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3 Important Things to Know About Homeowners Insurance

17 December 2017

Sherri Ramos

Are you getting ready to buy your first home? Have you been adding up all of the various costs of everything to figure out exactly what you can afford? One aspect of buying a house that is easily overlooked or dismissed is the cost of insurance on your home. However, this is something that is extremely important and should not be neglected. Before you do anything else, four things you should know about insurance include:

1. It's a requirement: If you've never bought a house before, you may not realize that homeowners insurance is something that is required by the lending bank in order to make the mortgage valid. While you might be tempted to get insurance and then drop the coverage after a few months in order to save a few bucks on your expenses, this is not a good idea. Should the bank find out that you no longer have insurance on the property, the terms of your mortgage allow them to purchase an insurance policy on your behalf and to add the cost to your mortgage payment. Since the bank doesn't shop around for the best rates, your insurance payment could be several times higher than what it was when you bought and paid for it on your own.

2. Lower payments are possible: No two houses in the same neighborhood are going to have exactly the same homeowners insurance payments. This is due to a number of factors, some of which can be controlled and some of which cannot. For instance, a house that is right next to a fire hydrant is going to have a slightly lower insurance payment than a home around the corner from the hydrant. While you can't move the hydrant, you can change other factors. Having working fire alarms or metal security doors installed are factors that may lower your insurance payments.

3. Shop around regularly: Although one company may have the lowest homeowners insurance policy for you right now, a different company may have better rates for you next year or a few years down the road. Even if you don't want to go through the trouble of changing your insurance company every year, it's still a good idea to at least get some quotes from other companies every 3-5 years. If you do decide to change your insurance policy, make sure to follow your bank's procedure to notify them of your new insurance company so that they don't also wind up charging you for something you're already paying for.

Visit http://gateway-insurance.com if you're ready to learn more about affordable homeowners insurance.

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