Friday, January 2, 2009

The Significance of Home Insurance and Renter's Insurance

By Mike Mcray

If you own a home you should have home owners insurance. If you rent your home, you should have renters insurance. If you do not insure your home and its contents, you could lose it in the event of a tragedy, or at the hands of a burglar, or due to a natural disaster.

Insurance can help you to replace the things that you have lost due to a natural disaster, fire, flood, or even theft. If you are buying a home you are required to have home owners insurance. If you are a renter many landlords do require it, but even if they do not you should have it, as their insurance does not cover your property.

If you have a collection of Fine Art or Expensive Jewelry, and you do not have the right home insurance policy you could very well lose your whole investment. You may not be able to get what you have lost back, but you can at least get the replacement value so that you can at least gain your investment back. I would also invest in a fire proof safe for things that are of sentimental value as well as worth money.

Do not leave things to chance whether you are a home renter or a home owner. Be prepared for the unexpected. You can help to lower insurance rates by having an alarm system, updated windows and doors with good locks. Having smoke detectors and fire extinguishers also is a help. Insure for the price to rebuild your home and replace its contents.

Often if you have one insurance company to cover all of your needs such as Auto, Home and Life, you can get a bigger discount. Be sure to shop around. Make sure to get appraisals and keep receipts for all purchases you make so that they can be presented to the insurance company. These should be kept in a fire-proof lock box or safe.

With a good insurance plan you may not be able to get back the things that you lost, but you can replace them with things that can be used in their place such as new furniture, clothing, appliances, and computers for instance. You cannot replace your sentimental attachments to things and that is sad. Pictures should be backed up onto disk and put in the fire proof safe, as well as family heirlooms. Insurance cannot save these, but it can help you to start over if you ever need to. - 15478

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