Insurance For Personal Property When Moving To A New Home

Buying a new home can be exciting and exhilarating especially for first timers.

The boring and tedious part is the process of moving your belongings to the new place. It can even be a real nightmare for some people.

There are many unforeseen incidents that can happen to hamper your celebrations of a new home.

The main thing that you will fear is surely the potential damage to your personal property while they are in temporary storage or transit. Just seeing workers moving your stuff packed in cardboard boxes might even make you nervous.

And often times moving is not as straight forward as what your real estate agent wants you to think.

For example, delays in moving-in can cause absolute chaos for you and your family. You might have to live in a hotel for an indefinite time as your previous house has already been sold.

And your furniture and appliances are sorted in a truck somewhere which you have no idea of. And while you are managing that stress, you are being charged for warehousing storage by the minute.

Although insurance might not totally exterminate your anxiety, it can go a long way to keeping you from going insane. Here are some of the main things you have to be prepared for.

Damage from load shifting

If your belongings are damaged due to collision or theft, your existing homeowner’s policy will cover it. But not for load shifting.

Often times a lot of load shifting is required to set your belongings on the way.

They could be moved from the home to the elevator, then from the elevator to the truck. That is without mentioning transferring them from trolleys, setting them on the ground while waiting for another transport vehicle to arrive, passing around using a human chain, etc.

That is a lot of potential incidents for things to break, especially fragile items even when they are packed in bubble wrap. And the items are yet to be sent on transit!

A special perils contents coverage added to your homeowner’s policy to get your stuff properly covered, but it usually comes with exclusions for fragile items.

You need to schedule fragile items to cover them as well.

Damage in storage

For personal property stored in a locked storage facility, a homeowner’s policy will cover everything up to the limit stated. But there are some causes that are excluded.

You need special perils contents coverage for more comprehensive protection.

If you decide not to go for it, your items will only be protected from causes such as vandalism, fire, theft, etc. That seriously sounds like inadequte protection.

Temporary storage

A basic homeowners policy will only fully cover your personal property stored in a temporary location up to 30 days.

Beyond that, your policy limit will decrease by 10%.

When you know that you will be going beyond 30 days, get renters insurance to expand the coverage if your insurer is not willing be flexible on the original terms.

Liability caused by rental vehicle

You could be conducting the moving operations yourself. Because let’s admit it. All that is needed if you are on a budget is to get some beefy friends over to help out. Then get a rental truck to transport all your stuff.

That can sound like a fun day at the office and even create some friendship-bonding time between the guys. But ff you caused injuries or property damage while driving the rental vehicle, you are going to be liable.

If you have your own auto insurance, you will be covered up to the policy limit. If not, check with the rental agency whether they sell the required plan to tag along with the vehicle. They usually do and may even be included automatically.

An important point to note when you are moving is not to cancel your homeowner’s policy on your existing home until the new policy for your new home becomes active.

Any gaps will be disputed rigorously by the insurer as you would expect. It’s their nature to make signing up for policies as easy as possible and claims to be as impossible as possible anyway.

When you are a tenant, the same can be said for renters insurance. This is to protect you when you are in the process of transition. Also check with your moving company as well to see if they sell any related policies.

You May Also Like...

Latest Singapore home loan rates	Hidden items that bring up mortgage costs	Hiring a competent agent	How to burn more calories in the office