Adco Burch Insurance Services

Homeowners insurance is designed to provide financial protection for you in the event of a disaster.  Standard homeowners policies are package policies.  They provide coverage for your property, both your home and its contents, as well as providing personal liability coverage. 

Most disasters are covered by your homeowners policy, but there are exceptions.  Problems that may affect your home caused by lack of routine maintenance are generally excluded from your policy. Damage caused by earthquakes is not normally covered by a homeowners policy.  Earthquake coverage must be added to a homeowners policy through an endorsement or must be carried as a separate policy.  Another coverage that is not included under the normal terms of your homeowners insurance policy is damage caused by floods.  Flood insurance may also be purchased on a separate policy.  There may be other exceptions and non-covered events in the terms of your policy. 

Remember, you should always check with your agent if you have specific questions regarding your policy coverages.

Contrary to popular belief, all policies are not created equally. Insurance companies each provide a variety of endorsements (fancy word for coverage options) such as
water back-up or refrigerated food spoilage which are not always included in your policy. If they are not included in the companies standard coverage they may be available as optional coverage for a minimal amount of additional premium.

More important than optional coverages and available endorsements, you need to answer a very basic question about your current policy. Using insurance terms, does my policy provided a “Named Peril” or an “All Perils” form of coverage? In other words, what does my policy cover?

Peril is best defined as a Cause of Loss. If my house catches on fires and as a result is damaged, then Fire is the Peril that caused the damage. An All Perils policy provides coverage for all Causes of Loss other than those defined in the list of policy Exclusions. The alternative is a Named Perils form coverage. This is the less comprehensive of the two and provides coverage for only those Causes of Loss defined in the Covered Perils section of the policy. In this case, the policy Exclusions still apply, but using our original example, if my house catches on fire and my policy does not specifically state that Fire is a covered Peril then the loss is not covered (yipes!).

As always, please review your coverage with your agent to learn more about your policy.