Insurance Rates How-To Guide

Insurance Rates

Overview
Maintenance
Questions/Answers
Articles

To ensure you have the best and appropriate home owner insurance for your home, it is important that your home maintenance program include the proper maintenance for your home owner insurance policies.

Your homeowner insurance needs a check-up from time to time to ensure that your policies are appropriately matched to your insurance needs. See also: Energy Rates, Energy Audits, Telephone Rates, Mortgage Rates, Garbage Rates, Utility Meter Verification and Tax Assessment.

Shown in the "Maintenance" tab above are the recommended routine maintenance tasks for your home owner insurance policy. The "Questions / Answers" tab above shows our answers to related questions. And the "Articles" tab above provides links to related informational articles and sources.

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		Maintenance Task: Update property insurance coverages and inventory

		How do you update property insurance coverages and inventory?
		Updating your home owner insurance involves three tasks: Inventory. Make a room-by-room inventory of everything in your house or office building. In the event of fire, flood, or other disaster, the inventory list will be important in filing an insurance claim. Photographs or a video tape of your possessions can also be helpful. Schedule expensive items. Many property insurance policies allow you to submit a list (i.e., a "schedule") of expensive property items, which may be treated differently than other property items in the event of a claim. This list should be updated to reflect your current possessions. Optimize coverages. Over time your property may change or the type of coverage offered by your insurance company may change. As such, it is important to review your coverages with your insurance company from time to time, to see if your coverage needs to be better matched to your current situation. Shop around for rates. Insurance costs can vary significantly. It may be helpful to shop around for better rates, coverages, and service.

		Why is it important to update property insurance coverages and inventory?
		The benefits of updating your property insurance are potentially: cost savings, improved insurance coverages, and improved service.

		How often should you update property insurance coverages and inventory?
		Perform every three years (September).

		How does Home-Wizard rate the costs and benefits for this task?
		The cost of this task is moderately low, from an investment of time standpoint. It is estimated that this task should take about 1-2 hours to complete the necessary research.

		The benefits of this task are are potentially high, both from optimizing your insurance coverages, and having the proper documentation if you ever have a claim.

		Overall Home-Wizard benefit-versus-cost rating (one 'hat' = low and four 'hats' = high):

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