Comprehensive Home Insurance for Residents

Home insurance, is a type of property insurance, that covers your personal residence whether it is a freehold residence, a condominium or a rented property. Home insurance policies cover not only your physical residence but also your possessions against covered perils such as fire, falling trees, water, theft, and even mysterious disappearance. When structured correctly, these policies provide coverage against those causes of loss most likely to cause significant financial loss and hardship.

Proper home insurance, also referred to as house insurance, has become more and more important in recent years as the frequency of claims has shifted upwards. Water losses have become more prevalent as municipalities have lagged in upgrading their systems and green space is encroached on. More than half of all property claims for residences are now attributed to sewer backups and overland water losses.

Ensuring your policy has the proper coverages and adequate limits for those claims most likely to impact you is more important than ever.  If your present insurer provides sewer backup coverage but only includes a small limit such as $25,000, how long will it take to exhaust that limit in the event of a claim?

3 Most Commons Types of Home Insurance

Homeowner’s Package

Includes coverages for you and your family members for a house you own, including coverages for the dwelling building and any detached structures on the property, your household contents, additional living expenses, and your personal liability. Sewer backup coverages may be included in the base policy wordings or may be added by endorsement to your policy. Additional coverages may be added as needed to cover items which are subject to low limits, such as jewelry, collectibles, bicycles and other personal property.
Condominium Owner’s Package

Includes coverage for your personal possessions and liability, but also includes those coverages important when living in a condominium unit, such as unit improvements and upgrades. Condominium Owner policies also include critical coverages such as Loss Assessment, condo corporation deductibles and coverage for common areas.
Tenant’s Insurance Package

Includes coverage for your personal possessions and liability where you rent your residence, either a house or an apartment unit, from someone else. It also covers you where you occupy part of a building where the ownership is atypical, such as in a co-ownership situation or where you live in a commercial building.

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What are the most common home insurance considerations?

The breadth of coverage and the limits provided are the most critical aspects to look for when choosing a home insurer. While many consumers emphasize pricing and low deductibles, these priorities are highly likely to result in dissatisfaction when faced with a claim. Insurance is designed to work best when covering catastrophic losses, not for smaller incidental claims.

Is the policy wording a Comprehensive (sometimes referred to as “All Risk”) contract? This type of policy covers against any peril or loss that occurs unless it is specifically excluded. This is the broadest type of policy wording available and should be viewed as not optional.

Is Guaranteed Replacement Cost provided?
What are the special limits of insurance in the wording?
Is jewelry limited to $3,000? Or $50,000?
Are collectibles covered?
What does the Personal Liability coverage include?
Does it include Personal Injury (libel, slander, etc…) or is it restricted to Bodily Injury and Property Damage?
Does it extend to secondary or seasonal residences?
Is the limit adequate given our current legal trends?

Is your home a heritage home?

Heritage homes are subject to significant restrictions when repairs are required. Very few insurers will actually cover heritage homes when they are aware of the home having heritage status, but did your current insurer or broker ever ask you if your home was a heritage home? If they don’t find out until there is a claim, your coverage will not respond adequately and you will end up with a significant bill.

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What does the home insurance cost and what impacts the pricing?

Home insurance pricing is influenced by many factors. While the most obvious pricing influences will be the amount of insurance required and any optional coverage extensions, a number of other factors will impact premiums:

Home Value

The value and age of your property will affect the cost of insurance. A lower replacement value will reduce your home insurance premiums. However, if this amount is too low, you may not have enough coverage to replace or rebuild your home.

Personal Property

A home insurance policy is designed to include coverages for your personal property subject to the home insurance policy limits. The higher the value of personal property to be insured, the higher the insurance premiums will be.

Your Credit Matters

While you don’t need to consent to credit scoring to obtain an insurance quotation, most insurers provide significant discounts where you have good credit. A poor credit score will not increase your premium, but a good score could reduce it by up to 40% at most insurers.

Deductibles

Low deductibles drive premiums up significantly. Insurance is designed to cover significant financial losses and does not work well for small, “nuisance” type claims. Higher deductibles will usually pay for themselves over a few years by reducing your premiums.

Claims History

Claims history for the property and for the insured will affect pricing. Prior claims, especially numerous small claims or claims caused by the same peril will negatively affect your premiums

Claims Approach

The claims philosophy of the insurer will affect pricing. Does your insurer emphasize best practices when managing claims? Or do they provide just basic administrative claims service.

Water Coverages

The breadth of water coverages is increasingly important in insurance pricing now, companies with more robust coverages will rarely be the cheapest option.

Loss Mitigation

Loss mitigation efforts can make significant differences in premiums, such as monitored alarms, sewer backup preventers, automatic water shutoffs, automatic generators, and sump pumps.

FAQ

Does Your Policy Have Overland Water Coverage?

Overland Water Coverage is designed to protect against damage caused when above groundwater enters a home through the foundation, basement floors or walls, or through a sewer line. It covers damage caused by freshwater floods such as the overflow of a river, lake, or other body of water. This coverage is very important to consider if you live in a flood zone. The sudden and accidental accumulation of water due to heavy rainfall is also covered.

Why Should You Consider the Claims Philosophy of Your Insurer?

There are many considerations to factor in when purchasing insurance. Considering a claims scenario at the purchasing stage of insurance is often overlooked. However, this is an important consideration so you are not surprised when a claim does occur. Some common questions you should be asking:

Do YOU get to choose the contractor?
If you wish to cash out and handle your own repairs, will you receive the full value?
Will extra expenses, such as replacing undamaged portions of hardwood floors or allowing replacing of entire sets of furniture where you cannot properly match any damaged items? Nobody wants a mismatched patch of flooring in their dining room.

How Do I Apply? How Do I Know how Much Coverage I Need?

You can call or email us and our FCA brokers will discuss your personal circumstances with you and will obtain the information to ensure your property and possessions are properly covered. We use insurer-approved valuation methods to ensure accurate insuring of the rebuilding cost of your home, this is crucial to ensure that Guaranteed Rebuilding Cost is provided in the event of a claim.

We will review your particular concerns and ensure coverages are offered for your unique situation. We will suggest coverages to consider and explain the coverages to you so that you can be confident you have insurance that protects you properly. We will help you find the most effective solution.

Why Does FCA Only Represent Certain Insurers?

FCA Insurance Brokers has an important obligation to our clients – protection. We only deal with the financially strongest insurers to ensure that policy obligations are met. Our obligation is to you, the client, and we must ensure that your insurer will pay the claims they are obligated to pay. We only work with insurers that provide strong policy wordings, flexible underwriting, and client-centered claims philosophies.

Why Choose FCA Insurance?

Ease of Doing Business

We set the industry standard for turnaround time for both new and existing clients, you can expect excellence.

Trusted by Insurance Markets

Outstanding relationships with all of the most reputable insurance markets in the industry, giving you the power of choice.

Insurance is What We Do

Our industry leading team boasts eighty dedicated and licensed professionals ensuring a smooth and efficient experience.

Testimonials

Laura does the work to get us the best prices with the best coverage. Her yearly renewal visit is comprehensive to say the least, but when she leaves, we all understand the exact nature of each and every policy our business has.

Carol, Feb 2019

Helen is super nice, knowledgeable, and quick. Our new policy is saving us $700/year, for a plan that’s actually better than the one our previous broker arranged.

Oliver, Mar 2018

Jamie and his team have been great to deal with, providing transparent advice and excellent service!

Cam, Nov 2020

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Our mission is to make insurance accessible. We put you in control of your insurance experience. FCA informs and empowers you, so you can choose amongst robust options, confident in the value of your protection and in the broad reach of your advocates.

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