Protect Yourself From Natural Calamities With Home Insurance

In the wake of the terrible floods that have devastated Kerala and Coorg, people are looking at means and ways to protect themselves from natural calamities. Home insurance is something that can help.

If you’d like to contribute to the flood relief efforts in Kerala and Coorg, click here.

A house is one of the most expensive assets one owns in a lifetime. Yet it’s often left exposed to the risks of damage without any financial security. Most of us put in our hard-earned money to buy a house and are often reluctant to stretch further to get insurance.

Though we tend not to think about unforeseen circumstances, natural calamities could strike unannounced. Imagine having a cup of lovely aromatic tea on a drizzling day and you find the walls damp and the paint chipping off due to water seepage.

You may not be able to protect your home from such damage, but you can get financial support to recover from it. A home insurance plan can help you get through.

Home Insurance and water damage coverage

If you take a Home Insurance plan that covers water damage, it will provide protection against water damage due to any sudden or accidental cause. However, insurers might deny claims for gradual damage.

Inclusions and exclusions

Home Insurance typically offers coverage for the property and the content inside for losses incurred due to natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes, lightning, cyclones, etc. Valuable content is also covered if lost due to theft.

Understanding the terms and conditions of a policy before buying it is necessary to know what’s included and what’s not. For example, water seepage through walls and roof is not covered in the flood plan.

Rain can cause various types of damage to your home. A deluge caused due to excessive rain can be tackled with a good policy that provides ample protection and cover. One can also get a cover for the personal belongings under the flood plan. However, flood victims are required to pay a minimal amount on account of the deductibles. The details of deductibles are decided at the time of purchase.

Home Insurance policies purchased at the time of taking Home Loan cover building structure only. They do not cover content such as household articles and electrical appliances which could possibly get damaged too during a natural calamity. Such policies mostly cover fire and flood. In such scenarios, the best way to buy Home Insurance is to have an adequate sum insured including a cover for the content inside.

How to make a claim

Following are the steps you need to adopt to make a claim:

• Document all the damage caused due to rain. You can either take photographs or shoot a video.
• Try and preserve all damaged items for inspection.
• Maintain a list of the items that have to be repaired by you for temporary use.
• All claim-related documents should be well preserved for future use.

Considering that Home Insurance in our country is not that expensive, it is always advisable to avail one with the required add-ons so that in the event of a heavy downpour or a flood, you are shielded from an expensive repair bill.