You’ve got standard auto insurance, home insurance, and health insurance. What more do you need? Depending on where you live and your specific situation, standard insurance may not be enough.
Imagine the worst case scenario. Your home is completely destroyed by a flood. The car you bought three months ago is totaled. You get hurt while on Crab Island and can’t work for a while. Do you have insurance to cover complete losses and zero income? Most people don’t. Take a look at a few types of insurance policies you may need to purchase.
Flood Insurance
Of course, living on the Emerald Coast, especially when you live near a river or the Gulf, you know about flood insurance, and for many owners, their mortgage lender requires it. But even if your lender doesn’t make you purchase a policy, you need flood insurance. Think about the devastation we see on the news across the country, most recently in Louisiana. Flood waters, when unleashed with that kind of fury, can reach you even if flood zone maps say you’re safe.
Disability Insurance
Some of us work for ourselves or for small companies that don’t offer short-term disability coverage when we have to be out of work for surgery or an injury. If you’re seriously hurt and considered disabled, social security disability isn’t even an option until you’ve been unable to work for more than a year. Short-term coverage helps you while you recover.
Gap Insurance
In a perfect world, we’ll all put down a big deposit on our new vehicle purchase and only finance for 36 or 48 months. But that’s not always an option. Sometimes we need the 60-plus month financing or can only put down $500 or so. The problem is that when we drive off the lot, the value of our vehicle almost immediately decreases but the loan is there for a long time. If your vehicle is totaled in an accident, your insurance is only going to pay you the amount of its value – not what you owe. Gap insurance is what pays the difference between the two. The good news is that you can drop this coverage once your loan amount and the value of your vehicle get more in line.
Umbrella Insurance
Umbrella insurance is additional insurance for almost any situation. Every insurance policy you buy has a policy limit. But in really tough moments – like when your dog bites your neighbor or you cause an accident that injures multiple people – your insurance might not be enough. An umbrella policy will cover what your standard insurance can’t once you reach your policy limits. Have a $1 million liability limit on your homeowner’s policy and a $1.5 million claim? Your insurance pays the $1 million, and the umbrella policy pays the remaining $500,000 or up to whatever your umbrella policy limit may be.
Landlord Coverage
If you’re considering renting out your home a few times a year or long-term, you need specific insurance to cover you as a landlord. Your homeowner’s insurance won’t cover long-term renters at all and, depending on your policy, will only cover one short-term renter in a year. This coverage provides liability if a renter or their guest is hurt, property damage for your home, and even personal property damage if you leave your possessions on-site for maintenance or tenant use.
If any of these situations sound like you, contact your insurance company or insurance agent today to find out more about these types of coverage. The last thing you want is to be handed a huge bill at one of the worst times in your life – and be unable to pay it.
Leave a Reply