Home Insurance and Firearms Coverage

When you review your home owner’s insurance policy, chances are the coverage for personal belongings often tops over $100,000. This seems to be plenty, right? Think again.

Is Your Homeowners Insurance Enough?

What many homeowner’s don’t realize is that $100,000 is limited on what it can be used for. For example, let’s say you have a small business in your basement, or you are a computer programmer and own over $10,000 worth of computer equipment. The typical policy will cap out at $2,500 for electronics. So, even if you don’t use the full $100,000, you will only receive $2,500 for your computer equipment. While many homeowner’s insurance policies provide coverage for firearms, this protection is also limited in value. Similarly to electronics, the characteristic amount of coverage for firearms that is offered with homeowner’s insurance is $2,500. That means that the $2,500 limit is the maximum amount that you can receive no matter how many guns are involved in the claim.

Riders and Endorsements

While this amount may be sufficient for the average homeowner who owns a gun or two for protection or hunting, this amount is grossly insufficient for gun collectors and avid hunters. Additional coverage is available for firearms, which will increase the specific coverage for firearms of all types. This is referred to as a rider policy. When you add a rider policy, you will pay an added premium per extra hundred dollars of coverage. This amount is usually added to your homeowner’s insurance premium and is often literally pennies on the dollar. So the policy holder chooses exactly how much coverage he/she wants to carry.

Personal Articles Policy

When a rider for firearms is added to the insurance policy, it usually covers the firearms only in the event of a natural disaster that leads to the destruction of the firearms. In order to insure for other risks such as theft or water damage, these are important aspects to review with your local insurance agent. This is referred to as a personal articles policy. This type of policy provides more extensive coverage, but requires a bit of due diligence on the side of the owner. In order to file a personal articles policy, you need to include a list of each firearm, the serial number, and the current value. The current value must be determined by a professional appraisal or third party estimate. Your premium for this type of policy is based upon the total value that you wish to be insured for the firearms. A personal articles policy is completely separate from the homeowner’s insurance policy. With this type of added coverage, no deductible is required.

By Matt Reynolds - Google+

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