When you buy a brand new “smart phone,” or any other high-tech device, you get the most out of it with a thorough reading of the instruction manual. Same holds true with your insurance. Have you read your insurance policy? It’s the manual to tell you how your insurance works. Too many people do not know how much they are insured for, and that’s a problem.
A home is usually your most valuable asset. Property insurance protects that asset. And yet, in an “Insurance Literacy” survey conducted for MetLife Auto & Home, nearly one third of those surveyed said two things of note: They did not know how much insurance they had on their home, and they did not know how much coverage they had for contents.
Many people think their insurance coverage should match the real estate value of their home. That can leave you underinsured. How much insurance you need depends on how much it would cost to rebuild your home. Find out rebuilding costs by typing in “building cost calculator” into your search engine to use one of the free online estimating tools. People also underestimate the value of all the contents inside their home. When you conduct a home inventory, you can match insurance to your contents – and it won’t cost you anything but time. Download free home inventory software from the Insurance Information Institute at www.KnowYourStuff.org.
As we enter the most active phase of hurricane season, you may be interested in the interactive hurricane preparedness program hosted by Pinellas County Emergency Management. The live video program is tonight – Thursday, Aug. 26 at 7 p.m. I will be on panel answering insurance-related questions, along with a meteorologist for the National Weather Service and county experts on emergency planning and building. Check out the event at http://www.pinellascounty.org/etownhall/ or watch it on Bright House channel 622, Knology channel 18 or Verizon channel 44.
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