Home & Property
Homeowners coverage: the annual check
Construction costs have moved, your contents have changed, and the limits set when you bought the house are almost certainly wrong now.
Home & Property
Replacement cost, perils, floods and the exclusions page.
Home & Property
Insurance when you work from home
Homeowners and renters policies exclude business activity, and a great many people are now conducting it in the covered dwelling.
Home & Property
Valuables, collections and scheduling items
Standard policies cap certain categories at amounts far below what people own, and the fix is specific and inexpensive.
Home & Property
Home security, mitigation and the discounts that follow
Physical improvements that reduce the chance of a claim, several of which also reduce premium enough to pay for themselves.
Home & Property
Insuring a home you rent out
A homeowners policy does not cover a rented property, and using one is a coverage gap waiting to be discovered at claim time.
Home & Property
Condominium and co-operative insurance
Two policies covering one building, with a boundary between them defined by documents most owners have never read.
Home & Property
Getting insured in a hard market
In several states, homeowners coverage has become expensive, restricted or genuinely difficult to obtain, and the options are narrower than they were.
Home & Property
Umbrella policies: the cheapest large protection available
Liability coverage above your other policies, priced low because the underlying policies absorb almost everything.
Home & Property
Water damage: covered, excluded, and the line between
The most common homeowners claim and the most frequently disputed, because coverage depends on where the water came from and how fast.
Home & Property
Home inventories and proving what you owned
After a total loss you will be asked to list everything you owned, from memory, while displaced. Doing it in advance takes an afternoon.
Home & Property
Renters insurance, and why nobody buys it
Inexpensive coverage that most tenants do not carry, covering risks most tenants assume are someone else’s.
Home & Property
The exclusions page, and why flood is not covered
Homeowners policies list what they do not cover, and the list contains several of the most likely ways a house is damaged.
Home & Property
Replacement cost versus actual cash value
The single most consequential distinction in a homeowners policy, decided by a phrase most people never read.