Although home insurance covers lost or damaged belongings, this coverage isn't without its limits or exclusions. You need to understand these limits and exclusions so that you exactly which of your belongings are protected, and to which limits. Here are some of the specific items that may not be covered or may only be covered at relatively low limits.

Expensive Items

Homeowners insurance coverage is divided into separate categories, and each category has a specific coverage limit, as well as sub-limits for individual items. For example, there may be an overall limit for contents coverage, a limit for electronics and a sub-limit for expensive items such as firearms or jewelry. Therefore, if you have expensive items in your house, it might be best to determine the limits that apply to them and buy additional coverage if necessary. Otherwise, the loss of your expensive watch collection may not be compensated if it ever occurs.

Roommate Belongings

If you have a roommate, then you should also know that your home insurance coverage doesn't extend to the roommate. If a fire guts down your house and your roommate loses their personal belongings, they can't make a claim through your home insurance coverage. Not only that, but if one of your roommate's visitors get injured, they may sue both you and the roommate to recover their damages. For this reason, it's advisable to encourage or even insist on your roommate buying renter's insurance for the duration of their stay with you.

Business Properties

Another thing you should know is that standard home insurance coverage only protects you from losses of your personal items and not your business items. Therefore, if you run a home bakery and your oven gets damaged in a fire, your home insurance company won't pay for a replacement oven. Also, you shouldn't expect any automatic help from your insurance company if a business customer sues you after slipping and falling in your front yard. Buy additional coverage or rider to protect you from business-related losses.

Automobiles

Lastly, you should know that home insurance coverage doesn't apply to automobiles. This makes sense since your automobiles are covered (or should be covered) under automobile insurance coverage. Therefore, if your garage burns down with your car in it, it is your comprehensive car insurance coverage that will replace the car and not your home insurance coverage.

Go through your home's contents and talk to your insurance agent about your coverage limits and exclusions. The good news is that you can always buy additional coverage for the items you feel aren't adequately protected by your standard coverage.

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