Insurance covers a range of given dollar values. That’s the first thing you need to know about insurance. You can get specified coverage for practically anything, when you need it. Home insurance is a good working model to see what insurance can do to protect your assets.
Home insurance basics
Home insurance provides cover for events and provides upfront payout values. These values are your best guide to self defence for your assets and will show your costs upfront as well. The top new insurers are offering a range of flexible policies that can be managed online, including premiums.
Home insurance is a truly efficient way of covering a range of issues, including legal liabilities, which can be horrendously expensive. If a person has an accident on your property, they may have to sue to recover their costs of medical treatment, lost income, etc.
This isn’t the sort of thing you want to approach lightly. Your cover is your defence against potentially heavy costs. You need to do your homework, compare deals and do some serious thinking about how you want to manage liabilities. This really is “risk management”, in the most literal sense, so please understand now that good cover can save you a lot of grief.
Fire insurance is a particular element of home insurance that needs a special mention at this point. Make absolutely sure to get this cover and make sure it’s a good dollar value range of cover. Even minor fire damage can cause horrific costs in repairs, and serious damage is much worse.
It’s good practice to get some professional advice if you’re not sure about what you need to cover, particularly if you’re not sure about how much cover you need. The insurers don’t just sell insurance, they also have a vested interest in making sure their policyholders get good information about their products. You’ll get useful advice, so if you’re not sure, ask.
Contents insurance basics
Contents insurance isn’t as simple as it looks, either, but it’s equally important, and sometimes critical when you need to replace lost or stolen goods. You can get contents insurance which can be tailored to a large degree and altered to suit your needs when required, too.
There are some considerations here:
A lot of your contents may appreciate in value as you acquire new systems and other contents. If you upgrade your home electronics, you’re likely to need to fine tune your contents policy, particularly if it’s a replacement policy, to cover values. Make certain on a regular basis, particularly if you’re looking at upgrading in the future, that your insurance represents appropriate cover values.
Things like antiques and fine art are usually not covered by contents policies. They’re not designed to do that. You may be able to get a dollar value cover, but not necessarily at the market value, just a general sort of cover for loss. You’ll probably need special insurance for these things, and probably valuations to establish a cost bandwidth. Your insurer will be able to tell you how to approach these issues.
Shop around online, check out the options, and you’ll find you can get excellent cover. Just make sure your cover can do what you want it to do.
[The above article is a Guest Post]
