Homeowner's Insurance
I thought that I might make a comment about Michael Lamb's suggestion about insurance. Yes, get insurance. This is very important, but when you buy insurance make sure of the limits on the policy. A typical limit might be $3,000 for all of your computer equipment, including business and hobby equipment. Another limit could be on software and that may be for example $2,000. These limits may also be only for at home, and not cover the laptop that you may take with you on business. All of these limits depend on the company you are with, check it out. In a lot of cases the limits may apply only for theft or mysterious dissapearance, fire lightning explosion etc. may not have a limit.What is a limit? Something the insurance company places in the insurance contract to limit the amount of loss due to a specific or special occurance. You may feal really secure only to find you have no coverage at all for your equipment.
Lightning is not the only peril that is out there. Theft is a very popular claim, and many times denied because the insured did not talk to the insurance agent to find out what they bought or are covered for. Pay the extra if needed.
Never assume you are ok, the real shock is to find out the $12,000 worth of computer equipment you owned will only net you $3,000 on a theft claim.
I hope this will make some people contact their insurance agents, or get insurance. A small annual fee will save you thousands of grief dollars later. [David Black]
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7 Comments
Anonymous
June 2nd, 2002
at 10:39am
This is good advice. I myself always look at what a particular insurance plan covers.
Anonymous
June 2nd, 2002
at 10:52am
Man you are annoying but I love your show man even though I can never get through and want a t-shirt. BTW, tell Leo Laporte to stop dragging on the interviews we don't care about and get to some phone calls and other cool stuff..
peace love and SDRAM bro…..
NOMAD
Anonymous
June 4th, 2002
at 10:24am
$3000?! Holy cow… my State Farm policy is $20,000 right out of the gate. Definitely call your agent to check on that. I figured it was just a standard thing to have that much coverage on electronic stuff. Guess not…
-Furo
Anonymous
June 4th, 2002
at 5:09pm
What you need is a renters policy Chris. This only covers your personal property…..not the dwelling itself. Since you don't own the dwelling where you live you have no insuranble interest in it. You DO however have liability for any damage you might cause to the dwelling (ie. bong tips over and your burn a hole in the carpet). Generally there's a limit of $20,000 to $30,000 on personal property with a renters policy but you can add certain items on a “schedule” which is an additional rider and also additional premium. This would be for extremely valuable items such as a diamond ring or an antique chair etc. Things that are hard to valuate after a loss. Generally you're required to get an appraisal for the cost of such items when you “schedule” them. This adds one additional peril which is NOT covered for items which are not “scheduled” on your renters policy. That peril is mysterious disappearance. For instance your out walking on the pier and Gretchen's ring slips off her finger without her noticing and falls through the cracks in the ocean. If it's not “scheduled” your just f'd. If it is scheduled you get a nice check for the amount you appraised it for when you added it to the schedule rider on your renters policy. I wouldn't advise scheduling things such as computer equipment though. This rider is very expensive and all you need to do is keep records of the type of equipment you have and snap some photos in your loft and the insurance company will reimburse you properly on a theft, fire, etc. loss. Hope this helps….
Christopher Johnston
December 2nd, 2006
at 10:32am
You also need to check the deductible. I live in New Orleans which, unless you live under a rock, was hit by Hurricane Katrina last year. Many people here thought there 1-3% deductibles were based on 1-3% of the damage. They later found out it was based on 1-3% of the VALUE OF THE HOME AT THE TIME THE DAMAGE OCCURED. This could come as quite a shock if you live in somplace like San Francisco or San Diego where condos can cost $600,000. If your house burns down in a wildfire, destroyed by a sunami, or crumbles in an earthquake you could have to come up with $6000 - $18000 before you can fix anything. Do you have that much cash lying around? Do you want to make a loan to pay your insurance deductible? Check these things when you sign your policy. Ask your agent to explain to you what the deductible is and how it is calculated and if he doesn’t know wait until he finds out before you sign or find a new agent who does know.
Kris F
December 6th, 2006
at 3:03pm
I tell everybody I know to buy insurance, especially fire. I bought my first house a few years ago and moved all of my stuff into it and in the first week someone broke into and stole everything then set the house on fire, causing over 80k in damages. I do not live in a bad part of town, they just knew nobody was at home. I work a graveyard shift. If I didn’t have ACR (actual cost of replacement) insurance I would have been hosed. Foremost insurance did offer to replace everything, however the way they do this is they give a percentage of your loss up front, then you have to go out and repurchase all of your stuff and then hand in the receipts and they will cut you another check. This is fine if you are sitting on a butt-load of cash, but most new home owners I know are not in that position. In my case I had to max out all of my credit cards then turn in the receipts and keep on them about cutting my checks as you only have a limited amount of time to perform this. 90 days in my case.
I also recommend everybody do a home inventory. This is crucial if you have a claim. http://www.knowyourstuff.org/ has a great piece of software that is free that allows you to go room by room and add detailed items plus pictures. I recommend saving a copy of your inventory on a removable piece of media (cd, dvd, or even an SD or CF flash memory) and keeping it offsite in your office, school, or garage or anywhere else.
On a final note, you can see my new home buying experience on my website http://www.kfrear.com
Good luck
Kris
SocioBiblog
June 5th, 2007
at 7:04am
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