Homeowners insurance is one of the most common insurance types. It helps homeowners offset costs relating to a wide variety of damages and liabilities involving their household and property. These coverages are typically limited to repairs to your home and freestanding structures, repair or replacement of personal belongings, temporary relocation costs, and liabilities associated with injury or damage you cause to another person.

Homeowner’s insurance isn’t legally required by the government in most cases, but if you have a home mortgage of any kind, your bank or lender will likely insist that you have appropriate insurance protections in place. But even if you don’t have a mortgage lender you need to be held accountable to, getting a homeowners policy is still a good idea.

To better understand the many benefits associated with homeowners insurance, let’s take a look at some of the top coverage options this policy type provides. Then, we’ll examine a few areas of coverage that homeowners policies may not be able to protect you.

What Homeowners Insurance Covers

Homeowners insurance, as you may have realized, comes with many key benefits that can seriously benefit you if you face damages or liabilities relating to your policy’s covered protections. Let’s look at just a few of the coverage options most homeowner’s policies come with.

Home Structure

If your home’s structure is damaged, most homeowners’ policies will cover any damages that are not specifically excluded. This means that if your walls, floors, windows, roof, or attached structures like porches are harmed in a covered incident, you will be granted enough money to repair the damage up to and including the complete rebuilding of your home.

Other Structures

Unattached structures like garages, sheds, fences and playhouses are covered under this policy type as well. Typically, the amount permitted is up to 10% of the total cost of your dwelling.

Personal Belongings

If your personal property and belongings are damaged or stolen, a homeowners policy can reimburse you anywhere from 50 to 70% of the cost of your home’s coverage. These belongings can include furniture, clothing, electronics, appliances, and much more.

Loss of Use

Otherwise known as “Additional Living Expenses,” loss of use coverage works to offset the costs of hotel stays, restaurants, transportation, and more if you are forced to relocate after a disaster makes your home uninhabitable.

Liability Protection

Your homeowner’s policy can extend to protect you against more than just damage to your property. In fact, it can also act as liability coverage if someone sues you for harming them or their personal property. Additionally, this coverage isn’t limited to the homeowner. Anyone who lives in the home–including pets–may also be covered. This means that if your pet bites a neighbor, you may have protections included to help with any lawsuit-related costs.

Medical Payments

Similarly to liability coverage, medical payments coverage can provide you with financial protection if you cause an injury to someone else–even if it’s outside of your home. This can come in handy if you face a lawsuit relating to the injury, but no lawsuit is required before payouts can be made.

What Homeowners Doesn’t Cover

No matter how thorough your homeowner’s insurance policy is, there will always be liabilities or damages that it simply cannot cover. There are supplemental plans you can purchase to make up for that extra protection, but it’s important to be aware of what coverages you may be missing before you begin looking for additional coverage. Here are just a few of the main damages and liabilities that are not covered in a typical homeowners policy:

Flooding

If you live anywhere near Ocean City or Toms River, there is a higher-than-average risk that you will experience flooding. Still, despite this, the average homeowner’s policy will not provide you with any flood coverage. The same is true for any water damage caused by drains or sewer backups in your area. 

Essentially, this means that if your home is damaged by water, you may have to bear the brunt of any costs entirely on your own if you don’t have a supplemental flood insurance policy.

Earthquakes, Landslides, and Sinkholes

Earthquakes, landslides, sinkholes, mudflows, mudslides, and any number of similar natural disasters are not covered under a homeowners policy. These disasters, known in insurance as “earth movements,” require separate supplemental policy types that are available through the majority of homeowners insurance carriers.

Infestations 

If you’re facing an infestation of almost any kind–birds, vermin, fungus, mold, or whatever else–-keep in mind that the average homeowner’s insurance will not help you tackle the problem in any way.

Wear, Tear, and Intentional Damage

Over time, most properties decay in one way or another. This decay is not covered under your homeowner’s policy, though supplemental policy types are available. Additionally, any damage to your home that occurs as a result of neglect or intentionally inflicted harm will not be covered.

Do You Need Homeowners Insurance?

Homeowner’s insurance can be an invaluable resource. It provides homeowners with many fundamental damage and liability protections in a convenient bundle that may be difficult to obtain otherwise. 

If you’re interested in investing in a homeowner’s insurance policy, contact our helpful agents today!