recent survey conducted by the Insurance Information Institute revealed that two-thirds of all homes in America were underinsured by an average of 27%. Thus it is important to opt for a right amount of coverage.

If you are finding it difficult to calculate the extent of coverage you want, there are several ways to do it. For instance if you want coverage for reconstruction of your house then multiply the square foot of your home by the local building cost per square foot. To know the cost of rebuilding your house, also known as dwelling coverage, you can take the help of any local insurance or real estate agent.

For instance in Nevada an average of 1268 square foot home that was built in 1997 has a current dwelling coverage of $81000. However if the homeowners feel that they are underinsured by 27% and increased their coverage to $110,000, the monthly payment will increase by $7.50 per month.

Since most often the Homeowners Insurance also compensates for personal liability, you should also keep in mind how much coverage you require for certain legal expenses, medical expenditure or injury to any member of the house.

Though a standard homeowners policy comes with liability coverage of worth $100,000, insurance professionals usually advise to get of coverage of around $300,000 to $500,000 as liability coverage. To have this extra amount added to your standard homeowners policy, purchasing an endorsement is a wise idea.

You can also go for personal umbrella coverage in case the worth of your assets is more than $300,000 to $500,000. The umbrella cover is extremely useful once you are through with your homeowners or automobiles coverage. For instance if your colleague is injured at your house and revengefully sues you for $500,000, your homeowners insurance will cover for $300,000 and get exhausted but the amount left will be easily covered by the umbrella coverage.

For insuring your household things there are three ways. First is the actual cash value in which the policy pays for replacing your personal property using the method that is based on replacement cost of the thing minus the depreciation?

Second is the replacement cost strategy where you receive current amount for the thing you lost in any of the covered dangers. Though this way requires you to pay an additional premium but it can prove extremely beneficial in the long run.

The third option is the guaranteed replacement cost. This coverage means that there is no maximum payout applied to coverage of your insured personal possessions. You need to pay an extra premium but on the same hand increase your deductible to make the coverage somewhat cost-effective. Similarly the structure of our house is also to be insured in these three ways but with slight variation.

According to current facts and statistics presented by National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 2002 the average expenditure on homeowners insurance increased by 12% from $593 to $668 in 2003. Expenditure varies with the state. For example in 2003 Texas witnessed the highest average expenditure of $1328, in Oregon it was $461, Delaware $442 and Maine $462.

Mansi Gupta
http://www.articlesbase.com/insurance-articles/homeowners-insurance-statistics-guide-30433.html