“How much home insurance should I buy?” It’s a common question. There’s several different ways to look at this.

If you want to insure for what is known as “replacement coverage,” you need to keep in mind several different things. The biggest thing is: “how much is it going to cost me to rebuild this home or this building if there’s a total loss?” Your insurance agent can help you determine that: what’s known as cost estimates for construction. What we take into account is square footage, features of the home, site locations, and there’s a couple other items that we take into account, but those are the largest ones. What you want to do is you want to work with your agent, give them as much information about the home as possible so they can come up with an idea of what it cost to rebuild this home if there’s a total loss, fire, tornado, whatever.

There’s some other ways to go about it, too. If you go with a policy known as “actual cash value,” you’re basically insuring for what the building’s actually worth and claims will be paid on a depreciated value. That is a less preferred way than replacement. Replacement is always the way to go if you can get that coverage. It’s a little bit more expensive usually, but it’s usually worth it, because there’s no depreciation involved when the claim time comes.

A common people mistake make when they’re insuring their home is they think the assessed value or what they purchased the home for. Those are completely different things. With the insurance, we’re concerned about what it cost to rebuild the home. The assessed value is basically a fair market value. What you purchased the home. It was the purchase price. Those are different things than what the reconstruction costs are and that’s what you want to go off of. A good agent should be able to help you develop the cost of what it would cost to rebuild that home if there’s a total loss.

If you have any questions about how much insurance you need for your home, certainly you can feel free to call us here at Philleo Agency.

How do I get homeowners insurance? How do I go about doing that? What do I need to provide to the agent and how do they get a quote and set up coverage for me?

That is a very common question. If you need homeowner’s insurance, you are buying your first home or your first condominium and you are not sure how to go about doing it, here are a few tips for you.

Call an agent. We don’t recommend trying to get insurance online or through an 800 number. With homeowner’s insurance that system has not been perfected yet. Using an agent who is going to act in your best interest is going to be your best bet.

So call an agent. We recommend using an independent agent. They can shop around for you and try to find the best coverages and the best rates. They represent more than carrier rather than just calling a company who just represents that one company.

When you talk to your agent they are going to ask you some features about the home. Be prepared to have the approximate year built, the square footage of the home. Of course you are going to need the address. And they are going to ask you a couple features about the home.

One of the things that they are looking for is the age of the electrical system, the age of the heating system, the roof. So you might want to have an idea how old these things are and what kind of condition they are in, because that will affect which carriers you can go to for insurance and how much you pay.

The other thing is too when you are setting this up, they are going to ask you a couple questions about the features of the home, like is there a pool? Is there a fence around that pool? Is there a diving board? Is there a slide? Those are some of the things you need to know. If you answer yes to some of those, you may end up paying more.

What area is the home located in? Is it in an area where there are fire hydrants and a fire department close by or is it in a rural area? Some of those things will certainly affect what you pay.

How old is the house? That will affect how much you pay as well. If it is a newer home, you will generally pay less than if it is an older home. Newer homes have different construction methods and better fire protection, and that is generally the reason why.

So there are a few factors that are going to go into it. But you need to have this information ready ahead of time when you talk to your agent.

And then if you find a company, a carrier, and a price you are comfortable with, that agent should be able to take care of all the paperwork with your mortgage company if you are financing the home and get all the paperwork to them so you can have a smooth closing.

I am Ron Philio with Philio Agency Insurance and thanks for watching videoinsuranceagency.com.

Hello and welcome to Coverage Concepts. I’m Ron Philleo with Philleo Agency Insurance. One of the calls we get frequently is, “I’m buying a new house or a condominium and my mortgage guy said I have to have homeowner’s insurance or hazard insurance. Can you help me with that?” Well let me explain what homeowner’s insurance does. When you purchase a new home or a condominium or an existing home, you want to make sure you have homeowner’s insurance. This is going to protect you in case the home is damaged due to an instance, say, of wind damage, tornado, or fire, or something along those lines. So we want to protect the structure itself.

We also have some other coverages that go along with the homeowner’s policy to cover all your contents inside the home, things like furniture, clothing, and anything else that goes inside your home.

We also cover loss of use of a home. So if there’s a fire and you have to live somewhere else temporarily, we will pay for additional living expenses for you. And liability, which is very important, comes with a homeowner’s policy as well, which covers you in case somebody were to slip and fall on your property and get injured and you get named in a lawsuit.

All those coverages come along with a homeowner’s policy. There are some more specialized coverages you can add on for jewelries and collectibles and guns. So there are options with the policies as well.

Make sure that you use an independent agent that will be able to shop around for you and select coverages. They should be able to educate you on what the policy does and help you select the coverages, and be able to shop around and make sure you are getting the best price in your homeowner’s policy too.

It’s also a good idea to group your auto and home policy together because you get some additional discounts.

I’m Ron Philleo with Coverage Concepts. Thanks for watching. Be sure to check out our other videos.