Do you know how much the deductible is on your homeowners insurance policy? It pays to know. There is a trend among Texas insurance companies to raise your deductible, particularly your wind and hail deductible. If your insurance company has recently raised your deductible, it may be time to shop. Hemphill Insurance Agency in Fort Worth, Texas represents multiple homeowners insurance companies. Calls us to see if we can save you some money and possibly lower your deductible.
Homeowners insurance policies have a deductible assessed per occurrence when you file a claim. The deductible is the amount you must pay before the insurance company will pay. For example, if you have a claim for $2,500 and a deductible of $1,000, the insurance company will automatically deduct $1,000 from the amount it will pay you.
You will find the deductible for your policy on the declaration page of the policy. Typically, homeowners insurance policies have two types of deductibles, one for weather related claims and another for non-weather related claims. Oftentimes, it is the same amount for each type of claim, but in some cases, the weather related deductible will be a higher amount than a non-weather related deductible.
The deductible can be a fixed dollar amount, or a percentage of the coverage amount. The use of percentage deductibles has become common practice, causing some confusion among consumers about whether the deductible is a percentage of the policy limit or the loss. When expressed as a percentage, the deductible is a percentage of the coverage amount, not of the loss amount. For example, if you insure your dwelling for $100,000 and have a 1% deductible, $1,000 will be deducted from the claim regardless of the amount of the claim.
Recent changes to the law will require insurance companies to state the actual dollar amount of the deductibles on the declaration page to avoid the confusion, but remember, if you have a percentage deductible and your insurance company automatically increases your coverage amount each year, your deductible will increase each year as well.