Texas homeowners can ask loads of questions about their insurance coverage. And many of the questions can come with a complex answer. But the question of theft being covered on your homeowners insurance policy is pretty straight forward. Theft of items from your home is covered under the policy forms subject to deductible. However the discussion can become much more interesting if the theft occurs somewhere other than your home.
Theft Of Items At Your Home
We start with the easy one. If your home is broken into, and items are taken, it's covered. Period. The one caveat is that the total value of the items needs to exceed your deductible amount. Deductibles for everything not named wind and hail have very flexible amounts. They can range from $500 up to a percentage of your home's dwelling value. As a result, it is important to understand the damage to your home and items taken and how that compares against your deductible before filing a claim. The other consideration on this coverage, assuming you've exceeded the deductible amount, is that there are sub-limits on the replacement of some items. A sub-limit on jewelry may cap the amount of benefit that you can receive on the claim. Therefore, if you have single items that are expensive it is important to determine how that will affect your claim amount. This particularly affects jewelry, guns, art, and other high ticket items.
Theft Of Items In Storage
It seems like more and more storage units are popping up all over Texas. Homeowners have so much stuff, that they seemingly can't keep it all in their homes. As a result, they end up using said storage units to keep all the extra. Putting your family heirloom items in storage is a subject all into itself, but that's for a different blog. From a home insurance stand point, theft of items in a separate off-site storage unit is covered. However, most policies have a sub-limit on personal property that is off-premises. That means that if your storage unit is broken into and completely liquidated, there will be a cap on just how much benefit is available to you. Unless you have beefed up your policy, the standard sub-limit amount is 10% of your total personal property coverage on your home. So factor that in to what your keep in that unit!
Theft Of Items In My Vehicle Or Hotel Room
This scenario seems to be the most frequent questions that Insurance For Texans client's run into. You leave items inside your vehicle, and the window is smashed and your Macbook Pro is now gone. It stinks. But your auto coverage is not going to cover it without a special provision. The items will fall under your off premise coverage on your homeowners policy while hour comprehensive auto coverage will repair that glass. So the Macbook Pro is subject to deductibles and sub-limits that have been discussed previously. We recommend filing a police report to help with the documentation of the circumstances of the claim with the company even though it may be a pain. It will make your case easier to work out with a claims adjuster.
Theft in a hotel room is always going to be a tough subject. Given the hotel staff having access to your room, we recommend first touching base with the hotel to see if they have coverage that can be accessed. And this is going to be one of the first questions a claim adjuster is going to ask as well. The access can make it easy for mysterious disappearance of items since there will be no visible forced entry into the room. Claiming jewelry in this scenario is going to be heavily scrutinized and is part of why we recommend a floater policy just to make sure. If you do file the claim, the advice given for the auto theft will be in play here as well. File the police report to make the process easier.
If you aren't sure what is and is not covered, speak with an agent at Insurance for Texans today. As an independent insurance agent, we have options available to fit most any situation you can find yourself in today. We are home insurance experts who work to help our neighbors, friends, and fellow Texans.
