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What is Other Structures Coverage on Your Home Insurance Policy?
Other structures coverage is for the physical structures that are on your property but not directly attached to your home or the dwelling on your property.
What does other structures coverage cover? Other structures coverage on your home insurance policy can offer coverage for things such as detached garages, workshops in the backyard, sheds, in ground pools, fences around your home.
Again, anything that is not permanently attached or directly attached to your main dwelling or your main home, other structures are generally covered for the same things that are covered under your dwelling coverage, which insures you main home. Other structures can be damaged by a number of different things, things like fire, wind, hell, explosion, vandalism, and all of these things are things that are typically covered under normal home insurance policy.
What Does Other Structures Not Cover?
A normal home insurance policy typically does not cover other structures for things such as flooding, earthquakes, water and sewage backup and things that occur over time or for lack of proper maintenance, although these things are not directly covered under other structures.
Most of these things are endorsements that can be added on to make sure you have those coverages.
Do You Need Other Structures Coverage?
Yes, more often than not, you need other structures coverage. In fact, on most normal home insurance policies, other structures coverage will automatically be added as a coverage and generally it’s at a percentage of what the dwelling coverage is covered for.
You may be thinking well I don’t have a detached garage, I don’t have a shed, I don’t have a workshop. Well there are almost always other structures on your property such as fences or pools or things to that nature. So you may not need a lot of other structures coverage.
But more than likely you need, you at least need some type of other structures coverage.
How Much Other Structures Coverage Do You Need?
Again, this depends entirely on your home and those things that you have that are considered other structures on your property.
As I mentioned before, other structures coverage generally comes as a percentage of what the dwelling coverage is. So if your main home is insured for $500,000, more than likely you will have 10% of that, which would be $50,000 as a coverage for other structures that would come automatically on your home insurance policy. You need to council with an independent broker however, and make sure that’s enough.
You can bump that up on most home insurance policies to 20%, 30%, 50%. Some policies even offer up to 100% of the dwelling coverage. It all depends on your property and the other structures that you have on the property that’s going to determine how much coverage you need.
How Much Does Other Structures Coverage Cost?
Like in almost all of our blogposts, we say it depends, it depends on the amount, it depends on the types of structures. It depends on a number of different factors. We have a video that talks about how insurance is priced. You can check that out, but for the most part, you want to speak with an independent insurance broker. They can take all of your individual factors into consideration and then kick you back the policy that offers the best coverage for other structures at the best price.