How to Get Homeowners Insurance After a Lapse in Coverage
If you happen to find yourself without homeowners insurance coverage, you may feel extremely stressed and worried about what may happen if an incident occurs during your uninsured period. Whether your homeowners insurance coverage experienced a lapse due to financial difficulties, oversight, or a cancelled policy; reinstating your coverage or obtaining entirely new coverage through a different insurer is crucial for protecting your home and overall financial stability. This brief, yet informative guide will help you gain a better understanding of what to do if there’s a lapse in your homeowners insurance coverage. Please contact us if you need assistance in reestablishing your homeowners insurance.
Understanding the Impact of a Lapse in Coverage
What Constitutes a Lapse?
You may be asking what actually constitutes a lapse in homeowners insurance coverage? To answer this question, a lapse in homeowners insurance coverage usually consists of instances where a policy is cancelled, not renewed, or there is a failure to maintain premium payments resulting in a policy termination. This lapse can leave your property unprotected and could lead to financial difficulties should an incident occur while not covered. Additionally, a lapse in coverage could lead to difficulties in obtaining new homeowners insurance in some cases.
Why It Matters
A lapse in coverage is not only viewed favorably by insurers, it also suggests potential risk or financial instability. This in turn could lead to higher premiums or an outright denial of coverage. If your home happens to suffer from any damage during a lapse in coverage, you will likely be financially responsible for any and all repairs, which could be financially devastating if the damage is severe enough.
Steps to Getting Insured Again After a Lapse in Coverage
1. Assess Your Insurance Needs
Prior to seeking out a new policy, you’ll want to evaluate what level of coverage you actually need to protect your property and home. You’ll want to consider the value of your home, your possessions, and your specific circumstances.
2. Understand Why Your Coverage Lapsed
Having a full understanding as to why your insurance coverage lapsed is crucial to preventing the same mistake from occurring again in the future. You’ll also need to know why your homeowners insurance coverage lapsed when requesting new coverage from different insurers. Having the right understanding and being able to explain what happened to new insurers will make the process of reestablishing coverage much easier.
3. Shop Around
When searching for new insurers, you’ll not want to focus exclusively on the price of premiums. Yes, it’s important to be within your budget, yet you’ll also want to consider a homeowners insurance policy if it offers the right level of coverage, as well as great support; even if it’s a little bit more expensive. When you have an incident with your home, you’ll be thanking yourself later for choosing the right insurer based on customer reviews and experiences.
4. Consider a FAIR Plan
If you’re finding it difficult to obtain coverage for your property due to various risk factors or multiple lapses in coverage, you’ll want to look into your state’s FAIR plan. FAIR plans are insurance pools which can offer basic levels of coverage for properties which are unable to secure insurance coverage through traditional means.
5. Improve Your Home’s Insurability
When you take the right steps towards making your home more easily insurable through repairs, upgrades, and risk mitigation; you can be much more appealing to insurers and they’re more likely to offer you a variety of coverage options.
6. Discuss Payment Options
To avoid any lapses in the future, have your homeowners insurance premium on autopay with your preferred bank account, credit card, or debit card. This will help ensure homeowners insurance premiums are paid on time, every time.
7. Reevaluate Your Deductibles
While choosing higher deductibles with lower premiums may make the insurance costs more affordable, you may be regretting that decision if you end up having to make a claim which costs you much more than the amount of money you saved by choosing a higher deductible policy.
8. Check for Discounts
Inquiring about discounts on your premiums for policy bundling, loyalty, good credit, or proactive home maintenance can go a long way with many insurers. You’ll never know unless you ask, so why not go for it?
What to Do If You’re Denied Coverage
Seek Clarification
You’ll always want to seek out full clarification for a denial in coverage. Having a detailed response is helpful and can allow you to fully address the issue prior to seeking out new coverage with a new insurer.
Consult with an Insurance Agent
An experienced agent or independent insurance agency can provide the right level of advice and help you find a suitable insurer which may be more lenient and better suited to your needs and situation.
Maintaining Continuous Coverage
Review Your Policy Annually
Annual reviews of your policy where you address any and all changes to your property can help you maintain the right level of coverage as each year passes.
Communicate with Your Insurer
If you foresee any financial difficulties which may make it difficult to pay your insurance premium on time, you’ll want to reach out to your insurer as soon as possible. They may offer solutions such as a temporary payment plan to help ease your financial stress.
Keep Records
Keeping thorough records of payments, correspondence with your insurer, and any claims you’ve filed in the past with said insurer can help you when it comes to resolving any form of disputes in the future.
Choose Portsmouth Atlantic Insurance to Reestablish Your Homeowners Insurance Coverage After a Lapse
Securing homeowners insurance after a lapse in coverage can be challenging at times, yet when you have the right information at hand and a full understanding of your homeowners insurance needs; you’ll be much better off than before. With the right approach, you’ll be able to secure new homeowners insurance and have the peace of mind you need to be able to enjoy your home. As a reminder, continuous homeowners insurance coverage is not just a requirement by mortgage lenders, it’s a crucial buffer against catastrophic scenarios which could lead to significant financial losses.