All insurance providers are not alike. There are nation wide types of insurance companies and there are those insurance companies who specialize in only a very few kinds of insurance. You should also know that insurance companies that are in financial difficulty are likely to charge you a higher annual premium to insure your life and/or property, than a truly solvent insurance company.
As such, life insurance companies specialize in providing income to the relative of a deceased person that is based on the face value of the life insurance policy. There are also health insurance companies, automobile insurance companies and property insurance companies, just to name a few types of insurance companies.
Additionally, your home owners insurance company insures you against losses suffered as a result of personal injury, theft, fire and storm damage that may occur to your home or the people and/or personal property within your home. In some cases you are also insured against damage caused by a broken water pipe or pipes within the home. Such insurance companies may also allow you to select a deductible amount as part of your insurance agreement.
In other words, if your loss is $5,000.00 dollars and the deductible portion of your insurance policy is $1,500.00 dollars your insurance company will pay you the net amount being $3,500.00 dollars. When or if you agree with the claim settlement you will sign a release form which will prevent you from filing an additional claim of loss from the same occurrence and then you will receive payment.
Generally speaking, the higher the deductible amount contained within your policy the lower your insurance premiums will be. For insurance companies who also insure motor vehicles, you may also receive a discount for your vehicle insurance if the same company insures your home.
You must also be careful to determine if the coverage that you purchase will allow you to build a new home in the event that your home is completely destroyed. That amount is called the replacement cost value of your home, as opposed to being compensated for the price that you paid for the home. This is an important clause because the difference between the two values could amount to more than twice the price that you paid for the property.
Yes, your $50,000.00 home might cost $150,000.00 to replace, given the same amount of square footage and rooms within the structure. So too, most home owners insurance policies contain an upper limit of the amount of compensation that you will receive.
With that in mind you can now shop for the value you will receive for the money that you pay for your yearly home owners insurance. When in doubt, in regard to the terms of the policy, you should have an attorney who specializes in insurance matters read the policy first before you agree to the terms of the policy.
Then again, your home, together with the fixtures within that home should be safe to use and the structure of the building should be free of defects that would require costly repairs. So too, if your home is located within an unsafe part of the community your cost for insurance will be higher than a similar home located within a safer part of town.
In other words, the more risk that your insurance provider assumes the more your home owners insurance coverage will cost. The installation of alarm systems, security cameras and fences might aid in reducing your annual home owners insurance cost.