No Longer the Gilded Age: Affordable Rhode Island Home Insurance
Take a tour of Belmont House and its lavish décor just before you begin searching for Rhode Island home insurance quotes, and you just might scare yourself away from the entire process. Sure, few of us live in a Gilded Age mansion, but the number of insurance companies who want your business makes a comprehensive comparison of them pretty intimidating. But Rhode Island home insurance is affordable if you take the time to shop around. You can do it yourself, or utilize a free service like NetQuote, which can take into account all the important considerations, such as the age of your house, the type of construction, and your claim and credit history.
Setting Sail
Many residents of the Ocean State are sailors, and you can think of your introduction to home insurance rates as your embarkation point. The “bay” of home insurance lists five types of coverage, each of which lists specific “perils.” Under these policies, you’ll have coverage for property damage, living expenses, personal liability, and medical payments:
- HO-1 Basic: insures against fire, lightning, windstorm and hail, and theft.
- HO-2 Broad: in addition to the basic perils, insures you against things like the weight of ice and snow, falling objects, and the sudden freezing of plumbing appliances.
- HO-3 Special: insures your dwelling against every peril except flood, earthquake, war, nuclear accident, and others specified in your policy.
- HO-3/HO-15 Comprehensive: the same as HO-3 Special, except it also covers the contents of your dwelling.
- HO-8: the same coverage as HO-2 Broad, but modified for residences that don’t meet all the requirements of this type of policy; one example is a home that has depreciated more than normal.
Lowering Your Rhode Island Home Insurance Quotes
Although there’s no state requirement for home insurance, most lenders will require coverage. Between this and the desire to protect yourself, some common numbers have arisen; the average liability coverage is $300,000, and the average deductible is $500. You can find lower Rhode Island home insurance quotes–possibly as much as 25%–by opting for a higher deductible. But you can also invest in your home to get a lower premium. A single-family home in Providence with the average coverages and a $100,000 replacement policy will cost $405 per year. Your insurer wants to know if your home and its contents are safe from theft, so you allay their concern by installing deadbolt locks and a burglar alarm system. The result? Your premium falls to $365 annually. A constant for Rhode Island home insurance quotes is fire protection. You can’t just move your house closer to a fire hydrant or station, but you can install smoke alarms and purchase fire extinguishers. These easy steps will lower the $405 premium to $344.
Equipping Your Home
The improvements–for your home, and for Rhode Island home insurance quotes–don’t end with alarms and locks. You can make your home safer (lower-risk, to your insurer) by updating the roof and the electrical, plumbing and heating systems. Even if you already have home insurance, such measures make it worth your while to search for lower rates. Let a convenient service like NetQuote shop around for the best rates. Then you can spend more time enjoying fresh bay seafood and the ocean breezes.
