Saturday, March 28, 2009

What You Should Know on Home Insurance

By Calvin Wapasa

A house insurance policy is a financial arrangement whereby all of your household personal things located in your home are protected against loss, theft or damage. If you own your property, you may be offered a joint policy that protects both the building and the contents as well although this may not be worth it if you rent accommodation.

It is always a good practice to make a list of everything in your place that has any value, doing this on a room by room basis and preferably before you actually take out the household insurance. One way to do this in addition to a written record is to make a video recording of all the rooms including things you own that have value and if you do not own a video then a photographic camera will do just as well. In combination with the written inventory, this makes an excellent record of your household and property. However, you should not overlook the need to keep your place insurance up to date so any new items must be included to the list and pictures taken as soon as possible.

Many hundreds of suppliers now provide their own particular policies online, so before deciding on the one you would like to set up, be sure to obtain a few of quotes so that you can compare. One obvious advantage to using online services is that you can have your quotation within a matter of seconds. Online house insurance is usually less costly since overheads are cut from the picture so the companies can offer lower premiums and insurance charges. You should not rush and pick out a firm that does not have a good name just because they have offered the lowest insurance quote, as you may regret not checking this detail.

Insurance companies call the amount they cover as the sum assured and this amount is the maximum they will pay out on your plan should you make a claim for complete loss through damage, accident or burglary. The sum assured is often calculated by the insurance broker for you based on figures for replacing the contents of an average home. Others nonetheless, will evaluate your house and offer cover based on their figures or request how much protection you would like and then calculate the premiums on your behalf. This situation may also help your particular needs as your individual contents value may be much higher than the general sum assured, in which case you would be under insured.

You should be conscious that not every one of your possessions will be addressed automatically by your policy and it is worthwhile determining this first and adding anything that is not a standard item. home workers for example should be aware that stock used to run that business from household is not always addressed as standard.

The household owner should be conscious that whatever the stipulations of the insurance plan, it is the household owner who is responsible if a claim is rejected for something that the policy does not allow for so it is imperative that these matters are verified in advance of any decision being made.

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