We check whether your policy could rebuild your home today and review the water, wind, and replacement-cost details that shape a claim.
Six coverages sold as one product. Most disputes trace back to one of the first three.
The structure itself. This limit should reflect what a builder would charge to rebuild today — labor, materials, debris removal, and current code — not the market value of the house and certainly not what you paid for it. Land does not burn, so market value overstates it in some places and badly understates it in others. Extended or guaranteed replacement cost endorsements add a cushion above the stated limit and are worth asking about.
Detached garages, fences, sheds, and pools fall under other structures, usually at a default percentage of the dwelling limit that nobody checks. Personal property is typically covered at a percentage too, and often at actual cash value unless you have added replacement cost. Jewelry, art, firearms, and collections carry internal sub-limits that surprise people.
Covers you when someone is injured on your property or when you or a family member cause harm elsewhere — including, in many policies, incidents away from home. Dog bites, pool accidents, a guest's fall on ice. This is the limit an umbrella policy sits on top of, and the one most worth raising.
Pays for somewhere to live while the house is repaired. After a major loss the rebuild timeline is often measured in months, not weeks, and this coverage is what keeps a family housed. Limits and time caps vary meaningfully between carriers.
Many policies now apply a separate percentage deductible to wind and hail, and in some regions to named storms. On a $600,000 dwelling limit, a 2% wind deductible is $12,000, not the $1,000 printed on the front page. This is the single most misunderstood line on a modern homeowners policy.
Water backup for sewer and sump failures, service line coverage for the pipes and wires you own between the street and the house, equipment breakdown, ordinance-or-law coverage to pay for bringing an older home up to current code, and scheduled personal property for anything valuable enough to be worth naming.
The baseline we work toward when we rebuild a policy from scratch.
The recurring findings when we review a policy someone has renewed for years.
Rebuild costs rose sharply through the 2020s. Policies with modest annual inflation factors did not keep pace, leaving owners underinsured on the one number that matters most in a total loss.
Depreciation applied to everything you own. A ten-year-old sofa pays out as a ten-year-old sofa. Replacement cost on contents is usually an inexpensive change and a dramatic difference after a fire.
Owners discover the real number after a hailstorm. It is not always avoidable — in some regions it is simply the market — but it should never be a surprise.
A failed sump pump or a collapsed sewer lateral is among the most common household losses and among the least commonly covered without a specific endorsement.
A policy may cap jewelry theft at a few thousand dollars regardless of the overall contents limit. Anything meaningful should be appraised and scheduled.
The questions that come up in nearly every review.
No. Flood is excluded from every standard homeowners policy and requires separate coverage through the NFIP or a private flood market. Earthquake is typically excluded as well. The distinction between a covered water loss and an excluded one is narrow and worth understanding before you need it.
No — those are different numbers measuring different things. Purchase price includes land and location; the dwelling limit should reflect construction cost only. In some markets that means insuring for less than you paid, and in others considerably more.
Replacement cost pays to replace damaged property with new material of like kind and quality. Actual cash value subtracts depreciation first. After a significant loss the gap between the two commonly runs into tens of thousands of dollars, and it is one of the first things we check.
It can, and frequency matters more than size. For losses close to your deductible it is often worth asking us before filing — a claim that nets you a few hundred dollars can affect pricing and eligibility for years.
Usually not, or only minimally. Homeowners policies carry small limits for business property and generally exclude business liability. Inventory, equipment, and clients visiting your home all raise questions a personal policy was not written to answer.
Send us the declarations page and we will tell you what we would change — even if the answer is nothing.
