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Types Of Home Insurance Claims - Different Perils Claims

Types Of Home Insurance Claims

This post is continuing from previous post
  • Home Business Insurance Coverage Endorsement - Named Perils Polices

10. Falling Objects 

You might think for a moment, that sounds like a rather odd peril. What might a loss caused by a falling object entail? They are actually more common than you might expect. For example, if you live below a hillside with rocky soil, under the influence of heavy rains, a large rock might dislodge from the hillside and roll downhill, striking your residence. The damage resulting from that descent is clearly fortuitous and would be covered.

Home Business Insurance Coverage Endorsement - Named Perils Policies

Home Business Insurance Coverage Endorsement

Named Perils Policies
 
Most all-risk homeowners policies are just sort of all-risk, because their coverage for contents/personal property is named perils coverage. There are exceptions, however. The personal property/contents coverage of some carriers' policies is all-risk coverage. This is an example of how an insurer may seek to compete with other insurers, including direct writers, by offering broader coverages at a comparable price.


It is differences like this that make comparison-shopping between homeowners policies of various companies difficult unless you have taken the time and trouble to have educated yourself. For example, if a direct writer's policy's contents coverage is named perils coverage, that insurer's agent, who only represents a single insurance company, would be unlikely to point out the differences between the coverage of the policies offered by the company he or she represents and one offered by a company whose homeowners policies include all-risk coverage on contents. Unless you know the difference and can assess that difference in terms of a potential noncovered loss exposure, you cannot make an informed decision.

Vacant Home Insurance - No Coverage

Vacant Home Insurance

Under the standard ISO HO 3 homeowners policy, certain categories of personal property receive no coverage. These are:

  • articles separately described and specifically insured, regardless of the limit for which they are insured under any other insurance (to avoid double recovery);
  • animals, birds, or fish;
  • motor vehicles and accessories, equipment, or parts while they are in or on the motor vehicle;
  • aircraft (not including model or hobby aircraft not intended to carry people or cargo);
  • hovercraft, flare-craft, and air-cushion vehicles;
  • property of roomers, boarders, or other tenants, excepting property of roomers or boarders who are related to an insured;
  • property located in an apartment regularly rented or held for rental to others by an insured;
  • property rented to or held for rental to others off the residence premises;
  • business data, regardless of whether stored as paper, electronic, or computer records;
  • credit cards and electronic fund transfer cards, except as otherwise covered.

House Insurance Rate - Covered Property

House Insurance Rate

Answering what is covered property is generally easy. It will be set forth in your policy. As to the dwelling and other structures (some policies use the term separate structures) portion of the ISO HO 3 policy, the policy does not cover land - including the land on which the dwelling or other structures are located. 

Under the other structures coverage, other structures that are rented or held for rental to any person who is not a tenant of the dwelling are not covered. There is an exception to this provision for other structures rented for use solely as a private garage.

Home Owners Insurance Policies - Property Coverages Under Homeowners Policies

Home Owners Insurance Policies

First-party property coverages provide for indemnification to the insured, for damage to or destruction of covered property by an insured peril. There are several concepts set forth in the previous sentence. First, there is the concept of insured capacity. In order to be entitled to payment under the first-party property coverages of a homeowners, condominium owners, townhouse owners, or tenants' policy, the person seeking payment must qualify as an insured.

Second, there is the concept of insurable interest. In order to be entitled to payment under the property coverages of a homeowners policy, the person seeking payment must not only qualify as an insured but also have an ownership or other insurable interest in the damaged or destroyed item of property. Although people commonly speak of property insurance as insuring property, it actually does not. 

How To Protect Your Home - Homeowners Insurance

How To Protect Your Home

What most people think of as homeowners insurance really is composed of several categories that include policies intended for:

  • owners of single-family residences, including duplexes and triplexes where the property owner occupies one or more dwelling unit (i.e., homeowners policies);
  • owners of homes that are not single-family residences, but rather where there are multiple units in a given building, where the building is jointly owned by the owners of individual living units (i.e., condominiums, townhouses, and cooperatives); and,
  • tenants policies.

Johnson Insurance - Auto Lessors And Lenders

Johnson Insurance

Regardless of where in the United States you live, if you are leasing a car or a truck or are making payments on a vehicle purchase loan, the leasing company or auto loan finance company will include as a contract provision the requirement that they be shown as an insured party on your automobile policy. Your auto lease or loan contract may even specify the minimum coverages you are obligated to maintain (typically collision and comprehensive coverages).

The lease or auto loan contracts often give the lessor or lender the right to place coverage to protect their interest in the event of loss (but not your interest) and to charge you for the cost of such coverage. This will happen unless you make sure that your auto insurer provides evidence of coverage at each policy renewal.

Bell Insurance - Insuring Other Interests

Bell Insurance

Everyone understands that the fundamental concept of buying insurance is to protect one's own financial interests. What is not well understood is that our legal relationships with others create obligations to protect their financial interests as well. When we assure that those legal obligations are taken care of, we secure our own financial well-being.

Once this abstract discussion is reduced to everyday terms, the concept does not seem so strange. These are relationships of great importance to individuals and businesses in their everyday lives and activities and one's insurance decisions are interwoven with these relationships. These relationships can include:

Hanover Insurance - Guaranty Funds

GUARANTY FUNDS

Each state has an insurance guaranty fund. Each operates in substantially the same way. In the event of insolvency of an insurer whose policies are covered by the guaranty fund (i.e., an admitted insurer in that state), policyholders of that insolvent insurer are covered up to the statutory limit. This limit varies from state to state, but is sufficient to cover most anticipated property claims and all the genuinely catastrophic liability claims. In addition, the guaranty fund statutes provide for defense of liability claims in addition to paying judgments or settlements up to the amount of the statutory limit.


The protection offered by the guaranty fund is not perfect protection. But, the protection offered is far better than having none and is a substantial reason to purchase insurance coverage from an admitted insurer as opposed to a nonadmitted insurer.

Peerless Insurance - Purchasing Insurance From Nonadmitted Carrier

Peerless Insurance

There is a reason why one of an insurance agent's most essential functions is to place coverages on behalf of their customers with insurers that are financially strong. This is because the amounts typically available in the event of insurer insolvency under the various states' insurance guaranty funds may be less than the loss exposures of many insureds.

State laws exist that require warnings to the insurance purchaser of the risks involved in purchasing insurance from a nonadmitted carrier. However, few, if any, brokers involved in the sale of such policies generally warn of or explain these risks and the trade-offs involved to their customers adequately. This is particularly true in the personal auto liability coverage context, where these abuses are most prominent.

Westfield Insurance - Insurance Direct Writers (Part 1)

Westfield Insurance

DIRECT WRITERS
 
As our economy and markets have changed, other insurance marketing channels have developed. While these alternate marketing channels for insurance initially focused on motor vehicle insurance, more recently they have expanded to include homeowners insurance as well.


The problem with these direct marketers is that there is no practical ability for the average insurance buyer to compare the terms and conditions of the policies offered in order to determine whether or not the coverages offered meet the needs of the insurance buyer. And there is no one to provide any counseling with respect to decisions involved in the purchase. 

Chubb Insurance - The Marketing and Selling of Insurance

Chubb Insurance

All too often consumers are led into purchasing policies that do not provide even remotely sufficient insurance to protect them from the effects of reasonably anticipated losses. It is crucial that you understand insurance well enough to be able to ask the necessary questions so you can assess the abilities of the potential insurance agents you contact and can help whichever agent you ultimately choose to procure insurance appropriate to your needs.

There are three primary marketing channels of property and casualty insurance, particularly homeowners and personal auto insurance, in the United States. They are:

Zenith Insurance - Common Forms Of Insurance Businesses

Following up from the previous post

- Intact Insurance - The Structure Of The Business Of Insurance 

The next most common form of insurance company organization is the mutual insurance company. Stated generally, a mutual insurer is an insurer corporation without capital stock that is owned by its policyholders collectively, who have the right to vote in the election of its board of directors. The principles governing the duties, powers, and obligations of the board of directors of a mutual insurer are generally the same as those applicable to other private corporations.

Many insurers that retain the word mutual in their names have long-since converted to the capital stock form of doing business. They retain the term mutual in their corporate names not only because of the company's history, but also because the use of the term mutual has a feel-good quality that helps support the image of security that insurers like to promote.

Intact Insurance - The Structure of the Business of Insurance

Intact Insurance

The business of insurance differs from most other businesses. Because insurers sells an intangible product - a promise to pay in the event of contingent loses - because these promises potentially affect so many, the business of insurance is regulated more heavily than most other businesses.

The business of insurance is regulated by the states, not by the federal government (with the exception of certain antitrust laws). As a result, while them is necessarily much uniformity of regulation in the business of insurance from state to state, there are also differences.

Canadian Direct Insurance - The Role of Insurance in the Economy

Canadian Direct Insurance. What a pain! Your mortgage lender requires that you carry fir and other perils coverage (ie., homeowners) insurance and sometimes even flood or earthquake insurance. Your auto lender requires that you carry physical damage coverage. Under the laws of many states, you are required to carry auto liability and/or no-fault liability insurance, often including uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist coverages.

To many, insurance just represents dollars out of pocket with no benefit. This is an unfortunate attitude. Insurance plays a broad role in the worldwide economy, helping to assure that millions of transactions and other activities, economic and noneconomic, can proceed.

Privilege Insurance - Different Types Of Insurance

The purpose of this blog is to demystify the world of insurance for the average homeowner, car owner and driver, and apartment renter. It is almost impossible for ordinary consumers to make genuinely informed choices without understanding how the business of insurance works; what the different marketing channels for selling policies are; and, what is or is " not typically covered by a given kind of policy.

Unfortunately, if the wrong choices are made and a loss occurs, the consequences can be all too interesting, frightening, and life-changing. Unsuitable insurance choices present the potential of no coverage for a substantial theft or fire loss or not enough coverage for a catastrophic liability lawsuit, such as an automobile accident, that could force you into bankruptcy.