Learning Center - Homeowners Insurance

HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

You should realize that your homeowners insurance can provide insurance more than just for your home, it can also provide insurance coverage against many sources of liability that can arise out of your family's activities. Your homeowners insurance is more than just one policy, it is actually a family of similar policies that provide different degrees of coverage. Further more, there maybe exclusions in your policy that deal with uninsurable loss exposures, as well as some limitations and exclusions that can be handled better with separate policies or endorsements. In other words, you homeowners insurance policy consists of series of forms to cover different types of situations with different degrees of coverage for your real, personal property as well as coverage for your personal liability.
Your homeowners insurance has two sections; Section I: Property Coverage and Section II: Liability Coverage, where you should pay particular attention to the definition of your "insured" and "insured location".
Insured: Many persons qualify as insured under Section I and Section II of your homeowners insurance. Yet the persons who fall under the definition of "you" as defined under the policy have somewhat more protection than other insured. Definition "you" may include named insured as well as your spouse, your relatives who live in your residence, children living in your residence under 21 who are under the care of you and your relatives, and a full-time student as long as he is under 24 and your relative and under 21 who is under your care.
Insured Location: Insured location is defined in the policy and may include the following;

__ Other premises where you are temporarily residing but not owned by you
__ The premise of your residence
__ Parts of other premise, structures and grounds you and your spouse use as a residence
__ Vacant land (other than farm land) owned or rented by you
__ Your individual or family cemetery plots or burial vaults
__ Any part of a premises you occasionally rent (other than your business use)

Homeowners insurance has six standard ISO (Insurance Services Office - advisory organization that provides services for insurance companies) forms;

Homeowners-2: Broad Form
Homeowners-3: Special Form
Homeowners-4: Contents Broad Form
Homeowners-5: Comprehensive Form
Homeowners-6: Unit Owners Form
Homeowners-8: Modified Coverage Form

And most of the time these forms are referred to as HO-2, HO-3, HO-4, HO-5, HO-6 and HO-8, where HO-2/3/5/8 are designed for owner-occupants of one to four dwellings (each unit may contain no more than two families or one family and two roomers or boarders. HO-4 is designed for the tenants of residential property as well as the owners of an apartment building who occupies one of its units. HO-6 is designed for the owners of the condominium units.