Purchasing home insurance is a large part of the home buying process. Your home is arguably one of the most expensive assets you’ll ever buy, and the best home insurance policy will help to protect your investment. Trying to get a good understanding of which home insurance is best requires looking at multiple quotes. When you do this, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in small print, policies, documents, and coverage caps.
Since buying a house can be stressful enough, we want to help reduce the stress that comes with comparing multiple policies. This is why we’re going to tell you exactly how to compare various insurance quotes, and you can use the following criteria to narrow down your options and pick the one that is best for your home.
Types of Coverage
The first thing you have to do is figure out which coverage you have because this will get rid of some insurance companies immediately. Ideally, whichever company you choose will have all of the coverage you need. We’ve listed a few popular types of coverage below.
- Dwelling – Dwelling coverage can help you rebuild or repair your home’s physical structure if a covered peril like a fire damages or destroys it.
- Liability – If someone is visiting your home and gets injured, this coverage can help cover legal costs and medical expenses if you’re found responsible.
- Personal Property – This coverage will help to protect your items inside your home like furniture, clothing, or electronics. It’ll help to replace them if something happens.
- Other Structures – If you have freestanding structures on your property like a shed or fence, this coverage can help cover the cost of rebuilding or repairing it.
- Additional Living Expenses – If something happens to your home and you can’t live there like a fire, additional living expenses coverage can help pay for a temporary relocation while you rebuild or repair your home.
Deductibles
Your policy deductible is how much you’ll pay out of your own pocket before your home insurance company will start to pay on your claim. It’s less expensive to purchase a policy with a higher deductible, but this means that you’ll pay more when it comes time to file a claim. Make sure you take a look at the deductibles the policies offer and pick the one that works best for your circumstances. Ideally, you’ll have more than one deductible to choose from in a single policy, and this makes changing it to suit your needs easily.
Coverage Limits
Every home insurance policy comes with a coverage limit, and it’s extremely important that you know what it is on each one you compare. This limit is the maximum amount the company will pay out for a covered loss. For example, say you have fire damage to your home, but you have dwelling coverage. Your dwelling coverage would have a set limit that they would pay out. These limits directly impact how much your policy costs. It’s a good idea to make sure that each insurance company has clear coverage limits when you’re narrowing down your choices.
