Homeowners insurance made for you

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What is homeowners insurance?

Homeowners insurance protects your finances when damage to your home or claims of liability puts them at risk. Policies typically safeguard your home, belongings, personal liability as well as other structures on your property, an injured guest’s medical expenses, and your additional living expenses if covered damage makes your home uninhabitable.

There really is no place like home – and our homeowners' insurance is built with that in mind. It’s designed to protect you from disasters big and small. When something goes astray, you can click your ruby slippers together – or, rather, make a claim on your policy – and get your home back to how it once was.

Start protecting your home today. Enter your address for a quick quote.

What does home insurance cover?

Depending on the policy terms, homeowners insurance policies usually include six coverage parts to protect:

  • The actual structure of your home, inside and out (this is Coverage A in your policy).

  • Other structures, like your garage, fences, and sheds (Coverage B).

  • Your belongings that make your house a home (Coverage C).

  • Loss of use expenses when a covered loss forces you to temporarily relocate (Coverage D).

  • Your personal liability if you’ve accidentally caused someone bodily injury or property damage (Coverage E).

  • Medical expenses when a guest has an injury at your home (Coverage F).

Scroll down for more information on each coverage part.

Is homeowners insurance required?

You’re usually required to have home insurance if you have a mortgage. Even if you don't, homeowners insurance is essential protection for perhaps one of your life’s biggest investments.

Let’s learn more about how home insurance works. If you have a condo or mobile home, skip over here to learn about our condo insurance and mobile home insurance.

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What's Covered?

  • Covered,Fire / smoke damage
  • Covered,Hurricanes
  • Covered,Hail
  • Covered,Lightning
  • Covered,Theft
  • Covered,Water damage from burst pipes and appliance flooding
  • Covered,Vandalism
  • Covered,Water overflow
  • Covered,Civil unrest
  • Covered,Explosions
  • Covered,Falling objects
  • Covered,Power surges
  • Covered,Freezing of household systems
  • Covered,Damage caused by vehicles
  • Covered,And more
Learn More About Perils

What’s Not?

  • Not Covered,Earthquakes
  • Not Covered,Flood
  • Not Covered,General wear and tear
  • Not Covered,Negligence (or lack of regular and proper maintenance)
  • Not Covered,Business liability

What other risks does homeowners insurance cover?

Your home insurance quote covers far more than basic property claims for your dwelling. When you get a quote for home insurance, it includes other benefits that provide important protections for your and your family. For example, home insurance can cover:

Identity theft

You can add identity fraud coverage to your policy by opting for an endorsement. It covers expenses involved in repairing the damage as well as notary costs, lost wages, and legal fees.

Please note that this endorsement adds coverage to your policy, and so it may change your original homeowners' insurance quote.

Incidents away from home

Here’s an interesting benefit of homeowners insurance: many policies can cover some incidents even when they occur away from your home. For instance, your insurance policy may kick in if:

  • Someone breaks into your car. While your auto insurance policy covers damage to your car, it usually excludes your stolen personal property. Home insurance, however, can cover that.
  • You cause an injury to another person while on vacation. Your personal liability goes with you as you move about the world, so many events are covered even if you're far from home.
  • Property in an off-site storage suffers water damage. Home insurance typically includes some off-premises coverage, so you may not need storage unit insurance.

When you’re looking for insurance on a home, you want to weigh all the coverages available in the policy. That way, you can tell if you’re getting the right kind of protection and services for your money when you get a home insurance quote.

Homeowners insurance coverage levels explained

Not all insurance policies are created equal. Your policy can pay for claims differently depending on the coverage level you choose:

  • Actual cash value coverage. This type of policy only pays the depreciated value of your home or lost belongings. In other words, it only pays for what they’re worth, not what you paid for them or what it really costs to replace them.
  • Replacement cost coverage. This pays for what it actually costs to rebuild your home or replace your belongings at the current market rate. Unlike actual cash value, this doesn’t subtract depreciation from your claim payout.
  • Additional coverage A. Also called guaranteed or extended replacement cost coverage, this is an inflation buffer in case building and repair costs soar when you need to make a claim. For example, with Kin, this offers more coverage than you purchased, extending your dwelling coverage limits by 25 percent.

All Kin policies are offered on a replacement cost basis. That’s because we want you to be able to bring your home back to its original glory when you need to. It’s one less thing to worry about when you’re dealing with a major loss.

Who needs homeowners insurance?

All home owners. Insurance is required by mortgage lenders. Even homeowners who have paid off their mortgage should keep home insurance.

Why? Because losses are expensive.

For example, a fire claim costs $68,322 on average. They are also the second most common home insurance claim. Total losses – instances where fires destroyed the whole home – are even costlier.

It costs about $150 per square foot to build a home. So if you have a 1,500 square foot house, you could be looking at $225,000 in construction costs alone.

How much homeowners insurance do I need?

You should have enough homeowners insurance to cover the costs to fully rebuild your home, plus an additional 60%. That is an additional 20% for each of the following three coverage areas:

  • Personal property
  • Additional living expenses / loss of use
  • Liability insurance

The cost to rebuild your home is calculated roughly by the square footage of your home multiplied by building costs per square foot in your area.

For your belongings, other structures, and additional living expenses, the general rule is to have at least 20 percent of your dwelling insurance. So if your home is insured for $300,000, you’d want about $60,000 for each.

If you have high-value belongings and fixtures, it might make sense to increase that coverage to 50 percent of your dwelling.

Choosing your
coverage limit

Type of Coverage Standard Limits
Dwelling Up to the replacement cost of the interior (we calculate this for you)
Other Structures 10% to 20% of the coverage you have for your dwelling
Personal Property 20% to 50% of the coverage you have for your dwelling
Loss of Use 20% of the coverage you have for your dwelling
Personal Liability $100,000
Medical Payments $1,000

How are homeowners insurance rates determined?

The biggest factor in how much home insurance costs is where you live. Your state, city, or even your neighborhood can indicate the likelihood of loss. The more claims an area has, the higher the insurance rates will usually be.

For example, coastal communities in Florida besieged with hurricanes or rural areas in California suffering wildfires are becoming more and more expensive to insure. Insurance companies have to price these policies to address the increased risk and the chance of paying a lot of claims at once.

It’s also worth noting that a home’s claims stay on the record for three to seven years, even if the claim came from a previous owner.

But a lot of other factors can affect homeowners insurance premiums, too, including:

  • Your home’s construction, roof type, and age.
  • Your home’s heating, cooling, electrical, and plumbing.
  • Attractive nuisances – a fun way to refer to trampolines or swimming pools, things known to tempt trespassers or cause injury.
  • The deductibles you choose – the higher the deductible, the lower the premium.
  • The coverage types and amounts you choose.
  • Your home’s safety features – these can fetch you some common home insurance discount

When you apply for homeowners insurance, make sure to ask about available discounts. Our quotes are customizable, too, so you can see how your coverage types and amounts impact your premium in real time.

Types of homeowners insurance policies

These are the different policy forms insurance companies use to write home insurance policies. Learn what they mean for your coverage (spoiler: Kin offers HO-3 policies for single-family homes).

Why choose Kin?

Between climate change and ever-increasing digitization, the world is constantly facing new challenges. We’re an insurance company that’s built for the future and ready to protect your home – whatever tomorrow brings.

We deliver our home insurance policies directly to you with technology that helps us better assess your home’s risks, makes filing claims quick and easy affordable, and creates coverage that protects you against minor mishaps and life-changing disasters. Check out our home insurance options in:

The average Kin customer saves an average of $730* on their insurance needs because we are the insurer that supports our clients For Every New Normal.

Get your personalized home insurance online quote or give us call us to learn more. Start saving on premier coverage for your home today.

*Customers who switched to Kin report annual savings of $730 on average. Based on Kin Customer Savings Survey conducted August 2022 - August 2023.

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