California E&S Insurance

As you know, there is nothing black and white about insurance conversations. People love to talk about how its "about managing your risks", its easy to have philosophical conversations but when the fire comes it's all non-negotiable. These are my general opinions on homeowners insurance. Emphasis on opinions. (1) Take the square footage of your house and multiply it by $300 and that should be the amount listed as your coverage A. It sounds crazy, it is crazy, but it's TRUE. If you live in a rural area then you should consider using $400 - $600 per square foot. If you have a upscale house with vaulted ceilings then you should think about $600 - $800 per square foot. These numbers sound crazy, but this is real life. (2) Then make sure you have a minimum of 20% of extended coverage, the Extended Coverage comes into play for the $50k in architect/design fees and other unforeseen expenses that you thought were covered by your insurance but are not. (3) Then make sure that you have building code (ordinance & law) coverage. This covers the expenses for upgrading your Typically building code coverage is 10% of your Coverage A. If you built your house 2 years ago you may think you don't need building code coverage, that's fine but know that the new building code requires solar panels. That means that if your house burned down tomorrow you would want to have building code coverage to pay for those solar panels. A caveat here is that a 1,400 sqft house build in 1987 can have $100k in rebuild costs associate with building code requirements. If your house is greater than 20 years old you may consider having +30% in building coverage, if older than 35 years you may look at twice that. Notes to consider Know that typically all coverage amounts are calculated as percentages of the Coverage A amount. Typically Extended Coverage only applies to your Coverage A. Do you have any accessory structures on your property? Meaning other than the dwelling where you sleep, are there other buildings? If so those are not covered in your Coverage A, those are listed under Coverage C, other structures. Coverage C goes towards anything outside of the walls of your house. Like fencing, mailbox, gates, concrete driveway, patios, play equipment, pools, water fountains... whatever. Concrete is expensive and pools are expensive; depending on your situation you may want to look closely at coverage C. Look carefully at exclusions and/or limits on specific categories listed in your policy. For example: I know some policies now list a max payout of $2,000 for tools lost. If it says they will only give you up to $2k for tools then that's all you can get. Most garages contain more than $2k in tools... if you have $20k in tools then you will be out $18k from the moment you lose your garage. If this is you then ask about additional policies. Any collectables? Hobbies? A antiques? Heirlooms? Are yo big on jewelery? To you have safe full of emergency cash? Those are likely not covered by your insurance. Coverage for pper money is typically $500 max. Do you carry liability only insurance on your car? Then if you leave it behind and it burns then you will get $0.00 for it and you will have to haul it away. Do you have a boat or trailer? Your homeowners insurance doesn't typically cover those, they go up in flames and they are gone.

{
  "score": 0,
  "title": "",
  "subreddit": "santarosa",
  "num_comments": 0,
  "scrape_method": "apify_targeted"
}