What’s covered by home insurance?

Your home is your castle. That’s why it is so important to protect it. We offer a wide range of home insurance packages that are designed to cover:
Home (the building and any detached private structures on your property such as a garage or shed)
Personal property (all the contents inside your home)
Personal liability, should someone hurt themselves while visiting your home
Your investments in any upgrades you’ve made to your residence
Living expenses in case of loss or damage forces you to temporarily leave your home

Why do I need home insurance in Louisiana?

If you’re like most people, your house makes up a big portion of your net worth. That’s why home insurance is a must. A homeowners policy protects your house, its contents, and your other assets in the event of a fire, theft, storm, liability claim, or other unexpected peril.

If an unforeseen event causes damage to your home or property, with a good home insurance policy your insurer, not you, will pick up the tab. And since many lenders often make home insurance a mortgage requirement, you may as well get the best plan at the lowest rate, right?

What type of home insurance policy should I select in Grosse Tete?

That depends on how much coverage you want for your property. Here are the four basic types of home insurance coverage you can choose from:
Comprehensive coverage
This policy offers the broadest range of home insurance coverage. It protects your home and its contents from all risks, except a few exclusions:

Optional risks: Risks that aren’t covered in normal policies, but that you can buy additional coverage for. Sewer back up and earthquake coverage are examples of optional coverage.

Uninsurable peril: Risks you can’t insure because they can be avoided with proper planning. For example, you can’t get coverage for flood damage if you built your house on a flood plain.
Basic coverage/named perils
This type of home insurance is more scaled back than comprehensive coverage. Basic coverage only pays for the damages that are specifically outlined in your policy.

Broad coverage
This type of insurance falls halfway between comprehensive and basic coverage. A mid-priced compromise, it provides comprehensive coverage on main items, like your home’s physical structure, but only basic coverage for the contents inside.

No frills coverage
This type of coverage isn’t offered by all insurers and is usually limited to properties that don’t meet normal standards. For example, if your your home has physical issues, an insurance company may only offer you a very limited no frills policy.

For most people, their home is their single most prized and valuable possession. This is why it is so important to make sure you protect it with the appropriate insurance coverage. Make sure you understand what type of home insurance you are buying, who or what is covered, exclusions, policy limitations, how much coverage is provided and how to report a loss or claim.

Why have home insurance?

Home insurance reimburses you for your financial loss arising from accidental losses such as fire, vandalism and water damage. Home insurance also ensures you are protected against lawsuits arising from your personal actions or ownership of your property. Most banks and mortgage companies will insist that you purchase home insurance before lending you money to buy a home or condo. Most people forget about home insurance when buying a home.

If you are renting an apartment, room or house, tenant’s insurance offers two kinds of coverages: liability and contents. Liability coverage will protect you from your personal actions where you are held responsible for damage to the building or injury to others who live or visit your rented premises. Contents coverage reimburses you for loss or damage to your personal belongings arising from insured perils including fire, smoke and theft.

What determines the cost of home insurance in Iberville County?

There are a wide variety of factors insurance companies consider when deciding how much to charge you for your home insurance. Insurance companies analyze these factors and determine the likelihood that you or a group of people with the same set of circumstances as you will make a claim and how much it will cost. Some of these factors include:

Where you live
Type of heating source
Type of electrical distribution
Pipes
Age of roof
Primary use of your home
Your claims history
Proximity to fire hydrant and fire station
Proximity to surrounding businesses
Cost to rebuild your home

5 best ways to save money on home insurance online

1. Raise your Deductibles

A deductible is the amount of money you state you will agree, in advance, to fund as part of the settlement when you file a claim. Subject to your claim being successful, your insurer will make the remainder of the payment to balance your claim; or a sum as mutually agreed. Claims can only be made based on the terms of your homeowner policy. You may be asking a question like ‘What is the effect of increasing my deductible?’ Increasing your deductible gives you the opportunity to save a lot of money on premiums. For instance, you can save up $20 or more when you have a deductible that’s a sum of say $2,000 or more.

Also, remember that in areas like Florida, and some parts of Louisiana, you might be asked to have different deductibles for different forms of damage. Such as windstorm damage as a result of hurricanes.

Huge discounts are often offered by insurers; this is due to the fact that clients with high limit deductibles rarely file for claims. No matter the size of deductible you choose, endeavor to keep that sum of money safe. If ever the need arises for you to file a claim, your money is then always available towards a repair or replacement.

2. Bundle your Automobile and Homeowners Policies

There are many insurance companies and the majority of those companies are into the sales of both auto and home insurance. Because they want to be involved in doing business with you, they offer discounts if you bundle your homeowner and vehicle coverage together with them. When you do this, not only do you get good discounts, you also save yourself the stress of paying two separate bills.

3. Install Home Security Devices

You can have security devices installed in your home for relatively little cost. This is highly important as it allows you keep your home protected and your insurance premiums down. This can be achieved by spending few hundreds of dollars on minor improvements and doing this can earn you special insurance discounts. Home security devices include installing a sprinkler system, fire and intruder alarm systems and upgraded dead bolts on your doors and windows.

Home security monitoring packages that connect your security systems with the police and fire departments will fetch you extra discount on insurance coverage. This might be a bit more expensive to get done, but you will have peace of mind when you are sure that your home is adequately and skillfully supervised. At the same time earning yourself a price break on your home insurance.

4. Upgrade your Home to be Disaster Proof

You can do many things to improve your house in order to make it resistant to specific disasters. It’s a form of savings because doing this will allow you save money on home-owners insurance coupled with a nice price break.

Spending time and money to improve your upgrades on storm shutters and having a roof that is fire resistant are two great suggestions. Likewise, new heating and electrical units can make your home highly efficient and enable you to have reduced insurance bills.

5. Shop Online for the Best Home Insurance Deals

Just like the saying goes Time is money. However, you can save both time and money just by getting home insurance quotes online. You don’t need to trawl forever through tons of junk mail, where you will not achieve what you are looking for, because you still have to waste your quality time to call belligerent agents to enquire about lowest house insurance prices specific to your particular circumstances.

It is far more convenient to find and compare home insurance deals online. What you need to do is to search for a good website that will provide at least five rates for you to compare.

Shopping for both bundled auto and home-owner, as well as individual house and auto insurance, is a good idea. Doing this will allow you to compare and see the package that will work best for you and allows you to save most.