About
Tampa Homeowners Insurance

When buying a house, you and your family are likely to invest much of your savings to secure a comfortable place to call home. For that reason, it’s extra important to ensure that it’s protected for any situation that could occur. If you live in Tampa, FL, homeowners insurance is important regardless of what neighborhood your address is written on. The size of your home matters, and so does the extra features. The more value it carries, the more you have to lose. Therefore, we want to make sure that you have the right coverage to protect yourself and your family from potential unexpected mishaps. Tampa homeowners insurance typically includes financial protection related to losses in the following areas: home structure, personal belongings, liability and additional living expenses. Here’s what you need to know about each. 

Dwelling Coverage

To protect your home’s structure you need Dwelling coverage. This covers the repair and rebuild of your home in an instance of damages such as: fire/smoke, severe weather (including hurricanes), vandalism and theft, falling objects, damage from aircraft and Damage from a motor vehicle.

When receiving an estimate for Dwelling coverage, we look at the cost of rebuilding your home rather than its market value. Costs such as labor and materials cost change over time. In addition, any renovations can also affect the rebuild value. We always recommend checking your coverage every now and then to ensure that your coverage is enough including your garage, porch etc. A standard policy will not pay for any damage that has occurred due to routine wear and tear, earthquakes, or flood and storm surges caused by storms or hurricanes. Therefore, we recommend supplementing Tampa homeowners Insurance with a separate flood insurance policy.

Personal Property Protection

Personal property protection involves the coverage of your personal belongings inside of your home including furniture, electronics, clothes etc. This part of your policy can cover different personal belongings both when you’re at home and when you’re anywhere else in the world. Usually, the coverage reaches up to 50 – 70 percent, however, if you carefully document your inventory of goods, you can most likely get a more accurate picture of what your coverage should entail. When it comes to expensive items such as art, jewelry and silverware, the coverage is limited if damaged or stolen. Therefore, you will need a special endorsement for these types of items. 

Liability

Although you may not expect accidents to happen in your home or property, they may do. This is where the liability portion of your Tampa homeowners insurance policy comes in to protect any bodily injury or property damage that has occurred. This coverage will pay for a few different things associated with the accident:

• Court costs and legal defense
• Medical bills for injured individuals 
• Pain and suffering endured by an injured person
• Lost wage 
• Death Benefits 

In most policies, liability limits are $100,000 so you may want to consider purchasing additional protection under and umbrella policy. Keep in mind that some policies may also cover potential damage that you or your family may experience when away from home. 

Loss of Use/Additional Living Expenses 

Loss of use covers any added costs of living away from your home is damaged by an already covered incident as long as it’s unlivable. This coverage includes things such as if you stay in a hotel or an apartment that exceeds the expenses you pay at home. In most cases, it calculates to about 20 or 30 percent of dwelling coverage. However, remember that often your policy enforces a time limit on additional living expenses. Therefore, we recommend that you double-check to have sufficient coverage to fit your lifestyle.  

Other Types of Coverage

Along with your Tampa homeowners insurance policy, we recommend the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to protect yourself and your home in an event of flooding. In addition, you may also want to consider add ons such as water damages and green home coverages. Lastly, a few homeowners now state identity fraud recovery expenses as part of covering their homes.