homeowners insurance (sales, loan, townhomes)

[tobyro]

i recently bought a place in south riding, our new construction cost around mid 500,000 our monthly premium for insurance that we quoted from usi/balboa was $700 for :
dwelling $300,000
other struc: 30,000
personal prop: 150,000
loss of use: 120,000

personal liability: 500,000
medical payments: 1000

deductible: 1,000

I've been looking around the net to see the appropriate amount of coverage, do the numbers jibe? should i change anything? I just need some advice. thanks.

[goldenmom7500]

Originally Posted by tobyro

i recently bought a place in south riding, our new construction cost around mid 500,000 our monthly premium for insurance that we quoted from usi/balboa was $700 for :
dwelling $300,000
other struc: 30,000
personal prop: 150,000
loss of use: 120,000

personal liability: 500,000
medical payments: 1000

deductible: 1,000

I've been looking around the net to see the appropriate amount of coverage, do the numbers jibe? should i change anything? I just need some advice. thanks.

Did you say $700 a month? That seems high. Can you get some other quotes?

[HEATHER72]

I think he means yearly payment. That kind of sounds high for what you are getting, but then again we've used the same bank/insurance company for over a decade. We paid $510k for our house.

We pay $549 a year.
dwelling $364,000
personal prop: $273,000
loss of use: unlimited
personal liability: $300,000
medical payments: 1000

deductible: 1,000

This also includes additional coverage for water backup or sump pump overflow.

[goldenmom7500]

Yes, I'm sorry, I don't know how I read "per month" in there. I have a few different insurance bills; one is about $300/year and the other $600/year; the third, not sure.

[tamitrail]

Any of those premiums are quite reasonable, so go with the best coverage and research which one of the companies are the most reputable. Also be prepared for that premium to increase after the first year. They usually quote you very low for the first year, giving you a lot of discounts. As your house gets older, the premium goes up. You might also want to consider getting your car insurance at the same place. They usually give discounts for having going with both policies.

[Margery]

As a general hint, make sure your coverage is "replacement value", if you specify the sales price when you bought it you may find that as prices of materials go up your policy will not cover the full cost of repairs.

[msjack]

After reading all these posts, I'm a little scared. I too, am looking for homeowner's ins. I am a 1st time homebuyer, so this is all new to me. I went online to get online quotes from a few different places. One quoted $2328 per year??? After reading the above posts, this is obviously way high. I purchased a 3 bd townhome. Is there a reason that it would be so high?? I am still waiting on other quotes that are hopefully a lot cheaper. Any advice?? Thanks!

[knopfler]

Originally Posted by tobyro

i recently bought a place in south riding, our new construction cost around mid 500,000 our monthly premium for insurance that we quoted from usi/balboa was $700 for :
dwelling $300,000
other struc: 30,000
personal prop: 150,000
loss of use: 120,000

personal liability: 500,000
medical payments: 1000

deductible: 1,000

I've been looking around the net to see the appropriate amount of coverage, do the numbers jibe? should i change anything? I just need some advice. thanks.

That's a reasonable quote (I used to work in that industry). Make sure to check for a quote with whatever company insures your auto, as there's usually a substantial discount off your auto insurance if you use the same company for homeowners. I know this is true with State Farm, Allstate, Nationwide, GEICO...

My only other concern is that it cost $500,000 to build your property, but if it burned down tomorrow you'd get $300,000 to rebuild. Is your lender cool with that? My initial thought is that your lender may require more on the dwelling in order to close the loan. If they do, go ahead and do it - the incremental cost is not much.

Otherwise, a handy rough estimate quick-check is to take the square footage of your house, and multiply by $175 to $200 per square foot. If that number comes up substantially over $300,000, you've got some adjustments to make...

[scimitar12]

Originally Posted by msjack

After reading all these posts, I'm a little scared. I too, am looking for homeowner's ins. I am a 1st time homebuyer, so this is all new to me. I went online to get online quotes from a few different places. One quoted $2328 per year??? After reading the above posts, this is obviously way high. I purchased a 3 bd townhome. Is there a reason that it would be so high?? I am still waiting on other quotes that are hopefully a lot cheaper. Any advice?? Thanks!

Your figure really seems high. Perhaps one reason why a townhome will be higher than a free-standing house is because a townhome shares a wall(s). If you neighbor's place goes up in smoke, there is a good chance adjoining townhomes will too. Still, $2,328 sounds way out of whack.

[scimitar12]

OP, I agree with knopfler. $300,000 for the building itself is not enough. Check your policy again and, if necessary, make the correct adjustments to insure the full value of the building.