Do You Have Home Emergency Insurance?

If your house burns down and you don’t have insurance, you are SOL. Nobody wants to go through that kind of devastation alone.  I recently called my insurance company to ask how what my home insurance deductible is, and they said it is 3%. In other words, if my house is worth $300,000, I have to pay $9,000 in out of pocket expenses before any insurance pays out! Interesting right?

I’m sure you’ve heard of standard home insurance policies before but what about home emergency insurance? Think about it like this – the difference between home insurance and home emergency cover is simple: Home insurance eases financial hassles, while home emergency cover eases life hassles.

Standard home insurance is known for giving customers peace of mind, and when it comes to picking up the bill and covering costs, that’s certainly true. But home emergency cover gives you peace of mind when it really counts: when you are cold, wet, or stuck in the dark.

So what is home emergency coverage?

Simply put it’s a form of insurance that means if you suffer an emergency with your property, it gets fixed. You want to use an insurance company that doesn’t leave you to get everything sorted on your own and then send in a bill for the expenses, because that’s the last thing you want to deal with when the unexpected happens.

Instead, all you would need to do is simply make one phone call and an approved professional is sent to your home straight away to tend to the damages. The company takes care of the costs up front so there’s no need for covered homeowners to worry about paying the plumber/electrician/contractor when the jobs are done or having to file a claim and wait to get reimbursed.

What situations does a home emergency policy cover?

Some companies offer pretty much everything you can think of. If your electricity supply goes out, no problem. If your main heating system fails, you can chill in a good way. Got a problem with external locks? Don’t sweat it. If your doors or windows get damaged, there’s no hassle. You can even relax if there’s a hole in your roof, and kick your feet up if your plumbing or drains stop working because help will be on the way.  There’s no stressful scramble to try and reach a reliable service technician because the insurance company will do that for you.

Keep in mind that some standard home policies do offer some of these benefits. so make sure to check your current coverage plan before you run out and switch. If your insurance company doesn’t offer enough coverage and has a bad reputation with their claims processing, take the time to do some research and shop around for a better plan.

Even if your home insurance policy has coverage for some emergency risks, you could still be up a creek dealing with unnecessary hassles when something breaks. If you’re stuck freezing on a winter’s night because the heating is kaput, or racing round with buckets trying to cope with rain pouring through a hole in your roof, the last thing you want to be doing is leafing through service repair listings trying to figure out who’s a trustworthy repairer and what’s a fair price to pay.  Home emergency cover can really make your life a lot less stressful when accidents happen.