2 Situations When You May Not Have Enough Homeowners Insurance
Did you buy a home insurance policy and think that you're covered for all unforeseen problems with your home? You may be surprised to find that you are lacking coverage if you did not pay attention to the policy you were buying. Here are 2 situations where you may not have enough home insurance coverage.
Water Damage
Water can enter your home in several ways, and not all of them are covered by a basic homeowners insurance policy. If you have a water pipe burst unexpectedly in your home, that type of damage will be covered. However, you may be surprised that you are not covered in other areas.
Any time that water comes into your home through the window wells will require flood insurance. It may not be surging water from a nearby river or lake, but it still counts as flooding. This includes if you have a heavy rainstorm and the water rises up to where your home is located. While it may be totally out of your control because of the backed up city sewer system that failed, your insurance company may require flood insurance to cover the damage.
Sewer backups also require their own type of policy. While you may see water coming out of your drains, it actually requires a sewage backup policy. This will protect you if a sump pump were to fail, or you have drains backing up into your home due to plumbing problems.
Structural Damage
When you originally get a home insurance policy, it is designed to cover the entire home if it were to be built from scratch again in a total loss situation. This means that the policy will become more expensive with inflation as building materials become more expensive. If you ever decide to make modifications to your home, such as adding an addition or finishing a basement, it is very important that you contact your insurance company to let them know that your home now has more construction materials that need coverage.
While you may think that you are getting away without paying an increase in your insurance policy, realize that you may not lack the coverage to repair whatever you modified on your home. If you build an addition, your insurance policy may not be enough to cover recreating the addition if you have a huge house fire.
Reach out to your insurance agent for more information about having enough coverage.
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