If you’ll soon be getting homeowners insurance, there are a few things that you should know about this process to ensure that you get what you need without overpaying. Because this can be a big monthly bill that you have in addition to your mortgage payments, it’s important that you get this right so that your home is both properly covered in the event of damage or an emergency as well as saving you from wasting money.

To help you strike this balance perfectly, here are three things to consider when getting homeowners insurance. 

The Policy Level You Need

One of the first things that you should determine is what level of coverage you need. There are multiple different policy levels that you can get based on the kind of structure that you’re insuring, and the coverage at each level will vary. 

The most common levels of homeowners insurance range from level 2 to level 8. Some of the levels will state explicitly what’s included in your policy coverage while others will only state what is excluded. So depending on what you can afford each month, how much coverage you want on your property, and what kinds of damage or issues you think are most likely to happen, the level of coverage that you’ll want to get will fall somewhere in those ranges of levels. 

Think About Necessary Add-Ons

For many home insurance policies, most natural disasters aren’t necessarily included. So if you live in a place where certain natural disasters are known to happen and have had big impacts on homes in the past, you may want to think about getting some of these add-ons to give you extra coverage.

As a good reminder, things like flood insurance or earthquake insurance will usually need to be included as a rider for whatever insurance you choose, and will come at an extra cost. But if your area is near a fault line or close to the ocean, paying for this could save you in the long-run. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure your policy explicitly covers anything else that you’re worried about, like foundation repair and the like. 

Protect Yourself From Spikes In Rebuild Costs

Sadly, if you happen to live in an area that gets hit by some kind of disaster that destroys multiple homes in your area, the prices to rebuild those homes can increase past what it otherwise would have been due to supply and demand. But if your homeowners insurance doesn’t account for this, you could wind up with a bigger bill than you can manage.

With this in mind, you should get a homeowners insurance policy that protects you from spikes in rebuilding costs with a guaranteed replacement cost clause. 

If you’ll soon be shopping around for homeowners insurance, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you find the right policy for you.