Buying Home Insurance

Home insurance policies can vary greatly so it’s in your best interest to compare home insurance quotes before making a selection. Even if your mortgage lender requires home insurance you are allowed to choose your insurer.

What is covered in each of the four parts of a standard home insurance policy? Let’s take a closer look:

The structure of your home

This part of a home insurance policy is fairly self-explanatory in that it pays to repair, or rebuild if necessary, your home for insured disasters such as a fire, hurricane damage, lightning and any other disaster covered by your policy. Keep in mind flood and earthquake damage are not part of standard homeowners insurance and require separate policies. General wear and tear is not covered, but detached structures such as tool sheds and garages are covered with a standard home insurance policy.

Personal belongings

Also self-explanatory, this aspect of home insurance covers your stuff – furniture, clothes and other personal items in the event they are stolen or destroyed by a covered disaster. One interesting feature of personal belongings coverage is your belongings are also covered off-premises anywhere in the world.

Liability

Liability protects you against legal action for personal injury or property damage caused by your household. The liability aspect of home insurance also provides no-fault medical coverage in case someone is injured in your home.

Additional living expenses

What happens if your home if affected by a disaster such as a fire or a major storm? Where will you stay? This aspect of home insurance pays your expenses while living away from your home while it is being repaired. Covered expenses include hotels, meals and other living expenses.

What is Managed Care Health Insurance

When comparing health insurance quotes, make sure you are comparing similar plans. Health insurance comes in two basic forms – indemnity plans and managed care plans. Both indemnity and managed care health insurance are further broken down into several different types of health insurance so it is important to take the time and compare health insurance plans to determine what best fits your health care needs.

The two most common types of managed care health insurance are health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and preferred provider organizations (PPOs). HMOs give you access to a group of participating doctors, hospitals and health care providers. HMOs come with fewer out-of-pocket expenses, but visits to the doctor, prescriptions and other services usually come with a co-pay or fee.

PPOs are fee-for-service health insurance and medical services are paid by the insurer on a negotiated and discounted fee schedule. PPOs allow participants to choose medical providers outside the plan’s network, although this can result in higher out-of-pocket costs.

One other type of health insurance is point-of-service (POS) plans. This type of health insurance is similar to indemnity plans, and your primary care physician can refer you outside of the plan without any extra costs to the insured. If you refer yourself outside a POS plan you will be charged a co-pay.

Head to WeCompareInsurance for free insurance quotes for auto insurance, health insurance, home insurance, life insurance and renters insurance. It’s really easy and fast.  You can also find more informative insurance related articles at WeCompareInsurance.

Car Insurance Quotes for the Faint at Heart

Get Many Car Insurance Quotes!

A company that can give you quotes from multiple sources is what you want. If you only get a couple of car insurance quotes, then you don’t really get a feel for the kind of deals that are out there. And believe us, car insurance quotes can vary a whole lot!
Car Insurance Quotes Need Info

Next, you’re going to want to find all the information you need about your car. Insurance quotes are only as accurate as the information you give! Good car insurance quotes take into account all sorts of things about your car, like model, year, odometer reading, and how much you use it, just to list a few.

Name Your Coverage: Many Kinds of Car Insurance Quotes

To get a car insurance quote, you will need to know precisely the sort of coverage you actually want. There are several kinds of car insurance. Quotes can cover such things as yourself, your vehicle, and other people who might be involved in an accident. The basic liability insurance is probably required by your state and this would likely give you the lowest car insurance quotes. There’s also what they call collision coverage, and you should consider getting car insurance quotes for this if you want to protect your car from damage from car accidents and such. This isn’t to be confused with comprehensive coverage which protects your car from things that can’t be considered car accidents, like fire or theft.

It’s that easy.

Add layers of auto insurance to fit your needs.

The key to buying automobile insurance is to become informed on what type of coverage you are required to carry and then what additional coverage you’d like to add to your policy.

The two types of auto insurance all states require car owners to carry are bodily injury and property damage.  These requirements help ensure all drivers can pay for damages or injury caused by the vehicle they are driving.

Beyond required car insurance, collision is a popular option.   Collision pays for damages to your car in case of an accident – either with another vehicle, an object or just loss of control that leads to damages.  Collision insurance comes with a deductible that must be paid before insurance kicks in, and a typical deductible will range from $250 to $1000.  The higher the premium paid on the auto insurance, the lower the deductible.  If you are not at fault in the accident, you might even get your deductible covered by the driver who was found at fault.

Comprehensive coverage adds anther layer of protection beyond required liability and collision.  Comprehensive auto insurance covers damages or loss caused by something beyond an accident with another car or an object.  This type of loss can come from a number of sources such as fire, falling objects, hail, flood, vandalism, missiles, explosion, riot, striking an animal, earthquake or windstorm.  Comprehensive also covers glass breakage such as a cracked windshield.  Comprehensive auto insurance is typically sold with a deductible, similar to collision.

Test Your Insurance IQ

Here’s a handy tool from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to test just how much you know about insurance.

Optional Home Insurance Coverage-Part 2

Basic home insurance provides coverage for disasters such as fire, hurricane damage, lightning and any others covered by your policy, but basic coverage might not protect from every potential loss. Most home insurance plans do offer a wide variety of optional coverage to help meet your home insurance needs.

Here are four types of optional coverage you could purchase with your basic home insurance.

1. Inflation guard endorsement allows your home insurance provider to automatically increase your coverage to meet a rising cost of inflation. You will eventually pay a higher premium, but not until your policy is renewed.
2. If you have high dollar items such as furs, stamp or coin collections, guns, antiques or other items that might exceed your regular home insurance policy, you will want to take a scheduled personal property endorse – also known as a personal article floater – on these items.
3. If you own a vacation home or other secondary residence you will likely want to add a secondary residence premises endorsement to your basic home insurance.
4. Similar to the secondary residence endorsement, if you own a small sailboat or outboard motor boat you will want a watercraft endorsement added to your basic home insurance for the personal liability coverage this option provides.

Optional Home Insurance Coverage, Part 1

Basic home insurance provides coverage for disasters such as fire, hurricane damage, lightning and any others covered by your policy, but basic coverage might not protect from every potential loss. Most home insurance plans do offer a wide variety of optional coverage to help meet your home insurance needs.

Here are four types of optional coverage you could purchase with your basic home insurance.

1. The first place to look for extra coverage is for any natural disaster left uncovered in your home insurance policy that is likely to befall your home. This includes flood insurance, earthquake insurance and wind insurance if you live in areas where this is not part of standard home insurance..
2. Guaranteed replacement cost is the most comprehensive home insurance you can purchase. To buy this level of home insurance you need to meet specific rules and conditions, and you will most likely pay premiums that increase with the cost of inflation.
3. To increase your level of theft protection, you can buy theft coverage protection endorsement. With this home insurance option possessions in your motor vehicle, trailer or watercraft have coverage even without proof of forcible entry.
4. You can add optional coverage to your home insurance to protect your money, securities, banking and credit cards. Increasing your limits on money and securities does just that – it increases the coverage on money, bank notes, deeds and other securities. Credit card forgery and depositors forgery coverage endorsement gives you protection against loss, theft and unauthorized use of your credit cards, as well as coverage for a banking forgery.

Term Life insurance versus Permanent Life Insurance

Here’s a good explanation between term life insurance and permanent life insurance.

Term life insurance and permanent life insurance is the starting point when looking for life insurance. Keep in mind these two basic life insurance categories are very different and life insurance policies can combine benefits or even change from one type of life insurance to another type of life insurance at some point. Term life insurance in its simplest form is life insurance coverage a set period of time – the “term.” Your beneficiaries are paid a death benefit only if you die during the term. Keep in mind term life insurance does not usually build up a cash value, but at the same it typically offers lower premiums in the early years of the life insurance policy.

Premiums do rise with term life insurance as you renew terms. Often you can renew your term life insurance policy, even with a health change, but expect to pay a higher premium. Questions to ask when comparing term life insurance include if there’s an age limit to renewing the policy, and if renewal of your term life insurance policy starts requiring a physical examination at some point.

The second major type of life insurance policy is permanent life insurance. Permanent life insurance comes in a number of types including universal life insurance, variable universal life insurance, and whole life insurance. The key difference between permanent life insurance and term life insurance is permanent life insurance policies offer long-term financial protection. Premiums are usually higher, but permanent life insurance includes a death benefit and very likely a cash savings.

You can find some great articles on auto insurance, health insurance, home insurance, life insurance, and renters insurance at WeCompareInsurance.

What is indemnity health insurance?

Here’s a quick explanation on indemnity health insurance.

Indemnity health plans put you in charge of choosing your doctors, hospitals and other health care providers. You pay a set monthly premium and your health insurance pays your medical care, often after you pay a deductible and possibly a percentage of the bill.

A common employer-sponsored form of health insurance is a cafeteria or flexible spending plan. This type of health insurance allows employees to create a benefit package taken from a number of options. You need to contact the employee benefit department at your company for more information on the exact mix of choices available to you.

If you are looking for lower cost health insurance, a “basic and essential” plan may be the best option. Do keep in mind this type of health insurance is limited in what services may be covered so it is important to carefully read the policy so you understand what treatments the plan does cover. Another type of health insurance known as catastrophic health insurance or high-deductible health plans do just what it sounds like they would. The deductible is high, but this type of health insurance protects you against catastrophic illness with a very high total cost.

Health savings accounts are fairly new and an alternative to traditional health insurance. This plan involves putting money into a tax-free savings account to cover your medical expenses.

Head to WeCompareInsurance for free insurance quotes for auto insurance, health insurance, home insurance, life insurance and renters insurance. It’s really easy and fast.