If you own property, you'll want to get property insurance. Learn more about this insurance type.
What is property insurance?
Property insurance financially covers the loss or damage of your property. It can cover anything that you own, such as land, possessions, and structures. When you purchase a property insurance plan, you are protecting your investments and will be reimbursed if your property is lost or damaged by a covered claim.
Property insurance has been around for a long time, but it started to become really popular in the late 1600s after the Great Fire of London destroyed thousands of people's homes, leaving many people destitute and homeless. At first, this insurance was mainly aimed at insuring against fire, but soon it expanded to cover other claims.
How is property insurance different from home insurance?
Home insurance fits under the broad umbrella of property insurance. Your home is part of your property, so while home insurance would only insure your home, property insurance could include your home, your land, or your car. Basically, property insurance includes a wide variety of things, and home insurance is very specific.
What does it cover?
What property insurance covers depends on the plan that you purchase. Typically, you have the choice to choose whether named perils or open perils are covered. Named perils means that your policy covers explicitly named perils such as fire or theft. An open policy means that it protects against anything not specifically excluded in the policy.
The type of coverage that you want depends on the property you are having insured and your circumstances; protecting a car against theft might make more sense than protecting your land or house against theft. Likewise, insuring against flood damages makes a lot of sense if you are living in Florida but not as much if you are in Nevada.
Different plans have different rules for payouts. Some plans pay a set amount for the insured property, regardless of whether the value of the property has fluctuated. Other plans will pay cash value for the property at the time of the loss or damage.
Why get property insurance?
There are many reasons to choose to get property insurance. There may be circumstances beyond your control that you can't plan for or anticipate. Insurance helps you recover from these unexpected circumstances so that you are not set back as far by a disaster like an earthquake or tornado. It also protects against theft of your property, meaning that you don't lose out on all of your carefully invested money if someone targets you. You can't control everything that happens to your property, but you can take steps to protect yourself from loss.
For more information about property insurance plans, contact a local insurance agency.
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