Ontario Home Insurance

Personal Property

Condo insurance also includes coverage for your contents. The difference between contents coverage with homeowners and contents coverage for condominiums is that you get to choose your amount of coverage. This is where possible pitfalls can arise in the condo insurance world. Many believe that the Condo owner should insure their contents, and the Condominium Corporation will insure the building – this may not be the case. Depending on the Standard Unit Definition and the Insurance requirements set out in the Condominium Declarations, you may find that the Condominium Corporation is simply insuring a concrete box and you are responsible for all drywall, fixtures and fittings. This is why it is important to have a knowledgeable insurance broker help you with the amount of content coverage on your policy. If you want to read more about insuring condos, please take a look at our blog post.

Unit Improvements and Betterments

This coverage is for the improvements you make to your condo unit. For example, if you upgraded the flooring, kitchen cabinets, or even the lighting fixtures. You spent your money and improved the condo unit not only for yourself, but also for the condominium corporation. If there is a loss to the condo unit while you own it, these upgrades you made should be insured. For this reason, condo insurance policies should have built in unit improvements and betterments.

Loss Assessment

The loss assessment coverage on a condo policy will cover you against a special assessment by the Condominium Corporation should their insurance policy be inadequate to cover a loss to collectively owned property.

Unit Additional Protection

The unit additional protection coverage is there if the condominium corporation has no insurance, inadequate insurance, or they are not properly covered. This could be a big deal is if they decide to chase the unit owners to cover their losses.

Extras

As you can see from above; condo units require a little extra knowledge and experience to insure properly than a homeowners insurance package. You have access to similar endorsements such as Sewer Backup Coverage, Overland Water Coverage, Earthquake Coverage, or Increased Special Limits to name a few.

Always remember that it is very important as a condo owner to know exactly what you are responsible for in your condo unit. If there is a total loss of your unit, it would be a shocking surprise if you are under insured and cannot rebuild your unit with the money that was paid out. For this reason, it is highly recommended that obtain the services of a lawyer to understand your condo agreement so that you can get the proper coverage for your needs.

Liability Insurance

Your tenants insurance coverage includes Personal Liability coverage at an amount that you choose. Liability coverage protects you in the event that a third party takes legal action against you. Most people realize this covers them if a guest hurts themselves on your property and sues you, but people are often surprised to realize that some policies will offer liability coverage that protects you from liability claims occurring anywhere in the world. Liability protection for the whole family isn't just a good idea, it's critical to have even if you are a renter.

People will often consider their liability exposure to be too small to warrant purchasing tenants insurance for their rented dwelling, but the truth is that you are opened to a lot of liability exposures by just being a renter. If you cause a fire or damage to the property you are renting, the building owner or their insurance company could try to recoup their lost funds from the person responsible for creating the loss. Mistakes happen and we have all left a stove burner on or maybe left a hair straightener plugged in. If these forgetful moments were to cause a fire, even by accident, you could be held liabile for the damage caused. If you do not have insurance coverage, you will be stuck with a rather large bill and very few options. Make sure you family is protected and live with a little less worries by obtaining coverage today.

Contents Coverage

We all work hard to earn the money we have in order to purchase the things we want and need. Replacing your furniture, clothes, entertainment devices, or what ever else you may have would be very costly to do at once. No one would want to start over, but having coverage for your contents could make that process significantly easier. Policies can be tailored to pay the value of your contents, or to pay for new contents to replace your old damaged contents.

More Reasons

Often the minimal cost of tenants insurance can be offset by discounts for having a multi-policy discount on your auto insurance. Tentants packages are not very expensive and can be as low as $25 a month. If you get a discount on your auto policy for having the policies with the same insurance company, it could work out that the savings are almost as much as the entire tenants package.

Having an insurance history is very important to the insurance companies when they consider offering you home insurance. Having a tenants package while you are renting will build an insurance history for home insurance if you do decide to buy a home in the future. Some insurance companies will not offer their best house insurance packages to people who have never had prior home insurance, but they do consider tenants insurance as prior home insurance. Start building your insurance history now in order to save later.