Insurance For Your Home (and Having Enough for Your Stuff)

When you're talking about life and health insurance, the question of whether or not people have sufficient coverage is fairly regular and recurring. Recently, I've come to wonder if the same questions are or should be as prevalent when talking about homeowner's insurance as well.

I suspect most people do have enough house insurance, but there are also a few things that have occurred which make me wonder: A neighbour's house burned down recently, taking the contents and her entire sewing business with it; the news here is always full of cottage-related accident stories which make me wonder about liability; a friend showed me an amazing ring she received as a gift (I strongly urged her to get a separate rider to cover it) and I was talking to another friend about the collectibles and equipment he keeps in his basement.

Does any of this sound familiar or similar to your own situation?


"Most homeowner's policies come with specific limits," agrees Pete Karageorgos, manager of consumer and industry relations at the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC). "Typically insurance policies have limits on special things like that – jewelry and furs, collectibles, and musical instruments. It's best to buy a floater or personal articles policy on those specific things for two reasons – one, it typically provides expanded coverage for those items, particularly if they're outside of the home, but also a home insurance policy, for example, may have a cap of say $500 for collectibles."

He says the same is true for artwork, some electronics, equipment, even bicycles in some cases. "Some policies may cover you to a maximum of $10,000. That may be enough, but if you have more than that in terms of value, it may not be."

Once you've checked your policy coverage to ensure you have enough, the second piece of advice he offers is to keep track of what you have with appraisals or receipts so the claims process will be easier if something does happen.

For cottage owners, meanwhile, he recommends carrying at least $2-million in liability coverage. "It's not so much the value of the dwelling, the liability aspect is critical because a lot of activities that occur in or around cottages may be a little more dangerous and you may also have additional people visiting."

Similarly, as other life changes occur, he recommends having a conversation with your broker about coverage – a basic home insurance policy is designed to cover people for the typical uses of the home, "it is not designed to protect people operating commercial business enterprises out of the home," where visitors come to consult or transact business. Even if your business simply involves having a lot of couriers come to the door, he recommends discussing coverage with your insurance representative.

"You need to discuss your lifestyle freely with your insurance person," he says, adding that lost luggage if you're a frequent traveler, even contents insurance for a child away at school, can all be covered by the original homeowner's insurance.

As for those who are perhaps a little afraid about tipping their hand to insurance companies, he says conversations about general coverage – what is and isn't covered under different circumstances, shouldn't concern anyone.

Still, he does admit such fears are not entirely unfounded: "I had one person, I remember quite clearly, who gave me his information because he had a run-in with his insurance company," says Karageorgos. A toilet had overflowed, causing damages. After calling his insurance company to inquire about the deductible, he decided to do the work himself and didn't make a claim. "He ended up having his rates increased because of that water damage, even though he never claimed for it. The broker put it in as some sort of claim inquiry, which triggers an increase in his premium."

If you have similar queries of your own, and don't want to involve your own insurance company, he recommends calling the IBC at (800) 387-2880, or visiting the association's website, www.IBC.ca to speak with officers or retired insurance professionals who answer questions on the phone or by email. The association fielded over 14,000 queries in 2011.

"Most companies don't do that. There might be one or two odd ones out there, but for the most part, just by asking about something is not going to result in your rates being impacted," he says. "It's important to shop around and have that relationship with your insurance company because the last thing you want is a surprise."


Kate McCaffery is a freelance writer, editor and former urbanite, now living somewhere in between the lake, the ski hill and some farmer's cow path. mccaffery.ca/kate2.0/ for more information.

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