Home and Flood Insurance for Hurricanes
Hurricane season can prove to be extremely damaging to people’s homes. The wind, rain, and potential for thunderstorms and even tornados make for a dangerous time for any homeowner or renter. Given all of the potential damage that can result from hurricane season and really never knowing when your area could be hit, it seems like something you would want to make sure you have the coverage for.
If a hurricane caused flooding at your home, your home insurance wouldn’t cover it. Many people may not find
this out until it is too late, but it’s something everyone should know. How can you cover yourself from flooding damage? Obtain a flood insurance policy for your home. A flood insurance policy can cover your building, your contents, or you building and contents. Even an inch of water in your home could end up costing tens of thousands of dollars. A flood insurance policy could help prevent you from having to pay that fee out of pocket.
Already confused about your coverage for hurricanes? Hurricane season can mean a lot of questions for homeowners. When you are watching the news or being told to evacuate, the last thing you want to worry about is if you have enough coverage. At that point it will be too late so why not prepare yourself and your home now?
Instead of breaking down the coverages for your home insurance and flood insurance, we thought it may be better to breakdown your hurricane questions:
Does my home insurance cover hurricane damage?
Your basic homeowners insurance policy should cover you for basic perils, such as hurricanes or other issues that may arise with hurricanes such as thunder, lightning, wind and tornados. Fortunately, windstorms are one of the basic perils that all of the standard homeowners policies cover. This means you’ll generally be compensated for your losses if a tornado, hurricane, or other windstorm causes damage to your home or the personal belongings inside it.
What does your home insurance not cover?
As mentioned above, any flooding (caused by a hurricane or not) will not be covered by homeowners insurance. However, a flood insurance policy would cover you. Something to think about given the heavy rain fall in short periods of time that is typical during a hurricane.
Flood Insurance WOULD cover flood damage caused by hurricanes?
It would as long as the flood damage is either on two or more acres of your own property or caused damage to more than one property. This means that it couldn’t be just your home affected, but as long as one other neighbor also had damage it would be covered.
How would I know if the damage was considered flooding?
To put it very simply, flooding is defined by rising waters. Something like damage from a heavy rain in a short period of time would be covered most likely with flood insurance. Other things may fall under “water damage” which would be covered under your home insurance. It’s always good to speak to an agent for full clarification.
When should I call my agent before a hurricane?
The sooner the better when it comes to speaking with your agent. If you’re interested in flood insurance it typically takes 30 days to take effect. For other things, such as updating your policy, sooner is still better. Things you may want to update if you’re worried about damage to your home is coverage limits or even deductibles. Lastly, companies may place restrictions on changes or new policies if it is too close to a storm. Some companies put a coverage restriction when there is a bad storm coming in. It could be a few days that the company will not bind coverage for a new policy because of a storm and they may not allow coverage/deductible changes either.
Why would I need to update my policy before a hurricane?
If you have made updates or remodeled your home you may want to look into more coverage. If you do a home
inventory of your items and it doesn’t seem like you have enough contents coverage that may be another reason. Hurricanes could be extremely destructive. You want your insurance to cover you for the worst.
If you were displaced from your home would you have coverage?
This is a great question to ask your agent. Your homeowner’s insurance policy has additional living expenses coverage which would be available to use after a hurricane loss, but there is no additional living expenses coverage on a flood policy.
Should I have replacement cost coverage on my home insurance?
While having replacement cost coverage is ideal because it would allow for you to get the money to rebuild your home completely if it were destroyed, there are a lot of restrictions. For example, to qualify for replacement cost coverage, you’ll probably be required to insure your property to at least 80% of the replacement cost. If you do this and your home suffers a total loss, your insurance policy will cover the total cost of replacing your home.
Hopefully your hurricane and insurance questions were answered above. If they weren’t, give our agents a call as you prepare for the rest of hurricane season. Our agents aren’t just knowledgeable when it comes to your home policy; they are also experts when it comes to flood insurance. Call 888.865.1244 if you have questions!
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