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Home Insurance Ontario-Is Yours Keeping Up With Your Home?

One of the best ways to protect the things you've worked so hard for is to make certain your home and personal property are adequately insured. While most of us have home insurance in Ontario, we tend to pay little attention to the details of what it covers and whether it's enough.

Most home insurance policies cover your home and contents against losses from fire, vandalism, burglary and other perils; however the exact nature of the coverage varies from one policy to another. For example, some home insurance policies automatically insure contents for a percentage of the building limit. In other words, if your building is insured for $120,000 and your home insurance policy allows for 75%, the contents would be insured for $90,000.

This is a common mistake made by policy holders. 'Ninety thousand dollars sounds like a lot of home insurance coverage but when you do a quick inventory of your belongings and add up what it would cost to replace them, you may find that $90,000 is often not enough.'

Sufficient home insurance coverage in three easy steps

The Co-operators suggest three ways to make sure you have enough home insurance coverage. First, add replacement cost coverage to your home insurance policy. This ensures your loss will be paid based on current cost of replacing or repairing the item, without any deduction for depreciation. It's comforting to know that if your ten year old bedroom suite is destroyed, you'll get enough money to replace rather than simply the amount it's worth today.

Second, review your contents insurance policy for any limits on items like jewelry, furs, or coin collections. For example, the limit on jewelry can range from $1,000 to $10,000 depending on your home insurance policy. Since these items may be worth more than your home insurance policy's limit, it's advisable to insure them separately based on their appraised value.

Third, to help determine how much personal property home insurance coverage you need and to help provide proof of ownership in the event of a claim, take stock of the contents of your home. There are several ways to record this information.

--  Write down a description of your possessions room by room and keep any
    receipts with the list.

--  Videotape a walk through your house, verbally describing the items
    you're taping-include serial numbers and purchase dates.

--  Take pictures of the major items and attach a receipt to the back of the
    photo.

It's important to update this record on a regular basis, and leave it in a safety deposit box for safe keeping, in case your home is ever damaged or destroyed.

Home insurance from The Co-operators

Some home insurance companies, like The Co-operators, have designed a Personal Property Inventory Record to make the job easier covering; homeowners insurance Ontario and Ontario tenants insurance. The form lists the most common household items by room, along with columns to record the current and replacement values.

The key with any type of home insurance protection is to identify your needs and with the help of your insurance company and design a home insurance policy to meet those needs. Once this is done, you should review your policy annually to make sure your home insurance is keeping up to the value of your home and contents.