Disaster and Your Homeowner’s Insurance Policy

When you start learning about insurance, there are a lot of different phrases and policy options that can be easily misunderstood. Many consumers do not recognize the full scope of what their policies do and don’t cover, some do not understand what their deductibles and limits are, and others are not certain whether or not special incidents are covered in their car or homeowner’s policies. All of these areas of confusion are easy to fix with a call to your insurance agent or a fast read of your policy.

But not all insurance misunderstandings are safe. If you assume some insurable incident is covered by your existing car or home insurance policy and it actually isn’t, you could be subjecting yourself and your family to financial risks that you simply cannot carry on your own. One constant source of this kind of risky misunderstanding involves flood insurance.

Many consumers assume that flood insurance is inherently included in their home policy. Unfortunately, this error is so widespread that many policy holders don’t ask their agent or insurance company if their Flint home insurance policy will cover the damages accompanied with flood waters—they just assume that it will. This guess can turn out to be an extremely costly mistake after a flood actually happens because assuming that their homeowner’s insurance policy offers flood protection prevents them from taking the steps needed to find out the truth about flood insurance and protect their loved ones and their possessions accordingly.

Now that we all know that home insurance plans do not protect against damage caused by flooding, let’s learn what actually constitutes as flooding. The National Flood Insurance Program describes a flood as:

“A flood is a general and temporary condition where two or more acres of normally dry land or two or more properties are inundated by water or mudflow.”

The explanation of flood is easy enough to understand, but the reason that many homeowners think it’s built-in to their home insurance policy is because several of the incidents that can cause flooding cause other damages that ARE covered under a home insurance policy. For instance, a hurricane may cause wind damage to your house that is covered in your policy, but it may also cause normally dry land to be temporarily drowned by water, which could run into your home and damage your carpets and possessions—but because those are flood waters, you will only be protected if you have a flood policy.

So be sure you have a flood policy in effect today. Whether you reside in a flood region or not, its protection that is not covered in your homeowner’s policy but needs to be in effect to protect you and your family.

For more information about home insurance, give Security First Insurance Agency a call at 810-732-5800.