Buying home insurance can be a complicated process. Afterall, your home is probably your most important asset. You’ll want to protect it as much as you can in the case of a natural disaster or accident.

To make sure you get the best protection, it’s important to know what you’re buying and to try to avoid these common homeowners insurance mistakes.

#1 Underinsuring your home

If your home is under a mortgage, your lender will determine the minimum level of coverage you must buy in order to ensure their investment is protected. However, buying just the required amount of liability insurance may not be enough. For instance, the price you paid for the home is not the same as how much you should insure it for. You must consider the cost to rebuild the home if it was destroyed or damaged by a covered incident. If you’ve remodeled and added value beyond what you paid for the house, the replacement costs might be much higher.

Another common homeowners insurance mistake is to not have enough coverage to replace personal belongings or to provide protection in case someone is injured on your property.  In addition, depending on your home’s location you may want to consider buying flood or earthquake insurance, even if they are not required.

#2 Focusing on price alone

Focusing on price alone is a very common home insurance mistake that many consumers make. Buying the right homeowners insurance policy requires an understanding of the unique exposures that apply to your property.  Once you understand the features of your home and the risks it may face due to location or its construction, you can then obtain policy quotes from several providers in order to compare price for the same, or similar, policies.

#3 Setting deductibles too high or too low

Setting a higher deductible will bring down the monthly or yearly rates you must pay for homeowner’s insurance, but many homeowners get in to trouble when they file a claim and then cannot meet this high deductible amount. Avoid this mistake by keeping an amount in reserves that will meet your deductible payment should something happen.

Conversely, setting a deductible too low means that you may be overpaying each month for insurance. There is a happy medium between what you can afford and the higher premiums for a lower deductible. Be sure to run these numbers, and maybe even get some help, to set your deductible at the right level for you.

#4 Not documenting personal property

It can be sad if you have a severe incident in which you lost many of your personal items only to learn that you are not covered for them. This is a common homeowner’s insurance mistake that is easily avoidable.

Make sure that you’ve accounted for everything that you want to be covered by insurance. You can keep a list of these items and their value and you should also take pictures to document your ownership and the condition of the item. Having this information handy will also speed up the claims process.

Avoiding these common home insurance mistakes will benefit you in the future. For more information on homeowners insurance use the InsuranceWay form to get the process of obtaining quotes started. Compare rates, but remember, it’s not about price alone.