How Home Insurance Covers Natural Disasters

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Home insurance may not cover natural disasters like you think it does.

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How Home Insurance Covers Natural Disasters

Most Policies Do Not Cover Floods or Earthquakes No normal insurance policy includes flood coverage by default. Instead, property owners need to buy flood insurance through FEMA, or a FEMApartnered insurer, to protect homes and businesses against flood damage.

Most homeowners insurance policies also do not include earthquake damage. You may want to buy added earthquake insurance.

Tornado Damage Home insurance includes coverage for wind, rain, and debris damage up to the limits of your policy. As long as you have sufficient coverage based on the value of your home and your possessions, your insurer should compensate you for any damage after a tornado.

However, standard insurance policies will not cover flood damage linked to the tornado.

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Hurricanes Insurers cover hurricanes like they cover tornadoes. Your wind, rain, and debris coverage will protect you against most hurricane damage.

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However, hurricane coverage doesn’t cover water damage from flooding. As hurricanes become more common, it may be important to add flood coverage to your policy.

Fire All standard homeowners insurance policies cover fires, including fires started by natural disasters and accidental fires in your area.

However, your home insurance policy will not cover damage from intentional fires or fires caused by gross negligence.

Lightning Lightning can cause severe damage if it strikes on or around your property.

Fortunately, a standard homeowners insurance policy covers lightning strikes and the resulting damage.

Lightning can also cause a ground surge, which is a spike of electricity caused by lightning. Proving this damage to your insurer can be difficult, but insurance should cover damage caused by a ground surge.

Extreme Cold

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Extreme Cold Home insurance covers damage that occurs to your property because of extreme cold.

However, you have a responsibility to maintain your home at a comfortable temperature to prevent frozen or burst pipes.

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As long as you’ve performed all due maintenance on your home, home insurance should cover you for extreme cold damage.

Explosions Explosions can occur because of a gas leak or an incident at a nearby home or business.

Home insurance should cover the cost of repairing your property and possessions after an explosion. As long as you did not intentionally set the explosion, insurance should cover you.

Volcanoes Most Americans go to sleep every night without worrying about volcanoes. However, there are 161 potentially active volcanoes in the United States.

Insurance policies may also exclude some damage resulting from a volcano, including mudslides and earthquakes.

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Public Adjusters are available to help with your insurance claim.