Thanks John: When I was in college back in the very early eighties .. my parents had a fire ... and they really did not have enough insurance. My dad was shocked when he started with the claim ... and the agent was a friend! So at least I learned from that experience.
It adds up quick .. Thankfully I had agreed replacement value on the cars .. that would have cost me tens of thousands .. and it added about $40.00 to the policy. The upgrades are cheap .. ask and take them.
One thing about today, I think it gets to be a touchy subject when it comes to vehicles, as in cars and trucks, that if there is a fire, homeowners covers the home, tools, clothes, and all of that, but if a vehicle burns up while sitting in a garage, it MAY fall under your auto insurance. So if you have a vehicle that is still worth quite a few thousand, but you dropped full coverage to save money, you may want to specifically ask your agent what it falls under.
My truck has set outside this winter. I dropped Full Coverage on it due to it being an '02, but I do carry Comprehensive Coverage. So if someone comes and torches it out in my driveway, or if they break in to the vehicle, it all comes under comp. with a $50 deductible. If I pulled it into the garage, and something shorted out and it caught fire, then I'm at a loss as far as the vehicle goes.
How I found this out was that Ii was making an evening milk run. Really, it was just to get a gallon of milk. I got in the wifes Blazer, pushed the button for the garage door opener, and the door went up. I started to back out and rammed the garage door. A roller had the bearing go out and the stem of the roller hit a spot, got caught, and the door reversed itself. Homeowners covered a new garage door, but the scratches on the Blazer had to be covered under Auto insurance with a $500 deductible.
So make sure that you ask HOW things are covered. You may think you have something covered, only to find out you aren't covered.
And don't be afraid to ask your insurance agent to come out to your place instead of you going in to have a sit down. The agent that was handling our insurance just wanted a sit down meeting to go over things. I insisted he come out. I showed him my toolboxes, the mill, lathe, tractor. He started snapping pics. We went to the outdoor storage shed and went through some of the things in there. The JD garden Tractor, Snowblower, rototiller, and the tools in it. More pics snapped. We went through the wifes Craft Building. She has probably 22' or more of kitchen cabinets, formica counter tops, then her collection of some Longaberger, plus all of her stamp collections. Not lick'em stamps, but from Stamp'em Up, which is rubber stamps and various tools to make greeting cards and such. The building is also completely finished off inside. He snapped pics of it. I think just for that, he increased the amount on our insurance by close to $20,000. After that we proceeded to the house. One large thing inside the house is that every dish, cup and such is Longaberger. Not cheap by a long-shot. We then went through the rest of the house, all the while he snapped pics here and there.
Afterwards, he thanked me for insisting that he come out. One reason was so that he could document everything, instead of taking a wild guess at the amount if there was a disaster. Just my wife's Longaberger Baskets were valued at about $40,000, but I told him to change that to $20,000 because people don't collect as much today as they did a few years back.
Most people think that Homeowners Insurance is high, but all it takes is one fire to really appreciate the cost of it. We go over things every year to see if there are any changes or not. And with our agent....they are as square with me as I am them. Just like with the Longaberger baskets.....I could have very easily left it at $40,000 replacement cost, but it isn't worth that today. So I'll be square with them as far as cost go. If I wouldn't and something happened......Karma would come knocking at my door in a pissed off mood.
Bottom line......get your agent out to your place to go over things in person, and not going over it while sitting in front of the agents desk.
