Umbrella
Umbrella or excess liability policies provide coverage over and above your standard home (or auto) liability policy limits. These policies start to pay after you have used up the liability insurance in your underlying policy. In addition to providing additional dollar amount coverage, umbrella or excess liability often offers broader coverage than standard policies.
The cost of an umbrella policy depends on how much underlying insurance you have and the kind of risk you represent. The greater the underlying liability coverage you have, the cheaper the umbrella or excess policy. To write an umbrella or excess policy, most companies will require a minimum of $300,000 underlying liability insurance on your standard homeowners’ policy.
Valuable Articles
There are limits on how much a standard homeowners insurance policy will cover for items such as jewelry, silverware, collectibles and furs. For example, jewelry coverage may be limited to under $5,000. Some insurance companies may also place a limit on what they will pay for computers. Check your policy for the limits of your coverage for any expensive items. A schedule or valuable articles policy will allow you to insure valuables individually or as a collection, with significantly higher coverage limits. This type of policy also typically does not have a deductible and covers boarder losses than a home policy.
Earthquake
An earthquake is a sudden and rapid shaking of the earth caused by the breaking and shifting of rock beneath the earth’s surface. This shaking can sometimes trigger landslides, avalanches, flash floods, fires and tsunamis.
The potential cost of earthquakes has been growing because of increasing urban development in seismically active areas and the vulnerability of older buildings, which may not have been built or upgraded to current building codes.
Earthquakes are not covered under standard homeowner’s insurance policies. Coverage is available either in the form of an endorsement or as a separate policy for homeowners.
Coverage for other kinds of damage that may result from earthquakes, such as fire and water damage due to burst gas and water pipes, is provided by standard home insurance policies.
Flood
There are two ways to get flood insurance now: FEMA and Private, the rates and coverage very but the fundamentals are the same. Flood insurance covers losses directly caused by flooding. In simple terms, a flood is an excess of water on land that is normally dry, affecting two or more acres of land or two or more properties. With flood policies you have the option to cover dwelling, contents and loss of use or just dwelling. Damage caused by a sewer backup is covered if the backup is a direct result of flooding. If the sewer backup is not caused directly by flooding, the damage is not covered.