Homeowners Insurance - Renovating your Home or Planning To Renovate?

If you are renovating you are planning to renovate your home, call your insurance company first. 

Find out if you have the Insurance Coverage you Should Have. 

    If you are renovating or planning to renovate your home, you should make several inquiries into your current insurance coverage’s.  Your first inquiry should be to your broker, agent and/or your homeowner’s insurance company as to how they want to handle your coverage, if at all, while your home is being renovated.  Your second inquiry should be to the broker, agent or insurance company of your general contractor to make sure that he has general liability and workers compensation coverage. 

Find out if you are covered if something happens to your home while under construction.

    Typically homeowner’s insurance companies are not comfortable with covering homes while under renovation.  If you take the ignorance route and do not call your broker, agent or insurance company and there is a loss while your home is under renovation your current coverage may be in jeopardy.  The insurance company can deny coverage under a homeowner’s policy because there has been a material change in exposure.  The insurance company originally signed up to insure a home not to insure a home under renovation.  Here is a fact that will certainly encourage you to properly insure your home while under renovation, “Between 2002 and 2005, property losses from fires in one- and two- family homes during construction or major renovation increased 42%, to $199 million from $140 million, partly because of rising costs for materials and labor.  The average loss per house was $53,500 far higher than for occupied homes, according to the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association.

How to be properly covered for your home renovation. 

    The solution: Considering buying a builders risk insurance policy.  A builder’s risk insurance policy, although a property only policy, addresses the aforementioned issues and is designed to protect a home or building while under renovation or construction. Make sure your general contractor is named as an additional insured on your builders risk policy. A builders risk policy must be insured for 100% of the homes completed value.  If it is not insured for 100% of its value and depending how underinsured your home is you may have to pay money a lot of money out of your pocket in the event of a loss.

Make sure YOU are properly covered. 

    Also, make sure YOU are named as an additional insured on your general contractor’s general liability policy.  A separate general liability policy can and should also be purchased by you to protect you against anyone other than a contractor or laborer getting injured on your premises.

Be involved in the insurance coverage to insure it is correct. 

    Do not leave the purchase of the builders risk policy to the contractor.  Make sure that you as the homeowner purchase the builders risk policy.  If there is a loss and you left the responsibility of buying the builders risk policy to the contractor and he/she forgets to get buy it or didn’t pay the bill, you don’t want to get into a finger pointing and blaming match in addition to having no coverage.

We Currently Offer Builders Risk Insurance in New York, NY, New Jersey, NJ, and Pennsylvania, PA. including Please click here For a Quote on Builders Risk Insurance.

Castle Rock Insurance Agency
Builders Risk Insurance Coverage
Homeowners Insurance

Do I need Apartment Renters Insurance, Coop Insurance, and Condo Insurance?

Does the Building Owner Insure My Apartment? 

Insure my apartment, condo or coop?  Why? 

In my daily routine I communicate with dozens of people looking for insurance, or looking to protect themselves from loss or damage. Typical requests span from $5000 cars to restaurants, churches multi-million dollar buildings.  When they are done explaining what they are looking to insure, how much they are looking to insure it for and what they what it insured against, my next question is always, “Who insures your home?”

Our office is in New York, NY and as many would expect the majority of the dwellers in the city reside in an apartment of some sort, be it a renters unit, a condo or a coop, and more than half of the time when I inquire as to who insured their home, they tell me this:

“Apartment insurance, I don’t need it, the building has it.”

Part 2 may be true; however it has nothing at all to do with part 1, what’s inside and what is covered.

What does the building owner insure? 

    The building owner insured the building: The shell, the liability for bodily injury or property damage in the building's common areas, and perhaps the  machinery.

    THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE LIABILITY FOR YOUR NEGLIGENCE.  OR PROPERTY COVERAGE FOR YOUR BELONGINGS.

What does it cover me for? 

    If you read your lease agreement or the association's master policy, you will most likely find out that the building's responsibility "Ends at the Primer and the Sub-Floor."  The primer is the coat of paint that goes under the finish coat of paint, and the sub-floor is the floor under your floor. What this means that if the building were to burn down to the ground, they would replace the building "To the Primer and the Sub-Floor." 

    This excludes the following of yours if you are are renter:

• Personal Property
• TV's, DVD Players, Computers and Electronic devices. 
• Furniture
• Clothing
• Computers
  

• Counters, Cabinets, Built In Shelves
• Floors (Hardwood, Tile, Carpet, Marble, Granite)
• Permanantly Installed Light Fixtures
• Molding & Wainscotting
• Refrigerator, Stove, Range, Sinks, Showers & Tubs

Am I Insured if someone gets hurt on my property?

    No.  You are not.  If someone does get hurt on your property, the building is not responsible to cover you.  If you do not have insurance, then you quite specifically, DO NOT HAVE INSURANCE.  A major componant of home insurance is the liability which will cover or defend you in the event of a claim against you for injury or property damage to others.  Your property includes your doormat, even if it in the hallway.  Yes, if someone trips over your doormat you may be sued.  And unlike the property in your unit which has a finate value, the losses that may incur as a result of a bodily injury claim may be unlimited.