Things That Homeowners Insurance Doesn't Cover

By Allison Mishley


Standard homeowners insurance typically does not cover flooding. After the floods in Alberta, many people now realize this. Many people are not familiar with the other exceptions in their policies that they are not protected against. We will go over a few of the property exclusions that are part of standard homeowners insurance:

A structure that is part of a business is not protected by a standard home insurance policy. Keep in mind that all claims for business on your property will likely be denied by your insurance adjustor. Remember this if you're running any kind of business out of your home, if it's a day care, catering company, or a mail-order business for examples.

Injuries to or theft of pets is not covered in standard policies. But if there are injuries caused by your pet, this will be included. If you have a dog that causes injury to someone by biting them and a lawsuit is the result, you will be covered by your personal liability insurance. Certain breeds of dogs are not included in standard coverage, so go over this with your insurance agent so you are not left holding the bill.

If there are losses on your property that would not have been incurred if you had taken measures to protect from further damage, these will be excluded. What does this mean? If you have a fire and don't call firefighters, don't count on being reimbursed for your losses. In a case where a tree falls on your home and damages the roof and you fail to protect your belongings from the rain damage, you will not be covered.

You can't file a claim based on losses caused by an outage of electricity - say, if your frozen food thaws and is ruined because of an outage.

Damage due to rising waters, more commonly called floods are also not covered by standard policies. Water backup is also not included in typical coverage. If your sewer or drain backs up or your basement's sump pump fails, this is not included. Specific coverage for these things must be purchased if you want to avoid paying for these costly damages yourself.

If you lease space in your home or even just have a boarder who isn't related to you, his or her property is not covered by your homeowners insurance. If the property of a renter or boarder is damaged by an insured peril like fire, they will not be covered unless they have taken out their own separate insurance policy.

Similar to floods, earthquakes aren't covered by standard homeowners insurance. Earthquake insurance must be purchased for people who live in areas that are more likely to have earthquakes. And sinkholes and mudslides also typically aren't covered by home insurance.

Go over the exclusions in your home insurance policy with the agent prior to purchasing. Only by knowing what you have can you know what you might need.




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