For most of us buying a home is the biggest investment to mike during the whole lifetime. And it seems reasonable that such an important investment needs reasonable coverage. That’s why you need home insurance.

What’s included in your homeowners insurance?

In case you finance your house purchase through a mortgage, your lender is most likely to require you buying basic homeowners insurance. The basic homeowners insurance includes coverage against the following risks:

• Theft
• Fire and lightning
• Smoke
• Frozen pipes
• Ice and snow

Basic insurance policies also usually include liability coverage for cases when someone is injured in your house. In case there are legal actions taken against you it will also pay for court fees. Basic insurance will also cover your costs in case it’s impossible to live in the house due to fire or any other accident.

What’s left out of coverage?

To learn what is not included into the coverage you should read through your policy, especially the Exclusions part. Things not covered by standard policies vary from one insurer to another, but most likely they will include damage due to earthquake, flood, nuclear accident (very useful isn’t it?), war, act of terrorism and similar. Of course, you can buy additional coverage for such events to be included into your home insurance policy. Wear and tear damage is never included into the policy because it’s considered to be maintenance, which is the owner’s sole responsibility.

How much coverage do I need?

When buying a house through mortgage loan your lender will require you to purchase minimum home insurance coverage (which is usually the purchase value of your home). However, it’s usually not the amount of coverage to meet your insurance needs. Instead, try calculating how much money it would require to rebuild your house entirely and use this amount as the base for getting the right coverage amount. Speak to your agent when completing the insurance policy to calculate the exact amount, or even run a full inspection for qualified appraisal.

Typically, liability limits are around $100,000, however it’s too little to protect your assets in case of legal action. You may opt to raise your limits up to $500,000 for an additional price. Sometimes it may be useful to get umbrella coverage, which pushes your limits beyond $1 million, however such coverage is typically offered only when you have both your auto and home insurance from the same carrier.

Money saving tips

Of course homeowners insurance can be quite costly sometimes. Especially when you have many items under additional coverage. In order to keep the coverage you need while still having reasonable rates you might want to consider raising your deductibles first. Deductibles are the amount of money you will have to pay out of your own pocket for the damage before the insurance policy kicks in. and the higher is that amount the lower will be your premium. The usual deductible within standard policies is $250. Try raising it to $500 or even $1000, and your rates will go down by up to 15%.

Another good way to make your home insurance cheaper is installing security features such as alarm or video, special locks and so on. This way you protect your assets and the insurance company is likely to give you a good discount for that.

This February, the Department of Health and Human Resources has issued a report identifying an alarming trend for insurance companies to seek premium rate increases. This is not limited to one or two states. This is not limited to one or two percentage increases in the rates. This is all the leading insurance companies asking for the right to significantly higher premiums: in Michigan hikes of 56%, in California hikes of 39%, and so on. If this only affected small numbers of policyholders, it might have passed unnoticed. But, with millions of policyholders affected across the country, these rate increase requests have attracted the full scrutiny of the federal government. Secretary Sibelius has been leading the attack, using the requests to push the reform agenda forward.

Because of the national anger, some companies have paused. WellPoint had proposed the increases take effect from March 1. Any increases, even if approved by the states, will now be delayed until May at the earliest. This decision is partly in response to the summons of WellPoint’s chief executive officer to Washington to justify the requested increases. Insurance companies find themselves in a difficult political situation. Their management teams accept a duty to maximize profits for the benefit of the stockholders. They look around at an America seriously affected by the recession. Increasing numbers of people are unable to afford the premiums, some because of unemployment, others because of a squeeze on credit. More worrying from the insurance industry is that more healthy people are deciding not to insure at all. This means the group of people left holding policies has a higher percentage of those with existing health problems. Without more healthy people in the group paying premiums and not claiming, it becomes more expensive to insure those less healthy people who remain. It is also a verified fact that hospitals and healthcare service professionals have also been increasing their fees and charges. The pharmaceutical companies have increased the price of almost all the most commonly used drugs. The insurance industry is under pressure from both sides. As Secretary Sibelius points out, however, this is not a completely accurate picture. Every year, insurance companies are required to submit reports to all the US states in which they are licensed to sell policies. This data shows many companies actually increased the number of policyholders during 2009.

The market in health insurance plans is complicated by the political situation. Democrats and Republicans are two armies unable to agree a truce long enough for some reform to be made. As it stands, there is no immediate likelihood that medical costs will be controlled. If the costs continue to rise faster than inflation, insurers will have no choice other than increasing their premiums. If they do not, they will not have enough cash in hand to pay out on all the claims. This means, for the average person, it will become increasingly difficult to find cheap health insurance. For those with a pre-existing condition, group health insurance will be the only option but, for those plans, premiums are rising at their fastest rates. For years, it has been obvious that the healthcare industry is broken. It would be ironic if, having come this close to some meaningful reforms, we not only saw the reform bills lost in Washington, but also found every major insurer imposing massive premium increases. That really would be the final nail in the coffin.

There are so many different versions of the idiom. Try, “Expect the worst. Hope for the best.” or “Expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed.” or “Prepare for the worst. Plan for the best.” You get the idea, particularly when it comes to dealing with your insurance company. It’s a strange reality but, no matter where you go, insurance companies always seem to have a reputation that, as a policy holder making a claim, you will end up like something the cat dragged in. The problem we all face is the profit motive. Although it would be great if every large corporation was full of the milk of human kindness, the directors and executives are driven by the desire for more wealth.

They seize every opportunity to take the extra dollar for giving us less. In the case of insurance, the companies are rather like the big bad wolf that blows your house down rather than paying to repair the leaking roof. So you always have to plan on the basis you will be in for a fight if you make a claim. That means opening and keeping an up-to-date file on everything you say to the insurer about the policy and any claims you might make. The more comprehensive your records the better. If you must speak to a representative of the company, whether in the flesh or on the phone, get a name and always write a letter confirming what was said and what, if anything, was agreed. Yes, it will take up a few minutes of your time. But you should always be able to produce contemporaneous records – a day-by-day record of representations, promises and action.

You are rolling your eyes. All that hassle. Why bother? Let’s take Massachusetts as an example. Five of the largest companies insuring vehicles all managed to make the same data entry mistake. There is this wonderful “place” called the Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (CLUE). All companies pool information about the drivers they insure. One of the more important pieces of data is whether the driver is “at fault” in a traffic accident. If you are found the “guilty” party, this justifies loading your premium with an increase. What happened in this US state was the five insurers routinely recorded anyone making a claim as being “at fault”. There was no investigation, no court case with a judge deciding one party was at fault. The insurers simply wanted to justify increasing the premiums so assumed fault from the fact of the claim. Fortunately, the people of Massachusetts are well organized. They had a paper trail for every claim and, when they reported the behavior of the insurers to the State Attorney General, this resulted in fines paid by the companies and a recalculation of all the premiums with a full refund to everyone affected.

Sadly, car insurance is a bear pit and, if you are going to come within range of the bear, you had better be prepared with full information. It does not matter whether you are on cheap car insurance, usually the mandatory liability minimum, or a comprehensive/collision policy with all the bells and whistles, document every aspect of your relationship with the insurer and every detail of any claim you make. If anything goes wrong, every state has a Department or Office of Insurance. Make a formal complaint if you think you are losing out. If you learn of others, complain to the State Attorney General. Failure to fight means the companies will trample on your rights.

The market for insurance in the US is somewhat very different from the other world. In most every other line of business, companies are allowed to compete with each other across state lines. This helps to keep pricing to lower levels and the quality of the product to higher levels and protect the consumer. But unfortunetaly the insurance industry is licensed and regulated state-by-state. There’s no such thing as a federal insurance policy. You have to buy a policy written by a company licensed in the state where you live. This is slightly frustrating because, if you live near the border, your friends and colleagues at work probably tell you how little they pay or complain you have the better deals. Either way, it’s not very fair. Worse, the companies often decide not to set up in all fifty states, but pick and choose where they will operate. The result is that many states only have a small number of licensed insurance companies. Because there is no real competition, their premium rates tend to be high. This produces a big political divide. In Republican states, this is the free market at work and no intervention is necessary. If you do not like this, move to another state which has lower rates. In Democratic states, there is more interest in protecting consumer interests. Some states have intervened in their local markets to introduce “managed competition”. Needless to say, this has outraged the insurance industry and the insurance agents who survive on the commission earned from the insurers. There have been heated debates between the lawmakers. Where the local Department or Office of Insurance has produced new rules, they have been referred to the local courts. Who would have thought helping millions of average people to save money on their premium rates would produce so much heat.

Anyway, the latest state to surface in this national debate is Massachusetts. In some ways, this state is also slightly nonstandard because of the dominance of the local agents who handle about 80% of the insurance business. Agents have more to lose if the markets are opened up to competition. Not surprisingly, they have been the fastest to the courts in the fight to protect their income. We have just had the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court on two rule changes made by the state’s Insurance Commissioner Nonnie Burnes. Let’s start with the effect of the move to open up the state to competition. Before the rule changes, there were nineteen insurers writing auto insurance policies. Twelve more companies have now entered the markets. In most cases, premium rates have been stable as insurers cut their costs and accepted a reduced profit. But agents have been hit because the opportunities to earn commission have been reduced.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has supported the reforms, finding the effect of managed competition is sufficiently beneficial that it should represent the prevailing public policy in the state. Put another way, the judges think the many consumers should pay less rather than the few corporate officers and stockholders earn excessive profits. Because one of the agent’s automatic rights to a commission has disappeared, they will be looking to recover their losses in other ways. There are two morals to this story. The first is that, if you want to find cheap auto insurance, support the lawmakers in those states who promise to introduce more competition into the car insurance market. Secondly, always get your auto insurance quotes through a site like this and avoid agents who earn commission.

The weather conditions do not affect anything. Of course, it is clear to everybody that in winter accidents are more frequent, but you also have to remember that avoiding an accident is much more valuable than knowing how to react in it. But if you did end up in an accident it is better to know what to do. Let us try to explain everything you will require to understand while finding yourself a victim on the road. Here are a few advices that will definitely help you to get through this difficult time of your life.

We would like you to read these points carefully and if you have an opportunity to print the information given below please do it and make sure you keep it not to far away.

First of all it is important to stay calm. Analyze the situation and try to estimate the equivalent of losses. The damage can be both significant and slightly important. In any case you have to remember that it is easy to make the situation even worse than it is. In any case, what you must know is that usually medical assistance is what you need to think of in the first place. Smallest details count.

You have to know to report police about any accidents you find yourself in. It has to be legal so there is a way to deal with the situation. Do not try to escape from the scene or arrange anything without police knowing about it. This will get you into more trouble. Police will make a full report of everything that happen and conclude with the verdict.

Do not let anybody get you blinded. Talk only with policemen about the accident. We know sometimes it is difficult to keep it quiet about what happened but take a look at it from a different point of view. While in panic people let themselves go, not realizing what it can get themselves into. Limit all of the conversations about the accident on the road and do not confess anything. The only two people that should know all honesty are the policeman and insurance company person.

Remember to make notes. People are so shocked and nervous after the accident that they forget the most important part – to write down names, addresses, phone contacts of those who were involved in the car accident with them. But you have to ask your insurance company’s advice while you are waiting for police to arrive. The insurance company guy will definitely tell you to recollect the name of the insurance company the others are dealing with plus their car’s identification number.

You should call your insurance company or your insurance agent as soon as you found yourself in the accident. He must know it before anybody. Please inform him about the smallest details and don’t be afraid to speak the truth even if you were the one responsible for the accident.

You ca also find some car insurance quotes on different websites and read them before you hit the road. We don’t mean you have to do it everyday but it is always good to know how to help ay case when it occurs. You can also get car insurance quotes from the insurance company itself if you have chosen one already. Good luck and be safe!