Want to learn more about Homeowners Insurance?

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 The Home Insurance coverage you have in East Texas depends upon the type of policy you have. Unlike auto insurance, where the policies are pretty much the same, homeowners policies can be quite different, depending on the "form" number. The most common types of homeowner policies are:

• Dwelling pays if your house is damaged or destroyed by a covered loss.

• Personal property pays if the items in your house (such as furniture, clothing, and appliances) are damaged, stolen, or destroyed.

• Other structures pays to repair or rebuild structures not attached to your house, such as detached garages, storage sheds, and fences.

• Loss of use pays your additional living expenses (housing, food, and other essential expenses) if you have to temporarily move because of damage to your house from a covered loss. Your policy will pay either a percentage of the amount of your dwelling coverage (typically 10 to 20 percent) or for a specific period after the loss (such as 24 months).

• Personal liability pays to defend you in court against lawsuits and provides coverage if you are found legally responsible for someone else's injury or property damage.

• Medical payments pays the medical bills of people hurt on your property. It might also pay for some injuries that happen away from your home, such as your dog biting someone at the park. A basic homeowners policy pays $500 in medical bills, but you may buy up to $5,000 in medical payments coverage.

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All homeowner policies are "package" policies. You get a group of coverages packaged into your policy for one overall premium. They include coverage on your building, your contents (furniture, clothing, etc.) and liability insurance in case you are sued, under the same policy. The property coverage is shown under Section 1, while the liability coverage is described under Section 2.

There is no better way to understand your homeowner policy than to read it! We suggest you pull out your policy and find the parts to your policy that correspond to the following explanations:

A typical policy consists of three things: 
1. The Declarations Page - that declares who, what and how much you are insuring, along with the date your home insurnce coverage starts and the premium you pay. 
2. The Policy Booklet - printed pages that contain the details of coverages and exclusions of the homowner policy. 
3. Endorsements - separate pages, usually with endorsement numbers, that change (or endorse) specific parts of the policy. 
Sometimes you are only given the original policy once in the beginning, then on renewal, to cut down expenses, you are just sent the dec. page (declaration page) with the bill. It's a good idea to save the original policies should you ever need to refer to them.

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More Detailed Information

The common of policies sold in East Texas are:

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• All-risk policies (also known as a comprehensive coverage or open perils coverage). These home insurance policies offer you broad protection and cover all causes of loss unless the policy specifically excludes them.

• Named perils policies (also known as specified perils coverage). These policies offer narrower protection than an all-risk policy and cover only the causes of loss specifically named in the policy.

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*Note about replacement cost and actual cash value:

• Replacement cost is what you would pay to rebuild or repair your home, based on current construction costs. Replacement cost is different from market value and doesn't include the value of your land. Ask your agent if you aren't sure how much it would cost to rebuild your home.

• Actual cash value is what you would pay to rebuild or replace your property minus depreciation. Depreciation is a decrease in value due to wear and tear or age. If your home is destroyed and you only have actual cash value coverage, you may not be able to completely rebuild.