How to save a ton of money and avoid financial disaster
I'm gonna save you a ton of bucks right now, and maybe if you are really unlucky, a few $100,000.
In one of those odd confluences of fate, I heard two really awful insurance related stories yesterday, neither of which had to be so painful.
Learn from them.
Ugly Story One: A relative has her condo up for sale. Long story short, jewelry was stolen during one of the showings. A few specific expensive pieces were pilfered.
Here's the insurance info you may not know: Unless you specifically have a rider for individual items on your Home Owner's policy, you are likely looking at a $3,000 limit (it varies by policy).
Not per piece -- without a rider, that may be the total limit on personal items. EVEN IF $50K IN GOODS IS STOLEN (Ouch)
Important Lesson: Buy a rider for specific items worth more than $3k in value: Rings, Bracelets, Earrings, Watches, even Plasma Screens. I assume the same applies to any Art items -- paintings, lithos, etc. Of course, save reciepts and place copies in a duplicate locations.
Also, one can never go wrong with an Umbrella Liability Insurance policy; $3 Million is actually prettty cheap coverage.
>
Ugly Story Two: You have fire insurance, which you assume covers rebuilding your home in the event of a total loss. Not true. As one of my neighbors discovered, their insurance is for a specific dollar amount -- NOT REPLACEMENT VALUE.
So if you bought a house 10 years ago for $300k, your insurance today (likely $150k -- it covers the home, not the land) is likely totally inadequate to replace the home in the event of a total loss.
Important Lesson: Periodically review the replacement cost of your home(s). Get builder/contractors estimates of a total rebuild costs; Upgrade your coverage to full replacement cost.
>
Pay attention: I declare today CALL YOUR INSURANCE AGENT AND COVER YOUR ASS day.
>
Feel free to share insurance horror stories -- as well as good coverage tales -- in the comments below.
Friday, March 24, 2006 | 07:33 AM | Permalink
| Comments (21)
| TrackBack (0)
add to de.li.cious | 
digg this! | 
add to technorati | 
email this post
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c52a953ef00d834b3f94569e2
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference How to save a ton of money and avoid financial disaster:
Comments
Always buy replacement value insurance.
I had a house fire in 1988 and believe me, it was worth it.
Posted by: spencer | Mar 24, 2006 8:31:17 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
