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Questions to Ask when getting a Life Insurance
Losing items can be upsetting specially if the item lost is valuable or had a sentimental value to us. Even though people ideally would like to avoid making a home insurance claim, having an insurance policy can certainly be a big help and give us peace of mind.
Knowing that the policy covers is an important as small details about home insrance can easily be misunderstood which can create problems in the future for the policyholder. This guide can help you understand about the coverage of a regular home insurance policy.
What does buildings insurance covers?
Building Insurance will cover your home’s entire structure, that includes the roof, ceilings, floors, doors, windows and walls. It may also include permanent fixtures like fitted kitchens and certain outdoor structures like greenhouses depending on your policy. In the event of a fire, explosion vandalism, storm, flood, subsidence or theft; the standard buildings insurance policy should cover the full cost of repair.
You will need to have an estimate value of the repair cost when planning a building insurance claim to make sure you are fully covered.
What does contents insurance include?
Contents insurance includes household items, including but not limited to electrical appliances, household goods, personal items, furniture and valuables. A standard policy will provide protection to theft, vandalism, fire and water damage.
It’s important to know that if you make a claim on your contents insurance, a ‘single article limit’ to your items may apply from your policy, which means there’s a certain limit that can be paid for for any item that’s damaged or stolen. This can change depending on the item type and the policy.
Your home insurance policy
There are several things that you need to check before making a home insurance policy claim, these includes the exclusions on the policy and the additional payments that the policy will require. We’ve listed a list of the points to check below.
Exclusions
Maintenance exclusion is one you should be aware of. An example of this is the normal wear and tear of the property. Most of the home insurance polices will not be able to cover this. However, if a fire or storm is the cause of the damage, you should be able to make a claim against these type of disasters. These are the details that you should look out for when getting a home insurance policy.
Other exclusions include mechanical breakdown of electric appliance, furnitures regular wear and tear, faulty construction resulting to damage to fences, gates etc..
Things to consider
It’s vital that you regularly check and maintain your property and let the insurer know right away if you’re going to file a claim. This will allow you to recover most of the repair cost if done early.
It’s also worth mentioning that there’s usually an excess payment when you make a claim. Compulsary excess is set by your insurance provider and is fixed while Voluntary excess is the amount you agree to contribute when making a claim. Check with your provider to know what your excess are for the home insurance policy.
You can also add a number of extras to your policy. If your property is on a high-risk area, you may need to check if your policy has coverage for subsidence and flood damage. Although this extra could cost you more, you’ll have a peace of mind knowing that your property is fully protected.
Always read the fine print
I know reading the small print can be tedious, but it wouldn’t hurn to know what you’re getting yourself into. Reading the policy documents thoroughly will help protect you so you’ll know about the benefits, exclusions and limitations of your coverage.
Making a claim
There are a number of steps you need to take when making a claim. First thing that you need to do is read the policy documents and determine if the issue you are having is covered by your policy, check if there are excesses and keep in mind other information that might be handy to know.
You can reach out to your insurance provider through phone or their website when you want to make a claim. Majority of the insurance providers will have a page with form specifically designed for claims that will allow you to send all the required information to them. You just have to make sure to not leave out any details when making a claim.
If there has been a severe damage to the property, your insurance provider may appoint a loss adjuster to you. They will assist you make a list of damage items and estimate their value before the damage. If the property has structural damage and is unstable, your insurance provider may assign a structural engineer to assess thhe extent of the damage on the property.
If it’s a simple claim such as a lost item or a leak at home, the process won’t be as complicated and other parties like loss adjusters and engineers won’t need to be involved.
The entire process of insurance claim varies as each case is different. It could take weeks or some cases months and will entirely depend on the severity of the damaged property and the number of items damaged. By providing all the information your insurance provider needs, it will help make the entire process faster as they will no longer need to get back to you to get other information that they require.