Insurance Needs at the Coast: Houses for Sale in Emerald Isle, NC

When you own a home, it is prudent for you to purchase insurance to protect your investment. Although insurance on your home is not required by North Carolina law, if your home is mortgaged your lender may require the purchase of insurance on your home. Indeed, most mortgage companies require every home to have a homeowner's insurance policy. Today's blog is a short primer on the types of insurance prudent coastal Carolina home owners purchase for pace of mind.

Homeowners Insurance Policy. Homeowners insurance protects your dwelling, attached buildings, and personal property in the event of a number of calamities, such as fire, theft, vandalism, or wind damage.

Homeowners insurance usually is sold as a personal package policy designed to cover a broad spectrum of perils. A peril is an event that causes damage to property; two examples are fire and theft. The homeowners policy contains two sections. Section I provides property coverages (A, B, C and D) while Section II provides liability coverages (E and F). A brief description of the individual coverages follow: Coverage A – Dwelling Coverage B – Other Structures  Coverage C – Personal Property  Coverage D – Loss of Use  Coverage E – Personal Liability  Coverage F – Medical Payments to Others.

Flood Insurance Policy. Homeowners insurance policies DO NOT cover flood damage. If you live in a flood plain, near a river or if you live near the coast, you should consider purchasing flood insurance for your home. Your lender may require flood insurance if your home is located in a flood plain. Flood insurance covers basically external rising water, floods, and mudslides…. So if you don’t have flood insurance and the water rises and gets inside your house, you have no coverage. Period. And it basically has to get up to the first finished floor before you have coverage. If it’s just a garage level on the slab, things in the garage are normally not going to be covered. Flood insurance varies depending on what zone you are in. You’ve got a V zone which is the highest zone – and by the way, the most coverage you can get through the federal program is $250,000 on the residence and $100,000 on the contents. If your home is in a V zone, your premium will be at the high end of the spectrum. If you were in a A zone, your premium will be in the middle of the spectrum, and if you are in an X zone which means you are not required to carry flood insurance, anyone is still eligible to buy flood insurance, the premium will be at the low end of the spectrum.

Problem is most people think because they are in an X zone and they are not required by the mortgage company to carry flood insurance, but they still can be susceptible to flooding. And that’s what happens around the rivers a lot especially. It gets out of the banks, gets into areas that aren’t considered flood zones or at least not the hundred year flood zones. And they have a flood and they have no coverage.

Wind and Hail Insurance is a critical component of protecting your home, automobiles, and other precious assets. In the state of North Carolina, Wind & Hail insurance might not be a part of your homeowners policy. Yet in a majority of cases, it is wind and hail that will do the most damage to your home!

Wind Driven Rain Insurance Most homeowners insurance policies contain an exclusion or limitation for water damage to the interior of a building unless a windstorm damages the roof or exterior walls of a structure through which water enters. In other words, there has to be a break in the exterior wall, if your roof blows off, or your shingles blow off, and you have water coming in and your contents are damaged, that way [contents are] covered. But, if the rain just blows in under your door, which it can very easily do, and your contents are damaged, that’s not covered. This policy exclusion is known as the wind-driven rain exclusion. This where Wind Driven Rain Insurance comes in handy. Wind Driven Rain is a self-explanatory thing: it's rain that is driven into your home by the wind.

Mold A major fallout following a hurricane is mold. North Carolina has a $5,000 cap on the policies. They did not include mold damage at all until I think it was in the 90s, when we had a lot of mold issues here in North Carolina...The state then instituted some mold coverage, and it covers up to $5000.

When you need more information in insurance needs, please visit my website at www.EIHomesforSale.com for my free Guide to Living Where You Vacation or text your email address to: 919-308-2292.